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diff --git a/23788-8.txt b/23788-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05843b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/23788-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9408 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, +Vol. 1 (2 vols), by Thomas De Quincey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) + +Author: Thomas De Quincey + +Editor: Alexander H. Japp + +Release Date: December 9, 2007 [EBook #23788] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DE QUINCEY *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, Marcia Brooks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + + + + + + + + +THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS + +OF + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY. + +_EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS., +WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES._ + + +BY + +ALEXANDER H. JAPP, + +LLD., F.R.S.E. + + +_VOLUME I._ + + + +LONDON: + +WILLIAM HEINEMANN. + +1891. + +[_All rights reserved._] + + + + +SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS. + +=With Other Essays,= + +_CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, +PHILOSOPHICAL, IMAGINATIVE +AND HUMOROUS,_ + +BY + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY. + +[Illustration] + +LONDON: + +WILLIAM HEINEMANN. + +1891. + +[_All rights reserved._] + + + + +_To +Mrs. BAIRD SMITH and Miss DE QUINCEY, +who put into my hands the remains in manuscript +of their father, that I might select and +publish from them what was deemed +to be available for such a purpose, +this volume is dedicated, +with many and +grateful thanks for +their confidence +and aid, by +their devoted +friend,_ + +_ALEXANDER H. JAPP._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + * * * * * + + +It only needs to be said, by way of Preface, that the articles in the +present volume have been selected more with a view to variety and +contrast than will be the case with those to follow. And it is right +that I should thank Mr. J. R. McIlraith for friendly help in the reading +of the proofs. + +A. H. J. + + +[Transcriber's Note: This etext contains letters with macrons, and have +been noted as such: =u represents "u" with a macron, and )o represents +o with a breve.] + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +GENERAL INTRODUCTION xi + + I. SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS: + Introduction, with Complete List of the 'Suspiria' 1 + 1. The Dark Interpreter 7 + 2. The Solitude of Childhood 13 + 3. Who is this Woman that beckoneth and warneth + me from the Place where she is, and in whose eyes + is Woeful Remembrance? I guess who she is 16 + 4. The Princess who overlooked one Seed in a Pomegranate 22 + 5. Notes for 'Suspiria' 24 + + II. THE LOVELIEST SIGHT FOR WOMAN'S EYES 29 + + * * * * * + + III. WHY THE PAGANS COULD NOT INVEST THEIR GODS WITH + ANY IOTA OF GRANDEUR 33 + + IV. ON PAGAN SACRIFICES 39 + + V. ON THE MYTHUS 43 + + * * * * * + + VI. DAVID'S NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE--THE POLITICS OF + THE SITUATION 47 + + VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE 62 + + VIII. 'WHAT IS TRUTH?' THE JESTING PILATE SAID--A FALSE GLOSS 68 + + IX. WHAT SCALIGER SAYS ABOUT THE EPISTLE TO JUDE 71 + + * * * * * + + X. MURDER AS A FINE ART 77 + + XI. ANECDOTES--JUVENAL 85 + + XII. ANNA LOUISA 89 + + * * * * * + + XIII. SOME THOUGHTS ON BIOGRAPHY 100 + + XIV. GREAT FORGERS: CHATTERTON AND WALPOLE, AND 'JUNIUS' 125 + + XV. DANIEL O'CONNELL 132 + + * * * * * + + XVI. FRANCE PAST AND FRANCE PRESENT 143 + + XVII. ROME'S RECRUITS AND ENGLAND'S RECRUITS 147 + +XVIII. NATIONAL MANNERS AND FALSE JUDGMENT OF THEM 163 + +XIX. INCREASED POSSIBILITIES OF SYMPATHY IN THE PRESENT AGE 165 + + * * * * * + + XX. THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL 168 + + XXI. ON MIRACLES 173 + + XXII. 'LET HIM COME DOWN FROM THE CROSS' 177 + +XXIII. IS THE HUMAN RACE ON THE DOWN GRADE? 180 + + * * * * * + + XXIV. BREVIA: SHORT ESSAYS (IN CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER): + 1. Paganism and Christianity--the Ideas of Duty + and Holiness 185 + 2. Moral and Practical 194 + 3. On Words and Style 207 + 4. Theological and Religious 226 + 5. Political, etc. 269 + 6. Personal Confessions, etc. 271 + 7. Pagan Literature 279 + 8. Historical, etc. 283 + 9. Literary 292 + + XXV. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIATIONS: + 1. The Rhapsodoi 306 + 2. Mrs. Evans and the _Gazette_ 310 + 3. A Lawsuit Legacy 313 + 4. The True Justifications of War 315 + 5. Philosophy Defeated 317 + 6. The Highwayman's Skeleton 320 + 7. The Ransom for Waterloo 323 + 8. Desiderium 326 + + + + +GENERAL INTRODUCTION. + + +These articles recovered from the MSS. of De Quincey will, the Editor +believes, be found of substantive value. In some cases they throw +fresh light on his opinions and ways of thinking; in other cases they +deal with topics which are not touched at all in his collected works: +and certainly, when read alongside the writings with which the public +is already familiar, will give altogether a new idea of his range +both of interests and activities. The 'Brevia,' especially, will +probably be regarded as throwing more light on his character and +individuality--exhibiting more of the inner life, in fact--than any +number of letters or reminiscences from the pens of others would be +found to do. It is as though the ordinary reader were asked to sit +down at ease with the author, when he is in his most social and +communicative mood, when he has donned his dressing-gown and +slippers, and is inclined to unbosom himself, and that freely, on +matters which usually, and in general society, he would have been +inclined to shun, or at all events to pass over lightly. Here we have +him at one moment presenting the results of speculations the loftiest +that can engage the mind of man; at another making note of whimsical +or surprising points in the man or woman he has met with, or in the +books he has read; at another, amusing himself with the most recent +anecdote, or _bon-mot_, or reflecting on the latest accident or +murder, or good-naturedly noting odd lapses in style in magazine or +newspaper. + +It must not be supposed that the author himself was inclined to lay such +weight on these stray notes, as might be presumed from the form in which +they are here presented. That might give the impression of a most +methodic worker and thinker, who had before him a carefully-indexed +commonplace book, into which he posted at the proper place his rough +notes and suggestions. That was not De Quincey's way. If he was not one +of the wealthy men who care not how they give, he was one who made the +most careless record even of what was likely to be valuable--at all +events to himself. His habit was to make notes just as they occurred to +him, and on the sheet that he chanced to have at the moment before him. +It might be the 'copy' for an article indeed, and in a little square +patch at the corner--separated from the main text by an insulating line +of ink drawn round the foreign matter--through this, not seldom, when +finished he would lightly draw his pen; meaning probably to return to it +when his MS. came back to him from the printer, which accounts, it may +be, in some measure for his reluctance to get rid of, or to destroy, +'copy' already printed from. Sometimes we have found on a sheet a dozen +or so of lines of a well-known article; and the rest filled up with +notes, some written one way of the paper, some another, and now and then +entangled in the most surprising fashion. In these cases, where the +notes, of course, were meant for his own eye, he wrote in a small +spidery handwriting with many contractions--a kind of shorthand of his +own, and very different indeed from his ordinary clean, clear, neat +penmanship. In many cases these notes demanded no little care and +closeness in deciphering--the more that the MSS. had been tumbled about, +and were often deeply stained by glasses other than inkstands having +been placed upon them. 'Within that circle none dared walk but he,' said +Tom Hood in his genially humorous way; and many of these thoughts were +thus partially or wholly encircled. Pages of articles that had already +been printed were intermixed with others that had not; and the first +piece of work that I entered on was roughly to separate the printed from +the unprinted--first having carefully copied out from the former any of +the spidery-looking notes interjected there, to which I have already +referred. The next process was to arrange the many separate pages and +seeming fragments into heaps, by subjects; and finally to examine these +carefully and, with a view to 'connections,' to place them together. In +not a few cases where the theme was attractive and the prospect +promising, utter failure to complete the article or sketch was the +result, the opening or ending passages, or a page in the middle, having +been unfortunately destroyed or lost. + +So numerous were these notes, so varied their subjects, that one got +quite a new idea of the extreme electrical quality of his mind, as he +himself called it; and I shall have greatly failed in my endeavour in +the case of these volumes, if I have not succeeded in imparting +something of the same impression to the reader. Here we have proof that +vast schemes, such as the great history of England, of which Mr. James +Hogg, senr., humorously told us in his 'Recollections' ('Memoir,' ch. +ed., pp. 330, 331), were not merely subjects of conversation and jest, +but that he had actually proceeded to build up masses of notes and +figures with a view to these; and various slips and pages remain to show +that he had actually commenced to write the history of England. The +short article, included in the present volume, on the 'Power of the +House of Commons as Custodian of the Purse,' is marked for 'My History +of England.' Other portions are marked as intended for 'My book on the +Infinite,' and others still 'For my book on the Relations of +Christianity to Man.' One can infer, indeed, that several of the +articles well-known to us, notably 'Christianity as an Organ of +Political Movement,' for one, were originally conceived as portions of a +great work on 'Christianity in Relation to Human Development.' + +It is thus necessary to be very explicit in stating that, though these +notes are as faithfully reproduced as has been possible to me, the +classification and arrangement of them, under which they assume the +aspect of something of one connected essay on the main subject, I alone +am responsible for; though I do not believe, so definite and clear were +his ideas on certain subjects and in certain relations, that he himself +would have regarded them as losing anything by such arrangement, but +rather gaining very much, if they were to be given at all to the public. + +Several of the articles in this volume suggest that he also contemplated +a great work on 'Paganism and Christianity,' in which he would have +demonstrated that Paganism had exhausted all the germs of progress that +lay within it; and that all beyond the points reached by Paganism is due +to Christianity, and alone to Christianity, which, in opening up a clear +view of the infinite through purely experimental mediums in man's heart, +touched to new life, science, philosophy, art, invention and every kind +of culture. + +Respecting the recovered 'Suspiria,' all that it is needful to say will +be found in an introduction special to that head, and it does not seem +to me that I need to add here anything more. In every other respect the +articles must speak for themselves. + + + + +DE QUINCEY'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. + + + + +_I. SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS._ + +INTRODUCTION, WITH COMPLETE LIST OF THE 'SUSPIRIA.' + + +The finale to the first part of the 'Suspiria,' as we find from a note +of the author's own, was to include 'The Dark Interpreter,' 'The Spectre +of the Brocken,' and 'Savannah-la-Mar.' The references to 'The Dark +Interpreter' in the latter would thus become intelligible, as the reader +is not there in any full sense informed who the 'Dark Interpreter' was; +and the piece, recovered from his MSS. and now printed, may thus be +regarded as having a special value for De Quincey students, and, indeed, +for readers generally. In _Blackwood's Magazine_ he did indeed +interpolate a sentence or two, and these were reproduced in the American +edition of the works (Fields's); but they are so slight and general +compared with the complete 'Suspiria' now presented, that they do not in +any way detract from its originality and value. + +The master-idea of the 'Suspiria' is the power which lies in suffering, +in agony unuttered and unutterable, to develop the intellect and the +spirit of man; to open these to the ineffable conceptions of the +infinite, and to some discernment, otherwise impossible, of the +beneficent might that lies in pain and sorrow. De Quincey seeks his +symbols sometimes in natural phenomena, oftener in the creation of +mighty abstractions; and the moral of all must be set forth in the +burden of 'The Daughter of Lebanon,' that 'God may give by seeming to +refuse.' Prose-poems, as they have been called, they are deeply +philosophical, presenting under the guise of phantasy the profoundest +laws of the working of the human spirit in its most terrible +disciplines, and asserting for the darkest phenomena of human life some +compensating elements as awakeners of hope and fear and awe. The sense +of a great pariah world is ever present with him--a world of outcasts +and of innocents bearing the burden of vicarious woes; and thus it is +that his title is justified--_Suspiria de Profundis_: 'Sighs from the +Depths.' + +We find De Quincey writing in his prefatory notice to the enlarged +edition of the 'Confessions' in November, 1856: + +'All along I had relied upon a crowning grace, which I had reserved for +the final page of this volume, in a succession of some twenty or +twenty-five dreams and noon-day visions, which had arisen under the +latter stage of opium influence. These have disappeared; some under +circumstances which allow me a reasonable prospect of recovering them, +some unaccountably, and some dishonourably. Five or six I believe were +burned in a sudden conflagration which arose from the spark of a candle +falling unobserved amongst a very large pile of papers in a bedroom, +where I was alone and reading. Falling not _on_, but amongst and within +the papers, the fire would soon have been ahead of conflict, and, by +communicating with the slight woodwork and draperies of a bed, it would +have immediately enveloped the laths of the ceiling overhead, and thus +the house, far from fire-engines, would have been burned down in +half-an-hour. My attention was first drawn by a sudden light upon my +book; and the whole difference between a total destruction of the +premises and a trivial loss (from books charred) of five guineas was due +to a large Spanish cloak. This, thrown over and then drawn down tightly, +by the aid of one sole person, somewhat agitated, but retaining her +presence of mind, effectually extinguished the fire. Amongst the papers +burned partially, but not so burned as to be absolutely irretrievable, +was "The Daughter of Lebanon," and this I have printed and have +intentionally placed it at the end, as appropriately closing a record in +which the case of poor "Ann the Outcast" formed not only the most +memorable and the most suggestively pathetic incident, but also _that_ +which, more than any other, coloured--or (more truly, I should say) +shaped, moulded and remoulded, composed and decomposed--the great body +of opium dreams.' + +After this loss of the greater portion of the 'Suspiria' copy, De +Quincey seems to have become indifferent in some degree to their +continuity and relation to each other. He drew the 'Affliction of +Childhood' and 'Dream Echoes,' which stood early in the order of the +'Suspiria,' into the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' and also the 'Spectre of +the Brocken,' which was meant to come somewhat later in the series as +originally planned; and, as we have seen, he appended 'The Daughter of +Lebanon' to the 'Opium Confessions,' without any reference, save in the +preface, to its really having formed part of a separate collection of +dreams. + +From a list found among his MSS. we are able to give the arrangement of +the whole as it would have appeared had no accident occurred, and all +the papers been at hand. Those followed by a cross are those which are +now recovered, and those with a dagger what were reprinted either as +'Suspiria' or otherwise in Messrs. Black's editions. + + + + +SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS. + + + 1. Dreaming, [cross] + 2. The Affliction of Childhood. [cross] + Dream Echoes. [cross] + 3. The English Mail Coach. [cross] + (1) The Glory of Motion. + (2) Vision of Sudden Death. + (3) Dream-fugue. + 4. The Palimpsest of the Human Brain. [cross] + 5. Vision of Life. [cross] + 6. Memorial Suspiria. [cross] + 7. Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow. + 8. Solitude of Childhood. [big cross] + 9. The Dark Interpreter. [big cross] +10. The Apparition of the Brocken. [cross] +11. Savannah-la-Mar. +12. The Dreadful Infant. (There was the glory of innocence + made perfect; there was the dreadful beauty + of infancy that had seen God.) +13. Foundering Ships. +14. The Archbishop and the Controller of Fire. +15. God that didst Promise. +16. Count the Leaves in Vallombrosa. +17. But if I submitted with Resignation, not the less + I searched for the Unsearchable--sometimes in + Arab Deserts, sometimes in the Sea. +18. That ran before us in Malice. +19. Morning of Execution. +20. Daughter of Lebanon. [cross] +21. Kyrie Eleison. +22. The Princess that lost a Single Seed of a Pomegranate. [big cross] +23. The Nursery in Arabian Deserts. +24. The Halcyon Calm and the Coffin. +25. Faces! Angels' Faces! +26. At that Word. +27. Oh, Apothanate! that hatest Death, and cleansest + from the Pollution of Sorrow. +28. Who is this Woman that for some Months has + followed me up and down? Her face I cannot + see, for she keeps for ever behind me. +29. Who is this Woman that beckoneth and warneth + me from the Place where she is, and in whose + Eyes is Woeful remembrance? I guess who she is. [big cross] +30. Cagot and Cressida. +31. Lethe and Anapaula. +32. Oh, sweep away, Angel, with Angelic Scorn, the + Dogs that come with Curious Eyes to gaze. + +Thus of the thirty-two 'Suspiria' intended by the author, we have only +nine that received his final corrections, and even with those now +recovered, we have only about one half of the whole, presuming that +those which are lost or remained unwritten would have averaged about the +same length as those we have. To those who have studied the 'Suspiria' +as published, how suggestive many of these titles will be! 'Count the +Leaves in Vallombrosa'--what phantasies would that have conjured up! The +lost, the apparently wasted of the leaves from the tree of human life, +and the possibilities of use and redemption! De Quincey would there +doubtless have given us under a form more or less fanciful or symbolical +his reading of the problem: + + 'Why Nature out of fifty seeds + So often brings but one to bear.' + +The case of the Cagots, the pariahs of the Pyrenees, as we know from +references elsewhere, excited his curiosity, as did all of the pariah +class, and much engaged his attention; and in the 'Cagot and Cressida' +'Suspiria' we should probably have had under symbols of mighty +abstractions the vision of the pariah world, and the world of health and +outward fortune which scorns and excludes the other, and partly, at all +events, actively dooms it to a living death in England of to-day, as in +India of the past, and in Jewry of old, where the leper was thrust +outside the wall to wail 'Unclean! unclean!' + + + + +1.--THE DARK INTERPRETER. + + 'Oh, eternity with outstretched wings, that broodest over the + secret truths in whose roots lie the mysteries of man--his whence, + his whither--have I searched thee, and struck a right key on thy + dreadful organ!' + + +Suffering is a mightier agency in the hands of nature, as a Demiurgus +creating the intellect, than most people are aware of. + +The truth I heard often in sleep from the lips of the Dark Interpreter. +Who is he? He is a shadow, reader, but a shadow with whom you must +suffer me to make you acquainted. You need not be afraid of him, for +when I explain his nature and origin you will see that he is essentially +inoffensive; or if sometimes he menaces with his countenance, that is +but seldom: and then, as his features in those moods shift as rapidly as +clouds in a gale of wind, you may always look for the terrific aspects +to vanish as fast as they have gathered. As to his origin--what it is, I +know exactly, but cannot without a little circuit of preparation make +_you_ understand. Perhaps you are aware of that power in the eye of many +children by which in darkness they project a vast theatre of +phantasmagorical figures moving forwards or backwards between their +bed-curtains and the chamber walls. In some children this power is +semi-voluntary--they can control or perhaps suspend the shows; but in +others it is altogether automatic. I myself, at the date of my last +confessions, had seen in this way more processions--generally solemn, +mournful, belonging to eternity, but also at times glad, triumphal +pomps, that seemed to enter the gates of Time--than all the religions of +paganism, fierce or gay, ever witnessed. Now, there is in the dark +places of the human spirit--in grief, in fear, in vindictive wrath--a +power of self-projection not unlike to this. Thirty years ago, it may +be, a man called Symons committed several murders in a sudden epilepsy +of planet-struck fury. According to my recollection, this case happened +at Hoddesdon, which is in Middlesex. 'Revenge is sweet!' was his hellish +motto on that occasion, and that motto itself records the abysses which +a human will can open. Revenge is _not_ sweet, unless by the mighty +charm of a charity that seeketh not her own it has become benignant.[1] +And what he had to revenge was woman's scorn. He had been a plain +farm-servant; and, in fact, he was executed, as such men often are, on a +proper point of professional respect to their calling, in a smock-frock, +or blouse, to render so ugly a clash of syllables. His young mistress +was every way and by much his superior, as well in prospects as in +education. But the man, by nature arrogant, and little acquainted with +the world, presumptuously raised his eyes to one of his young +mistresses. Great was the scorn with which she repulsed his audacity, +and her sisters participated in her disdain. Upon this affront he +brooded night and day; and, after the term of his service was over, and +he, in effect, forgotten by the family, one day he suddenly descended +amongst the women of the family like an Avatar of vengeance. Right and +left he threw out his murderous knife without distinction of person, +leaving the room and the passage floating in blood. + +The final result of this carnage was not so terrific as it threatened to +be. Some, I think, recovered; but, also, one, who did _not_ recover, was +unhappily a stranger to the whole cause of his fury. Now, this murderer +always maintained, in conversation with the prison chaplain, that, as he +rushed on in his hellish career, he perceived distinctly a dark figure +on his right hand, keeping pace with himself. Upon _that_ the +superstitious, of course, supposed that some fiend had revealed himself, +and associated his superfluous presence with the dark atrocity. Symons +was not a philosopher, but my opinion is, that he was too much so to +tolerate that hypothesis, since, if there was one man in all Europe that +needed no tempter to evil on that evening, it was precisely Mr. Symons, +as nobody knew better than Mr. Symons himself. I had not the benefit of +his acquaintance, or I would have explained it to him. The fact is, in +point of awe a fiend would be a poor, trivial _bagatelle_ compared to +the shadowy projections, _umbras_ and _penumbras_, which the +unsearchable depths of man's nature is capable, under adequate +excitement, of throwing off, and even into stationary forms. I shall +have occasion to notice this point again. There are creative agencies in +every part of human nature, of which the thousandth part could never be +revealed in one life. + + +You have heard, reader, in vision which describes our Ladies of Sorrow, +particularly in the dark admonition of Madonna, to her wicked sister +that hateth and tempteth, what root of dark uses may lie in moral +convulsions: not the uses hypocritically vaunted by theatrical devotion +which affronts the majesty of God, that ever and in all things loves +Truth--prefers sincerity that is erring to piety that cants. Rebellion +which is the sin of witchcraft is more pardonable in His sight than +speechifying resignation, listening with complacency to its own +self-conquests. Show always as much neighbourhood as thou canst to grief +that abases itself, which will cost thee but little effort if thine own +grief hath been great. But God, who sees thy efforts in secret, will +slowly strengthen those efforts, and make that to be a real deed, +bearing tranquillity for thyself, which at first was but a feeble wish +breathing homage to _Him_. + +In after-life, from twenty to twenty-four, on looking back to those +struggles of my childhood, I used to wonder exceedingly that a child +could be exposed to struggles on such a scale. But two views unfolded +upon me as my experience widened, which took away that wonder. The first +was the vast scale upon which the sufferings of children are found +everywhere expanded in the realities of life. The generation of infants +which you see is but part of those who belong to it; were born in it; +and make, the world over, not one half of it. The missing half, more +than an equal number to those of any age that are now living, have +perished by every kind of torments. Three thousand children per +annum--that is, three hundred thousand per century; that is (omitting +Sundays), about ten every day--pass to heaven through flames[2] in this +very island of Great Britain. And of those who survive to reach +maturity what multitudes have fought with fierce pangs of hunger, cold, +and nakedness! When I came to know all this, then reverting my eye to +_my_ struggle, I said oftentimes it was nothing! Secondly, in watching +the infancy of my own children, I made another discovery--it is well +known to mothers, to nurses, and also to philosophers--that the tears +and lamentations of infants during the year or so when they have no +_other_ language of complaint run through a gamut that is as +inexhaustible as the cremona of Paganini. An ear but moderately learned +in that language cannot be deceived as to the rate and _modulus_ of the +suffering which it indicates. A fretful or peevish cry cannot by any +efforts make itself impassioned. The cry of impatience, of hunger, of +irritation, of reproach, of alarm, are all different--different as a +chorus of Beethoven from a chorus of Mozart. But if ever you saw an +infant suffering for an hour, as sometimes the healthiest does, under +some attack of the stomach, which has the tiger-grasp of the Oriental +cholera, then you will hear moans that address to their mothers an +anguish of supplication for aid such as might storm the heart of Moloch. +Once hearing it, you will not forget it. Now, it was a constant remark +of mine, after any storm of that nature (occurring, suppose, once in two +months), that always on the following day, when a long, long sleep had +chased away the darkness and the memory of the darkness from the little +creature's brain, a sensible expansion had taken place in the +intellectual faculties of attention, observation, and animation. It +renewed the case of our great modern poet, who, on listening to the +raving of the midnight storm, and the crashing which it was making in +the mighty woods, reminded himself that all this hell of trouble + + 'Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed.' + +Pain driven to agony, or grief driven to frenzy, is essential to the +ventilation of profound natures. A sea which is deeper than any that +Count Massigli[3] measured cannot be searched and torn up from its +sleeping depths without a levanter or a monsoon. A nature which is +profound in excess, but also introverted and abstracted in excess, so as +to be in peril of wasting itself in interminable reverie, cannot be +awakened sometimes without afflictions that go to the very foundations, +heaving, stirring, yet finally harmonizing; and it is in such cases that +the Dark Interpreter does his work, revealing the worlds of pain and +agony and woe possible to man--possible even to the innocent spirit of a +child. + + + + +2.--THE SOLITUDE OF CHILDHOOD. + + +As nothing which is impassioned escapes the eye of poetry, neither has +this escaped it--that there is, or may be, through solitude, 'sublime +attractions of the grave.' But even poetry has not perceived that these +attractions may arise for a child. Not, indeed, a passion for the grave +_as_ the grave--from _that_ a child revolts; but a passion for the grave +as the portal through which it may recover some heavenly countenance, +mother or sister, that has vanished. Through solitude this passion may +be exalted into a frenzy like a nympholepsy. At first, when in childhood +we find ourselves torn away from the lips that we could hang on for +ever, we throw out our arms in vain struggles to snatch at them, and +pull them back again. But when we have felt for a time how hopeless is +that effort, and that they cannot come to _us_, we desist from that +struggle, and next we whisper to our hearts, Might not we go to _them_? + +Such in principle and origin was the famous _Dulce Domum_[4] of the +English schoolboy. Such is the _Heimweh_ (home-sickness) of the German +and Swiss soldier in foreign service. Such is the passion of the +Calenture. Doubtless, reader, you have seen it described. The poor +sailor is in tropical latitudes; deep, breathless calms have prevailed +for weeks. Fever and delirium are upon him. Suddenly from his restless +hammock he starts up; he will fret no longer in darkness; he ascends +upon deck. How motionless are the deeps! How vast--how sweet are these +shining zaarrahs of water! He gazes, and slowly under the blazing +scenery of his brain the scenery of his eye unsettles. The waters are +swallowed up; the seas have disappeared. Green fields appear, a silent +dell, and a pastoral cottage. Two faces appear--are at the door--sweet +female faces, and behold they beckon him. 'Come to us!' they seem to +say. The picture rises to his wearied brain like a _sanctus_ from the +choir of a cathedral, and in the twinkling of an eye, stung to madness +by the cravings of his heart, the man is overboard. He is gone--he is +lost for this world; but if he missed the arms of the lovely women--wife +and sister--whom he sought, assuredly he has settled into arms that are +mightier and not less indulgent. + +I, young as I was, had one feeling not learned from books, and that +_could_ not have been learned from books, the deepest of all that +connect themselves with natural scenery. It is the feeling which in 'The +Hart-leap Well' of Wordsworth, in his 'Danish Boy,' and other exquisite +poems is brought out, viz., the breathless, mysterious, Pan-like silence +that haunts the noon-day. If there were winds abroad, then I was roused +myself into sympathetic tumults. But if this dead silence haunted the +air, then the peace which was in nature echoed another peace which lay +in graves, and I fell into a sick languishing for things which a voice +from heaven seemed to say '_cannot_ be granted.' + +There is a German superstition, which eight or ten years after I read, +of the Erl-king and his daughter. The daughter had power to tempt +infants away into the invisible world; but it is, as the reader +understands, by collusion with some infirmity of sick desire for such +worlds in the infant itself. + + 'Who is that rides through the forest so fast?' + +It is a knight who carries his infant upon his saddle-bow. The +Erl-king's daughter rides by his side; and, in words audible only when +she means them to be heard, she says: + + 'If thou wilt, dear baby, with me go away, + We will see a fine show, we will play a fine play.' + +That sounds lovely to my ears. Oh yes, that collusion with dim sleeping +infancy is lovely to me; but I was too advanced in intellect to have +been tempted by _such_ temptations. Still there was a perilous +attraction for me in worlds that slept and rested; and if the Erl-king's +daughter had revealed herself to my perceptions, there was one 'show' +that she might have promised which would have wiled me away with her +into the dimmest depths of the mightiest and remotest forests. + + + + +3.--WHO IS THIS WOMAN THAT BECKONETH AND WARNETH ME FROM THE PLACE WHERE +SHE IS, AND IN WHOSE EYES IS WOEFUL REMEMBRANCE? I GUESS WHO SHE IS. + + +In my dreams were often prefigurements of my future, as I could not but +read the signs. What man has not some time in dewy morn, or sequestered +eve, or in the still night-watches, when deep sleep falleth on other men +but visiteth not his weary eyelids--what man, I say, has not some time +hushed his spirit and questioned with himself whether some things seen +or obscurely felt, were not anticipated as by mystic foretaste in some +far halcyon time, post-natal or ante-natal he knew not; only assuredly +he knew that for him past and present and future merged in one awful +moment of lightning revelation. Oh, spirit that dwelleth in man, how +subtle are _thy_ revelations; how deep, how delirious the raptures thou +canst inspire; how poignant the stings with which thou canst pierce the +heart; how sweet the honey with which thou assuagest the wound; how dark +the despairs and accusings that lie behind thy curtains, and leap upon +us like lightning from the cloud, with the sense as of some heavenly +blazoning, and oftentimes carry us beyond ourselves! + +It is a sweet morning in June, and the fragrance of the roses is wafted +towards me as I move--for I am walking in a lawny meadow, still wet +with dew--and a wavering mist lies over the distance. Suddenly it seems +to lift, and out of the dewy dimness emerges a cottage, embowered with +roses and clustering clematis; and the hills, in which it is set like a +gem, are tree-clad, and rise billowy behind it, and to the right and to +the left are glistening expanses of water. Over the cottage there hangs +a halo, as if clouds had but parted there. From the door of that cottage +emerges a figure, the countenance full of the trepidation of some dread +woe feared or remembered. With waving arm and tearful uplifted face the +figure first beckons me onward, and then, when I have advanced some +yards, frowning, warns me away. As I still continue to advance, despite +the warning, darkness falls: figure, cottage, hills, trees, and halo +fade and disappear; and all that remains to me is the look on the face +of her that beckoned and warned me away. I read that glance as by the +inspiration of a moment. We had been together; together we had entered +some troubled gulf; struggled together, suffered together. Was it as +lovers torn asunder by calamity? was it as combatants forced by bitter +necessity into bitter feud, when we only, in all the world, yearned for +peace together? Oh, what a searching glance was that which she cast on +me! as if she, being now in the spiritual world, abstracted from flesh, +remembered things that I could not remember. Oh, how I shuddered as the +sweet sunny eyes in the sweet sunny morning of June--the month that was +my 'angelical'; half spring, yet with summer dress, that to me was very +'angelical'--seemed reproachfully to challenge in me recollections of +things passed thousands of years ago (old indeed, yet that were made new +again for us, because now first it was that we met again). Oh, heavens! +it came over me as doth the raven over the infected house, as from a bed +of violets sweeps the saintly odour of corruption. What a glimpse was +thus revealed! glory in despair, as of that gorgeous vegetation that hid +the sterilities of the grave in the tropics of that summer long ago; of +that heavenly beauty which slept side by side within my sister's coffin +in the month of June; of those saintly swells that rose from an infinite +distance--I know not whether to or from my sister. Could this be a +memorial of that nature? Are the nearer and more distant stages of life +thus dimly connected, and the connection hidden, but suddenly revealed +for a moment? + +This lady for years appeared to me in dreams; in that, considering the +electric character of my dreams, and that they were far less like a lake +reflecting the heavens than like the pencil of some mighty artist--Da +Vinci or Michael Angelo--that cannot copy in simplicity, but comments in +freedom, while reflecting in fidelity, there was nothing to surprise. +But a change in this appearance was remarkable. Oftentimes, after eight +years had passed, she appeared in summer dawn at a window. It was a +window that opened on a balcony. This feature only gave a distinction, a +refinement, to the aspect of the cottage--else all was simplicity. +Spirit of Peace, dove-like dawn that slept upon the cottage, ye were not +broken by any participation in my grief and despair! For ever the vision +of that cottage was renewed. Did I roam in the depths of sweet pastoral +solitudes in the West, with the tinkling of sheep-bells in my ears, a +rounded hillock, seen vaguely, would shape itself into a cottage; and at +the door my monitory, regretful Hebe would appear. Did I wander by the +seashore, one gently-swelling wave in the vast heaving plain of waters +would suddenly transform itself into a cottage, and I, by some +involuntary inward impulse, would in fancy advance toward it. + +Ah, reader, you will think this which I am going to say too near, too +holy, for recital. But not so. The deeper a woe touches me in heart, so +much the more am I urged to recite it. The world disappears: I see only +the grand reliques of a world--memorials of a love that has departed, +has been--the record of a sorrow that is, and has its greyness converted +into verdure--monuments of a wrath that has been reconciled, of a wrong +that has been atoned for--convulsions of a storm that has gone by. What +I am going to say is the most like a superstitious thing that I ever +shall say. And I have reason to think that every man who is not a +villain once in his life must be superstitious. It is a tribute which he +pays to human frailty, which tribute if he will not pay, which frailty +if he will not share, then also he shall not have any of its strength. + +The face of this monitory Hebe haunted me for some years in a way that I +must faintly attempt to explain. It is little to say that it was the +sweetest face, with the most peculiar expression of sweetness, that I +had ever seen: that was much, but that was earthly. There was something +more terrific, believe me, than this; yet that was not the word: terror +looks to the future; and this perhaps did, but not primarily. Chiefly it +looked at some unknown past, and was for that reason awful; yes, +awful--that was the word. + +Thus, on any of those heavenly sunny mornings, that now are buried in an +endless grave, did I, transported by no human means, enter that cottage, +and descend to that breakfast-room, my earliest salute was to her, that +ever, as the look of pictures do, with her eyes pursued me round the +room, and oftentimes with a subtle checking of grief, as if great sorrow +had been or would be hers. And it was, too, in the sweet Maytime. Oh +yes; she was but as if she had been--as if it were her original ... +chosen to have been the aurora of a heavenly clime; and then suddenly +she was as one of whom, for some thousand years, Paradise had received +no report; then, again, as if she entered the gates of Paradise not less +innocent; and, again, as if she could not enter; and some blame--but I +knew not what blame--was mine; and now she looked as though broken with +a woe that no man could read, as she sought to travel back to her early +joy--yet no longer a joy that is sublime in innocency, but a joy from +which sprung abysses of memories polluted into anguish, till her tears +seemed to be suffused with drops of blood. All around was peace and the +deep silence of untroubled solitude; only in the lovely lady was a sign +of horror, that had slept, under deep ages of frost, in her heart, and +now rose, as with the rushing of wings, to her face. Could it be +supposed that one life--so pitiful a thing--was what moved her care? Oh +no; it was, or it seemed, as if this poor wreck of a life happened to be +that one which determined the fate of some thousand others. Nothing +less; nothing so abject as one poor fifty years--nothing less than a +century of centuries could have stirred the horror that rose to her +lovely lips, as once more she waved me away from the cottage. + +Oh, reader, five years after I saw that sweet face in reality--saw it in +the flesh; saw that pomp of womanhood; saw that cottage; saw a thousand +times that lovely domicile that heard the cooing of the solitary dove in +the solitary morning; saw the grace of childhood and the shadows of +graves that lay, like creatures asleep, in the sunshine; saw, also, the +horror, somehow realized as a shadowy reflection from myself, which +warned me off from that cottage, and which still rings through the +dreams of five-and-twenty years. + + +The general sentiment or sense of pre-existence, of which this +_Suspiria_ may be regarded as one significant and affecting +illustration, had this record in the outset of the 'Reminiscences of +Wordsworth': + +'Oh, sense of mysterious pre-existence, by which, through years, in +which as yet a stranger to those valleys of Westmoreland, I viewed +myself as a phantom self--a second identity projected from my own +consciousness, and already living amongst them--how was it, and by what +prophetic instinct, that already I said to myself oftentimes, when +chasing day-dreams along the pictures of these wild mountainous +labyrinths, which as yet I had not traversed, "Here, in some distant +year, I shall be shaken with love, and there with stormiest grief and +regret"? Whence was it that sudden revelations came upon me, like the +drawings up of a curtain, and closing again as rapidly, of scenes that +made the future heaven of my life? And how was it that in thought I +_was_, and yet in reality _was not_, a denizen, already, in 1803, 1804, +1805, of lakes and forest lawns, which I never saw till 1807? and that, +by a prophetic instinct of heart, I rehearsed and lived over, as it +were, in vision those chapters of my life which have carried with them +the weightiest burden of joy and sorrow, and by the margin of those very +lakes and hills with which I prefigured this connection? and, in short, +that for me, by a transcendent privilege, during the novitiate of my +life, most truly I might say: + + '"In to-day already walked to-morrow."' + + + + +4.--THE PRINCESS WHO OVERLOOKED ONE SEED IN A POMEGRANATE. + + +There is a story told in the 'Arabian Nights' of a princess who, by +overlooking one seed of a pomegranate, precipitated the event which she +had laboured to make impossible. She lies in wait for the event which +she foresees. The pomegranate swells, opens, splits; the seeds, which +she knows to be roots of evil, rapidly she swallows; but one--only +one--before it could be arrested, rolls away into a river. It is lost! +it is irrecoverable! She has triumphed, but she must perish. Already she +feels the flames mounting up which are to consume her, and she calls for +water hastily--not to deliver herself (for that is impossible), but, +nobly forgetting her own misery, that she may prevent that destruction +of her brother mortal which had been the original object for hazarding +her own. Yet why go to Arabian fictions? Even in our daily life is +exhibited, in proportions far more gigantic, that tendency to swell and +amplify itself into mountains of darkness, which exists oftentimes in +germs that are imperceptible. An error in human choice, an infirmity in +the human will, though it were at first less than a mote, though it +should swerve from the right line by an interval less than any thread + + 'That ever spider twisted from her womb,' + +sometimes begins to swell, to grow, to widen its distance rapidly, +travels off into boundless spaces remote from the true centre, spaces +incalculable and irretraceable, until hope seems extinguished and return +impossible. Such was the course of my own opium career. Such is the +history of human errors every day. Such was the original sin of the +Greek theories on Deity, which could not have been healed but by putting +off their own nature, and kindling into a new principle--absolutely +undiscoverable, as I contend, for the Grecian intellect. + +Oftentimes an echo goes as it were to sleep: the series of +reverberations has died away. Suddenly a second series awakens: this +subsides, then a third wakens up. So of actions done in youth. After +great tumults all is quieted. You dream that they are over. In a moment, +in the twinkling of an eye, on some fatal morning in middle-life the +far-off consequences come back upon you. And you say to yourself, 'Oh, +Heaven, if I had fifty lives this crime would reappear, as Pelion upon +Ossa!' So was it with my affection. Left to natural peace, I might have +conquered it: _Verschmerzeon_. To charm it down by the mere suffering of +grief, to hush it by endurance, that was the natural policy--that was +the natural process. But behold! A new form of sorrow arises, and the +two multiply together. And the worm which was beginning to fall asleep +is roused again to pestilential fierceness. + + + + +5.--NOTES FOR 'SUSPIRIA.' + + +Mystery unfathomable of Death! Mystery unapproachable of God! Destined +it was, from the foundations of the world, that each mystery should make +war upon the other: once that the lesser mystery should swallow up for a +moment a _limbus_ of the greater; and that woe is past: once that the +greater mystery should swallow up for ever the whole vortex of the +lesser; and that glory is yet to come. After which man, that is the son +of God, shall lift up his eyes for ever, saying, 'Behold! these were two +mysteries; and one is not; and there is but one mystery that survives +for ever!' + + +If an eternity (Death supposed) is as vast as a star, yet the most +miserable of earthly blocks not four feet square will eclipse, masque, +hide it from centre to circumference. And so it really is. Incredible as +it might seem apart from experience, the dreadful reality of death is +utterly withdrawn from us because itself dwindles to an apparent mote, +and the perishing non-reality thickens into a darkness as massy as a +rock. + + +Great changes summon to great meditations. Daily we see the most joyous +of events take a colouring of solemnity from the mere relation in which +they stand to an uncertain future: the birth of a child, heir to the +greatest expectations, and welcomed clamorously by the sympathy of +myriads, speaks to the more reflecting in an undertone of monitory +sadness, were it only as a tribute to the frailty of human expectations: +and a marriage-day, of all human events the most lawfully festal, yet +needs something of effort to chase away the boding sadness which settles +unavoidably upon any new career; the promise is vague, but new hopes +have created new dangers, and responsibilities contracted perhaps with +rapture are charged with menace. + + +For every one of us, male or female, there is a year of crisis--a year +of solemn and conscious transition, a year in which the light-hearted +sense of the _irresponsible_ ceases to gild the heavenly dawn. A year +there is, settled by no law or usage, for me perhaps the eighteenth, for +you the seventeenth, for another the nineteenth, within the gates of +which, underneath the gloomy archway of which, sits a phantom of +yourself. + + +Turn a screw, tighten a linch-pin--which is not to disease, but perhaps +to exalt, the mighty machinery of the brain--and the Infinities appear, +before which the tranquillity of man unsettles, the gracious forms of +life depart, and the ghostly enters. So profoundly is this true, that +oftentimes I have said of my own tremendous experience in this +region--destined too certainly, I fear, finally to swallow up intellect +and the life of life in the heart, unless God of His mercy fetches me +away by some sudden death--that death, considered as an entrance to this +ghostly world, is but a postern-gate by comparison with the +heaven-aspiring vestibule through which this world of the Infinite +introduces the ghostly world. + + +Time, if it does not diminish grief, alters its character. At first we +stretch out our hands in very blindness of heart, as if trying to draw +back again those whom we have lost. But, after a season, when the +impotence of such efforts has become too sensibly felt, finding that +they will not come back to us, a strange fascination arises which yearns +after some mode of going to _them_. There is a gulf fixed which +childhood rarely can pass. But we link our wishes with whatsoever would +gently waft us over. We stretch out our hands, and say, 'Sister, lend us +thy help, and plead for us with God, that we may pass over without much +agony.' + + +The joy of an infant, or joy-generation, without significance to an +unprofound and common mind--how strange to see the excess of pathos in +that; yet men of any (or at least of much) sensibility see in this a +transpicuous masque for another form, viz., the eternal ground of sorrow +in all human hearts. This, by the way, in an essay on William +Wordsworth, should be noticed as the charm of his poetry; and the note +differential, in fact. At least, I know not of any former poet who has +so systematically sought his sadness in the very luxury of joy. Thus, in +the 'Two April Mornings,' 'what a mortal freshness of dewy radiance! +what an attraction of early summer! what a vision of roses in June! Yet +it is all transmuted to a purpose of sadness.' + + +Ah, reader, scorn not that which--whether you refuse it or not as the +reality of realities--is assuredly the reality of dreams, linking us to +a far vaster cycle, in which the love and the languishing, the ruin and +the horror, of this world are but moments--but elements in an eternal +circle. The cycle stretches from an East that is forgotten to a West +that is but conjectured. The mere fact of your own individual calamity +is a life; the tragedy is a nature; the hope is but as a dim augury +written on a flower.[5] + + +If the things that have fretted us had not some art for retiring into +secret oblivion, what a hell would life become! Now, understand how in +some nervous derangements this horror really takes place. Some things +that had sunk into utter forgetfulness, others that had faded into +visionary power, all rise as gray phantoms from the dust; the field of +our earthly combats that should by rights have settled into peace, is +all alive with hosts of resurrections--cavalries that sweep in gusty +charges--columns that thunder from afar--arms gleaming through clouds of +sulphur. + + +God takes care for the religion of little children wheresoever His +Christianity exists. Wheresoever there is a national Church established, +to which a child sees all his protectors resort; wheresoever he beholds +amongst earthly creatures whom most he honours prostrate in devotion +before these illimitable heavens, which fill to overflowing the total +capacities of his young adoring heart; wheresoever at intervals he +beholds the sleep of death, falling upon the men or women whom he has +seen--a depth stretching as far below his power to fathom as those +persons ascend beyond his powers to pursue--God speaks to their hearts +by dreams and their tumultuous grandeurs. Even by solitude does God +speak to little children, when made vocal by the services of +Christianity, as also he does by darkness wheresoever it is peopled +with visions of His almighty power. For a pagan child, for a Greek +child, solitude was nothing; for a Christian child it is made the power +of God, and the hieroglyphic of His most distant truth. The solitude in +life is deep for the millions who have none to love them, and deep for +those who suffer by secret and incommunicable woe and have none to pity +them. Thus, be you assured that though infancy talks least of that which +slumbers deepest, it yet rests in its own transcendent solitude. But +infancy, you say, talks surely most of that which is uppermost in its +heart. Yes, doubtless of that which is uppermost, but not at all of that +which slumbers below the foundations of its heart. + +[And then follows a suggestion to put in a note:] + + +I except one case, the case of any child who is marked for death by +organic disease, and knows it. In such cases the creature is +changed--that which would have been unchildlike ceases to offend, for a +new character is forming. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] See the story of the young soldier who told his officer, on having +been struck by him, that 'he would make him repent it.' (Close of +autobiographic sketch, 'Infant Literature.') + +[2] Three thousand children are annually burnt to death in the nations +of England and Scotland, chiefly through the carelessness of parents. I +shudder to add another and darker cause, which is a deep disgrace to the +present age. + +[3] Count Massigli (an Austrian officer in the imperial service) about +sixty years ago fathomed and attempted to fathom many parts of the +Mediterranean and the Atlantic. If I remember rightly, he found the +bottom within less than an English mile. + +[4] The story and the verses are, or used to be, well known. A +schoolboy, forbidden to return home at the holidays, is suspected to +have written the lyrical Latin verses upon the rapture of returning +home, and to have breathed out his life in the anguish of thus reviving +the images which for him were never to be realized.... The reader must +not fancy any flaw in the Latin title. It is elliptic; _revisere_ being +understood, or some similar word. + +[5] I allude to the _signatures_ of nature. + + + + +_II. THE LOVELIEST SIGHT FOR WOMAN'S EYES._ + + +The loveliest sight that a woman's eye opens upon in this world is her +first-born child; and the holiest sight upon which the eyes of God +settle in Almighty sanction and perfect blessing is the love which soon +kindles between the mother and her infant: mute and speechless on the +one side, with no language but tears and kisses and looks. Beautiful is +the philosophy ... which arises out of that reflection or passion +connected with the transition that has produced it. First comes the +whole mighty drama of love, purified[6] ever more and more, how often +from grosser feelings, yet of necessity through its very elements, +oscillating between the finite and the infinite: the haughtiness of +womanly pride, so dignified, yet not always free from the near contagion +of error; the romance so ennobling, yet not always entirely reasonable; +the tender dawn of opening sentiments, pointing to an idea in all this +which it neither can reach nor could long sustain. Think of the great +storm of agitation, and fear and hope, through which, in her earliest +days of womanhood, every woman must naturally pass, fulfilling a law of +her Creator, yet a law which rests upon her mixed constitution; animal, +though indefinitely ascending to what is non-animal--as a daughter of +man, frail ... and imperfect, yet also as a daughter of God, standing +erect, with eyes to the heavens. Next, when the great vernal passover of +sexual tenderness and romance has fulfilled its purpose, we see, rising +as a Phoenix from this great mystery of ennobled instincts, another +mystery, much more profound, more affecting, more divine--not so much a +rapture as a blissful repose of a Sabbath, which swallows up the more +perishing story of the first; forcing the vast heart of female nature +through stages of ascent, forcing it to pursue the transmigrations of +the Psyche from the aurelic condition, so glowing in its colour, into +the winged creature which mixes with the mystery of the dawn, and +ascends to the altar of the infinite heavens, rising by a ladder of +light from that sympathy which God surveys with approbation; and even +more so as He beholds it self-purifying under His Christianity to that +sympathy which needs no purification, but is the holiest of things on +this earth, and that in which God most reveals Himself through the +nature of humanity. + +Well is it for the glorification of human nature that through these the +vast majority of women must for ever pass; well also that, by placing +its sublime germs near to female youth, God thus turns away by +anticipation the divinest of disciplines from the rapacious absorption +of the grave. Time is found--how often--for those who are early summoned +into rendering back their glorious privilege, who yet have tasted in +its first-fruits the paradise of maternal love. + +And pertaining also to this part of the subject, I will tell you a +result of my own observations of no light importance to women. + +It is this: Nineteen times out of twenty I have remarked that the true +paradise of a female life in all ranks, not too elevated for constant +intercourse with the children, is by no means the years of courtship, +nor the earliest period of marriage, but that sequestered chamber of her +experience, in which a mother is left alone through the day, with +servants perhaps in a distant part of the house, and (God be thanked!) +chiefly where there are no servants at all, she is attended by one sole +companion, her little first-born angel, as yet clinging to her robe, +imperfectly able to walk, still more imperfect in its prattling and +innocent thoughts, clinging to her, haunting her wherever she goes as +her shadow, catching from her eye the total inspiration of its little +palpitating heart, and sending to hers a thrill of secret pleasure so +often as its little fingers fasten on her own. Left alone from morning +to night with this one companion, or even with three, still wearing the +graces of infancy; buds of various stages upon the self-same tree, a +woman, if she has the great blessing of approaching such a luxury of +paradise, is moving--too often not aware that she is moving--through the +divinest section of her life. As evening sets in, the husband, through +all walks of life, from the highest professional down to that of common +labour, returns home to vary her modes of conversation by such thoughts +and interests as are more consonant with his more extensive capacities +of intellect. But by that time her child (or her children) will be +reposing on the little couch, and in the morning, duly as the sun +ascends in power, she sees before her a long, long day of perfect +pleasure in this society which evening will bring to her, but which is +interwoven with every fibre of her sensibilities. This condition of +noiseless, quiet love is that, above all, which God blesses and smiles +upon. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[6] How purified? And if it should be answered, through and under +Christianity, the fool in his heart would scoff and say: 'What woman +thinks of religion in her youthful courtship?' No; but it is not what +she thinks of, but what thinks of her; not what she contemplates in +consciousness, but what contemplates her, and reaches her by a necessity +of social (? ideal) action. Romance is the product of Christianity, but +so is sentiment. + + + + +_III. WHY THE PAGANS COULD NOT INVEST THEIR GODS WITH ANY IOTA OF +GRANDEUR._ + + +It is not for so idle a purpose as that of showing the Pagan +backsliding--that is too evident--but for a far subtler purpose, and one +which no man has touched, viz., the incapacity of creating grandeur for +the Pagans, even with _carte blanche_ in their favour, that I write this +paper. Nothing is more incomprehensible than the following fact--nothing +than this when mastered and understood is more thoroughly +instructive--the fact that having a wide, a limitless field open before +them, free to give and to take away at their own pleasure, the Pagans +could not invest their Gods with any iota of grandeur. Diana, when you +translate her into the Moon, then indeed partakes in all the _natural_ +grandeur of a planet associated with a dreamy light, with forests, +forest lawns, etc., or the wild accidents of a huntress. But the Moon +and the Huntress are surely not the creations of Pagans, nor indebted to +them for anything but the murderous depluming which Pagan mythology has +operated upon all that is in earth or in the waters that are under the +earth. Now, why could not the ancients raise one little scintillating +glory in behalf of their monstrous deities? So far are they from thus +raising Jupiter, that he is sometimes made the ground of nature (not, +observe, for any positive reason that they had for any relation that +Jupiter had to Creation, but simply for the negative reason that they +had nobody else)--never does Jupiter seem more disgusting than when as +just now in a translation of the 'Batrachia' I read that Jupiter had +given to frogs an amphibious nature, making the awful, ancient, +first-born secrets of Chaos to be his, and thus forcing into contrast +and remembrance his odious personality. + +Why, why, why could not the Romans, etc., make a grandeur for their +Gods? Not being able to make them grand, they daubed them with finery. +All that people imagine in the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias--_they_ +themselves confer. But an apostle is beyond their reach. + +When, be it well observed, the cruel and dark religions are far more +successful than those of Greece and Rome, for Osiris, etc., by the might +of the devil, of darkness, are truly terrific. Cybele stands as a middle +term half-way between these dark forms and the Greek or Roman. Pluto is +the very model of a puny attempt at darkness utterly failing. He looks +big; he paints himself histrionically; he soots his face; he has a +masterful dog, nothing half so fearful as a wolf-dog or bloodhound; and +he raises his own _manes_, poor, stridulous Struldbrugs. + +Vainly did the ancient Pagans fight against this fatal weakness. + +They may confer upon their Gods glittering titles of 'ambrosial,' +'immortal'; but the human mind is careless of positive assertion, and of +clamorous iteration in however angry a tone, when silently it observes +stealing out of facts already conceded some fatal consequence at war +with all these empty pretensions--mortal even in _the virtual_ +conceptions of the Pagans. If the Pagan Gods were really immortal, if +essentially they repelled the touch of mortality, and not through the +adulatory homage of their worshipers causing their true aspects to +unsettle or altogether to disappear in clouds of incense, then how came +whole dynasties of Gods to pass away, and no man could tell whither? If +really they defied the grave, then how was it that age and the +infirmities of age passed upon them like the shadow of eclipse upon the +golden faces of the planets? If Apollo were a beardless young man, his +father was not such--_he_ was in the vigour of maturity; maturity is a +flattering term for expressing it, but it means _past youth_--and his +grandfather was superannuated. But even this grandfather, who _had_ been +once what Apollo was now, could not pretend to more than a transitory +station in the long succession of Gods. Other dynasties, known even to +man, there had been before his; and elder dynasties before _that_, of +whom only rumours and suspicions survived. Even this taint, however, +this _direct_ access of mortality, was less shocking to my mind in +after-years than the abominable fact of its reflex or indirect access in +the shape of grief for others who had died. I need not multiply +instances; they are without end. The reader has but to throw his memory +back upon the anguish of Jupiter, in the 'Iliad,' for the approaching +death of his son Sarpedon, and his vain struggles to deliver himself +from this ghastly net; or upon Thetis, fighting against the vision of +her matchless Pelides caught in the same vortex; or upon the Muse in +Euripides, hovering in the air and wailing over her young Rhesus, her +brave, her beautiful one, of whom she trusted that he had been destined +to confound the Grecian host. What! a God, and liable to the pollution +of grief! A Goddess, and standing every hour within the peril of that +dismal shadow! + +Here in one moment mark the recoil, the intolerable recoil, upon the +Pagan mind, of that sting which vainly they pretended to have conquered +on behalf of their Pantheon. Did the reader fancy that I was fatiguing +myself with any task so superfluous as that of proving the Gods of the +heathen to be no Gods? In that case he has not understood me. My object +is to show that the ancients, that even the Greeks, could not support +the idea of immortality. The idea crumbled to pieces under their touch. +In realizing that idea unconsciously, they suffered elements to slip in +which defeated its very essence in the result; and not by accident: +other elements they could not have found. Doubtless an insolent Grecian +philosopher would say, 'Surely, I knew that immortality meant the being +liberated from mortality.' Yes, but this is no more than the negative +idea, and the demand is to give the affirmative idea. Or perhaps I shall +better explain my meaning by substituting other terms with my own +illustration of their value. I say, then, that the Greek idea of +immortality involves only the nominal idea, not the real idea. Now, the +nominal idea (or, which is the same thing, the nominal definition) is +that which simply sketches the outline of an object in the shape of a +problem; whereas the real definition fills up that outline and solves +that problem. The nominal definition states the conditions under which +an object would be realized for the mind; the real definition executes +those conditions. The nominal definition, that I may express it most +briefly and pointedly, puts a _question_; the real definition _answers_ +that question. Thus, to give our illustration, the insoluble problem of +squaring the circle presents us with a good nominal idea. There is no +vagueness at all in the idea of such a square; it is that square which, +when a given circle is laid before you, would present the same +superficial contents in such exquisite truth of repetition that the eye +of God could detect no shadow of more or of less. Nothing can be plainer +than the demand--than the question. But as to the answer, as to the +_real_ conditions under which this demand can be realized, all the wit +of man has not been able to do more than approach it. Or, again, the +idea of a _perfect commonwealth_, clear enough as a nominal idea, is in +its infancy as a real idea. Or, perhaps, a still more lively +illustration to some readers may be the idea of _perpetual motion_. +Nominally--that is, as an idea sketched problem-wise--what is plainer? +You are required to assign some principle of motion such that it shall +revolve through the parts of a mechanism self-sustained. Suppose those +parts to be called by the names of our English alphabet, and to stand in +the order of our alphabet, then A is through B C D, etc., to pass down +with its total power upon Z, which reciprocally is to come round +undiminished upon A B C, etc., for ever. Never was a _nominal_ +definition of what you want more simple and luminous. But coming to the +_real_ definition, and finding that every letter in succession must +still give something less than is received--that O, for instance, cannot +give to P all which it received from N--then no matter for the +triviality of the loss in each separate case, always it is gathering and +accumulating; your hands drop down in despair; you feel that a principle +of death pervades the machinery; retard it you may, but come it will at +last. And a proof remains behind, as your only result, that whilst the +nominal definition may sometimes run before the real definition for +ages, and yet finally be overtaken by it, in other cases the one flies +hopelessly before the pursuit of the other, defies it, and never _will_ +be overtaken to the end of time. + +That fate, that necessity, besieged the Grecian idea of immortality. +Rise from forgotten dust, my Plato; Stagyrite, stand up from the grave; +Anaxagoras, with thy bright, cloudless intellect that searched the +skies, Heraclitus, with thy gloomy, mysterious intellect that fathomed +the deeps, come forward and execute for me this demand. How shall that +immortality, which you give, which you _must_ give as a trophy of honour +to your Pantheon, sustain itself against the blights from those +humanities which also, by an equal necessity, starting from your basis, +give you must to that Pantheon? How will you prevent the sad reflux of +that tide which finally engulfs all things under any attempt to execute +the nominal idea of a Deity? You cannot do it. Weave your divinities in +that Grecian loom of yours, and no skill in the workmanship, nor care +that wisdom can devise, will ever cure the fatal flaws in the texture: +for the mortal taint lies not so much in your work as in the original +errors of your loom. + + + + +_IV. ON PAGAN SACRIFICES._ + + +Ask any well-informed man at random what he supposes to have been done +with the sacrifices, he will answer that really he never thought about +it, but that naturally he supposes the flesh was burnt upon the altars. +Not at all, reader; a sacrifice to the Gods meant universally a banquet +to man. He who gave a splendid public dinner announced in other words +that he designed to celebrate a sacrificial rite. This was of course. +He, on the other hand, who announced a sacrificial pomp did in other +words proclaim by sound of trumpet that he gave a dinner. This was of +necessity. Hence, when Agamemnon offers a hecatomb to Jupiter, his +brother Menelaus walks in to dinner, [Greek: hachlêtost], without +invitation. As a brother, we are told by Homer that no invitation was +required. He had the privilege of what in German is beautifully called +'ein Kind des Hauses,' a child of the house. This dispensation from the +necessity of a formal invitation Homer explains, but as to explanation +how he knew that there was a dinner, that he passes over as superfluous. +A vast herd of oxen could not be sacrificed without open and public +display of the preparation, and that a human banquet must accompany a +divine sacrifice--this was so much a self-evident truth that Homer does +not trouble himself to make so needless an explanation. + +Hence, therefore, a case of legislation in St. Paul's Christian +administration, which I will venture to say few readers understand. Take +the Feast of Ephesus. Here, as in all cities of Asia Minor and Greece, +the Jews lived in great numbers. The universal hospitality over all +these regions was exhibited in dinners ([Greek: dehipna]). Now, it +happened not sometimes, but always, that he who gave a dinner had on the +same day made a sacrifice at the Great Temple; nay, the dinner was +always part of the sacrifice, and thus the following dilemma arose. +Scruples of eating part of sacrifices were absolutely unintelligible, +except as insults to Ephesus. To deny the existence of Diana had no +meaning in the ears of an Ephesian. All that he did understand was, that +if you happened to be a hater of Ephesus, you must hate the guardian +deity of Ephesus. And the sole inference he could collect from your +refusing to eat what had been hallowed to Diana was--that you hated +Ephesus. The dilemma, therefore, was this: either grant a toleration of +this practice, or else farewell to all amicable intercourse for the Jews +with the citizens. In fact, it was to proclaim open war if this +concession were refused. A scruple of conscience might have been allowed +for, but a scruple of this nature could find no allowance in any Pagan +city whatever. Moreover, it had really no foundation. The truth is far +otherwise than that Pagan deities were dreams. Far from it. They were as +real as any other beings. The accommodation, therefore, which St. Paul +most wisely granted was--to eat socially, without regard to any ceremony +through which the food might have passed. So long as the Judaizing +Christian was no party to the religious ceremonies, he was free of all +participation in idolatry. Since if the mere open operation of a Pagan +process could transform into the character of an accomplice one who with +no assenting heart ate of the food, in that case Christ Himself might by +possibility have shared in an idolatrous banquet, and we Christians at +this day in the East Indies might for months together become unconscious +accomplices in the foul idolatries of the Buddhist and Brahminical +superstitions. + +But so essentially were the convivial banquets of the Pagans interwoven +with their religious rites, so essentially was a great dinner a great +offering to the Gods, and _vice versâ_--a great offering to the Gods a +great dinner--that the very ministers and chief agents in religion were +at first the same. Cocus, or [Greek: mageirost], was the very same +person as the Pope, or presiding arbiter in succession to a Pope. 'Sunt +eadem,' says Casaubon, 'Cocus et Pope.' And of this a most striking +example is yet extant in Athenæus. From the correspondence which for +many centuries was extant between Alexander the Great, when embarked +upon his great expeditions, and his royal mother Olympias, who remained +in Macedon, was one from which we have an extract even at this day, +where he, as we learn from the letter quoted, had been urging his mother +to purchase for him a good cook. And what was made the test supreme of +his skill? Why, this, that he should be [Greek: thysihôn hempeirost], an +artist able to dress a sacrificial banquet. What he meant is this: I do +not want an ordinary cook, who might be equal to the preparation of a +plain (or, what is the same thing, secular) dinner, but a person +qualified or competent to take charge of a hecatomb dinner. His mother's +reply addresses itself to that one point only: [Greek: Peligua ton +mageiron labe hapd thêst mêtrost], which is in effect: 'A cook is it +that you want? Why, then, you cannot do better than take mine. The man +is a reliable table of sacrifices; he knows the whole ritual of those +great official and sacred dinners given by the late king, your father. +He is acquainted with the whole _cuisine_ of the more mysterious +religions, the Orgiacs' (probably from the neighbouring Thrace), 'and +all the great ceremonies and observances practised at Olympia, and even +what you may eat on the great St. Leger Day. So don't lose sight of the +arrangement, but take the man as a present, from me, your affectionate +mother, and be sure to send off an express for him at your earliest +convenience.' + + * * * * * + + [Professor Robertson Smith in his latest work has well pointed out + that even with the Hebrews the sacrifices were eaten in common till + the seventh century B. C., when the sin-offerings, in a time of + great national distress, came to be slain before Jehovah, and 'none + but the priests ate of the flesh,' a phase of sacrificial + specialization which marks the beginning of the exclusive + sacerdotalism of the Jews.--ED.] + + + + +_V. ON THE MYTHUS._ + + +That which the tradition of the people is to the truth of facts--that is +a _mythus_ to the reasonable origin of things. [Transcriber's Note: three +dots in a vertical line above a tiny circle] These objects to an eye at +[Transcriber's Note: low tiny circle] might all melt into one another, as +stars are confluent which modern astronomy has prismatically split. Says +Rennell, as a reason for a Mahometan origin of a canal through Cairo, +such is the tradition of the people. But we see amongst ourselves how +great works are ascribed to the devil or to the Romans by antiquarians. +In Rennell we see the effects of synthesis. He throws back his +observations, like a woman threading a series of needles or a shuttle +running through a series of rings, through a succession of Egyptian +canals (p. 478), showing the real action of the case, that a tendency +existed to this. And, by the way, here comes another strong illustration +of the popular adulterations. They in our country confound the 'Romans,' +a vulgar expression for the Roman Catholics, with the ancient national +people of Rome. Here one element of a _mythus_ B has melted into the +_mythus_ X, and in far-distant times might be very perplexing to +antiquarians, when the popular tradition was too old for them to _see_ +the point of juncture where the alien stream had fallen in. + +Then, again, not only ignorance, but love, combines to adulterate the +tradition. Every man wishes to give his own country an interest in +anything great. What an effort has been made to suck Sir T. R. back into +Scotland! + +Thus, it is too difficult without a motive to hold apart vast distances +_or_ intervals that lie in a field which has all gathered into a blue +haze. Stars, divided by millions of miles, collapse into each other. So +_mythi_: and then comes the perplexity--the entanglement. Then come +also, from lacunæ arising in these interwelded stories, temptations to +falsehood. By the way, even the recent tale of Astyages seems to have +been pieced: the difficulty was to find a motive for Cyrus, reputed a +good man, to make war on his grandfather. Kill him he might by accident. +But the dream required that he should dethrone his grandfather. +Accordingly the dreadful story is devised; but why should Cyrus adopt +the injuries of a nobleman who, if all were true, had only saved himself +by accident? + +Impossible as it would seem to transmute Socrates into a _mythus_, +considering the broad daylight which then rested upon Athenian history, +and the inextricable way in which Socrates is entangled in that history +(although we have all seen many a Scriptural personage so transmuted +under far less colourable pretenses or advantages), still it is evident +that the mediæval schoolmen _did_ practically treat Socrates as +something of that sort--as a mythical, symbolic, or representative man. +Socrates is the eternal burthen of their quillets, quodlibets, problems, +syllogisms; for them he is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, that +much-suffering man; or, to speak more adequately, for _them_ he is the +John Doe and the Richard Roe of English law, whose feuds have tormented +the earth and incensed the heavens through a cycle of uncounted +centuries, and must have given a bad character of our planet on its +English side. To such an extent was this pushed, that many of the +scholastic writers became wearied of enunciating or writing his name, +and, anticipating the occasional fashion of _My lud_ and _Your ludship_ +at our English Bar, or of _Hocus Pocus_ as an abbreviation of pure +weariness for _Hoc est Corpus_, they called him not _Socrates_, but +_Sortes_. Now, whence, let me ask, was this custom derived? As to Doe +and Roe, who or what first set them by the ears together is now probably +past all discovery. But as to _Sortes_, that he was a mere contraction +for _Socrates_ is proved in the same way that _Mob_ is shown to have +been a brief way of writing _Mobile vulgus_, viz., that by Bishop +Stillingfleet in particular the two forms, _Mob_ and _Mobile vulgus_ are +used interchangeably and indifferently through several pages +consecutively--just as _Canter_ and _Canterbury gallop_, of which the +one was at first the mere shorthand expression of the other, were at one +period interchanged, and for the same reason. The abbreviated form wore +the air of plebeian slang at its first introduction, but its convenience +favoured it: soon it became reconciled to the ear, then it ceased to be +slang, and finally the original form, ceasing to have any apparent +advantage of propriety or elegance, dropped into total disuse. _Sortes_, +it is a clear case, inherited from Socrates his distressing post of +target-general for the arrows of disputatious Christendom. But how came +Socrates by that distinction? I cannot have a doubt that it was strength +of tradition that imputed such a use of the Socratic name and character +to Plato. The reader must remember that, although Socrates was no +_mythus_, and least of all could be such, to his own leading disciple, +that was no reason why he should not be treated as a _mythus_. In Wales, +some nine or ten years ago, _Rebecca_, as the mysterious and masqued +redresser of public wrongs, was rapidly passing into a _mythical_ +expression for that universal character of Rhadamanthian avenger or +vindicator. So of Captain Rock, in Ireland. So of Elias amongst the Jews +(_when Elias shall come_), as the sublime, mysterious, and in some +degree pathetic expression for a great teacher lurking amongst the +dreadful mists. + + + + +_VI. DAVID'S NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE--THE POLITICS OF THE SITUATION._ + + +You read in the Hebrew Scriptures of a man who had thirty sons, all of +whom 'rode on white asses'; the riding on white asses is a circumstance +that expresses their high rank or distinction--that all were princes. In +Syria, as in Greece and almost everywhere, white was the regal symbolic +colour.[7] And any mode of equitation, from the far inferior wealth of +ancient times, implied wealth. Mules or asses, besides that they were so +far superior a race in Syria no less than in Persia, to furnish a +favourite designation for a warlike hero, could much more conveniently +be used on the wretched roads, as yet found everywhere, until the Romans +began to treat road-making as a regular business of military pioneering. +In this case, therefore, there were thirty sons of one man, and all +provided with princely establishments. Consequently, to have thirty sons +at all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy; +but to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the funds +of the family would not allow of giving to each his separate +establishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was +surprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against +its truth, the writer would justly deny by pleading--for that very +reason, _because_ it was surprising, did I tell the story. In a train of +1,500 years naturally there must happen many wonderful things, both as +to events and persons. Were these crowded together in time or locally, +these indeed we should incredulously reject. But when we understand the +vast remoteness from each other in time or in place, we freely admit the +tendency lies the other way; the wonder would be if there were _not_ +many coincidences that each for itself separately might be looked upon +as strange. And as the surgeon had set himself to collect certain cases +for the very reason that they were so unaccountably fatal, with a +purpose therefore of including all that did _not_ terminate fatally, so +we should remember that generally historians (although less so if a +Jewish historian, because he had a far nobler chain of wonders to +record) do not feel themselves open to the objection of romancing if +they report something out of the ordinary track, since exactly that sort +of matter is their object, and it cannot but be found in a considerable +proportion when their course travels over a vast range of successive +generations. It would be a marvellous thing indeed if every one of five +hundred men whom an author had chosen to record biographically should +have for his baptismal name--Francis. But if you found that this was the +very reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however +strange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects, +you would no longer see anything to startle your belief. + +But let me give an interesting case partly illustrating this principle. +Once I was present on an occasion where, of two young men, one very +young and very clever was suggesting infidel scruples, and the other, so +much older as to be entering on a professional career with considerable +distinction, was on the very point of drinking-in all that his companion +urged as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The +younger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a passage from the Bible, in +which one of the circumstances was--that the Jewish army consisted of +120,000 men. 'Now,' said he, 'knowing as we all do the enormity of such +a force as a peace establishment, even for mighty empires like England, +how perfectly like a fairy-tale or an Arabian Nights' entertainment does +it sound to hear of such monstrous armaments in a little country like +Judæa, equal, perhaps, to the twelve counties of Wales!' This was +addressed to myself, and I could see by the whole expression of the +young physician that his condition was exactly this--his studies had +been purely professional; he made himself a king, because (having +happened to hurt his leg) he wore white _fasciæ_ about his thigh. He +knew little or nothing of Scriptural records; he had not read at all +upon this subject; quite as little had he thought, and, unfortunately, +his conversation had lain amongst clever chemists and naturalists, who +had a prejudgment in the case that all the ability and free power of +mind ran into the channel of scepticism; that only people situated as +most women are should acquiesce in the faith or politics of their +fathers or predecessors, or could believe much of the Scriptures, except +those who were slow to examine for themselves; but that multitudes +pretended to believe upon some interested motive. This was precisely +the situation of the young physician himself--he listened with manifest +interest, checked himself when going to speak; he knew the danger of +being reputed an infidel, and he had no temper for martyrdom, as his +whole gesture and manner, by its tendency, showed what was passing in +his mind. 'Yes, X is right, manifestly right, and every rational view +from our modern standard of good sense and reflective political economy +tends to the same conclusion. By the reflex light of political economy +we know even at this hour much as to the condition of ancient lands like +Palestine, Athens, etc., quite unrevealed to the wisest men amongst +them. But for me, who am entering on a critical walk of social life, I +shall need every aid from advantageous impression in favour of my +religious belief, so I cannot in prudence speak, for I shall speak too +warmly, and I forbear.' + +What I replied, and in that instance usefully replied--for it sufficed +to check one who was gravitating downwards to infidelity, and likely to +settle there for ever if he once reached that point--was in substance +this: + +Firstly, that the plea, with regard to the numbers as most +extraordinary, was so far from affecting the credibility of the +statement disadvantageously, that on that ground, agreeably to the logic +I have so scantily expounded, this very feature in the case was what +partly engaged the notice of the Scriptural writer. It _was_ a great +army for so little a nation. And _therefore_, would the writer say, +_therefore_ in print I record it. + +Secondly, that we must not, however, be misled by the narrow limits, the +Welsh limits, to suppose a Welsh population. For that whilst the twelve +counties of Wales do not _now_ yield above half-a-million of people, +Palestine had pretty certainly a number fluctuating between four and six +millions. + +Thirdly, that the great consideration of this was the stage in the +expansion of society at which the Hebrew nation then stood, and the +sublime interest--sublime enough to them, though far from comprehending +the solemn freight of hopes confided to themselves--which they +consciously defended. It was an age in which no pay was given to the +soldier. Now, when the soldier constitutes a separate profession, with +the regular pay he undertakes the regular danger and hardships. There is +no motive for giving the pay and the rations but precisely that he +_does_ so undertake. But when no pay at all is allowed out of any common +fund, it will never be endured by the justice of the whole society or by +an individual member that he, the individual, as one insulated +stake-holder, having no greater interest embarked than others, should +undertake the danger or the labour of warfare for the whole. And two +inferences arise upon having armies so immense: + +First, that they were a militia, or more properly not even that, but a +Landwehr--that is, a _posse comitatus_, the whole martial strength of +the people (one in four), drawn out and slightly trained to meet a +danger, which in those times was always a passing cloud. Regular and +successive campaigns were unknown; the enemy, whoever he might be, could +as little support a regular army as the people of Palestine. +Consequently, all these enemies would have to disperse hastily to their +reaping and mowing, just as we may observe the Jews do under Joshua. It +required, therefore, no long absence from home. It was but a march, but +a waiting for opportunity, watching for a favourable day--sunshine or +cloud, the rising or subsiding of a river, the wind in the enemy's face, +or an ambush skilfully posted. All was then ready; the signal was given, +a great battle ensued, and by sunset of one anxious day all was over in +one way or another. Upon this position of circumstances there was +neither any fair dispensation from personal service (except where +citizens' scruples interfered), nor any motive for wishing it. On the +contrary, by a very few days' service, a stigma, not for the individual +only, but for his house and kin, would be evaded for ages of having +treacherously forsaken the commonwealth in agony. And the preference for +a fighting station would be too eager instead of too backward. It would +become often requisite to do what it is evident the Jews in reality +did--to make successive sifting and winnowing from the service troops, +at every stage throwing out upon severer principles of examination those +who seemed least able to face a trying crisis, whilst honourable posts +of no great dependency would be assigned to those rejected, as modes of +soothing their offended pride. This in the case of a great danger; but +in the case of an ordinary danger there is no doubt that many vicarious +arrangements would exist by way of evading so injurious a movement as +that of the whole fighting population. Either the ordinary watch and +ward, in that section which happened to be locally threatened--as, for +instance, by invasion on one side from Edom or Moab, on another side +from the Canaanites or Philistines--would undertake the case as one +which had fallen to them by allotment of Providence; or that section +whose service happened to be due for the month, without local regards, +would face the exigency. But in any great national danger, under that +stage of society which the Jews had reached between Moses and +David--that stage when fighting is no separate professional duty, that +stage when such things are announced by there being no military pay--not +the army which is so large as 120,000 men, but the army which is so +small, requires to be explained.[8] + +Secondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay, +and therefore no separate fighting profession, is this--that foreign +war, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite +unknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance +of armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued +with those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack +upon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be +lawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all +his great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it +inevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious +motive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he +discovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction +was required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without +sincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words +aloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his +prophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nation +denying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive +warfare. But the Jews had no such commission--a proselyte needed more +evidences of assent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words, +and he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution. +Some nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of +servitude. But the Romans were so far from treating _their_ language in +this way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay +for a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the +Jews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon +foreigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by +coming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law, +and by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple. + +Such was the prodigious state of separation from a Mahometan principle +of fanatical proselytism in which the Jews were placed from the very +first. One small district only was to be cleared of its ancient +idolatrous, and probably desperately demoralized, tribes. Even this +purification it was not intended should be instant; and upon the +following reason, partly unveiled by God and partly left to an +integration, viz., that in the case of so sudden a desolation the wild +beasts and noxious serpents would have encroached too much on the human +population. So much is expressed, and probably the sequel foreseen was, +that the Jews would have lapsed into a wild hunting race, and have +outworn that ceremonial propensity which fitted them for a civil life, +which formed them into a hive in which the great work of God in Shiloh, +His probationary Temple or His glorious Temple and service at Jerusalem, +operated as the mysterious instinct of a queen bee, to compress and +organize the whole society into a cohesion like this of life. Here, +perhaps, lay the reason for not allowing of any sudden summary +extirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second +principle, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete. +Snares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown--in that case the +restless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be +utterly withdrawn--in that case his faith would undergo no probation. +Even upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that +aggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it +was not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was +not to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and +to be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment +this part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive +warfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all +other wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no +allowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom, +Midian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not +aggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there +remained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever +justify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the +Jews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted, +and wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible +atrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole +tribe), in which case a bloody exterminating war under God's sanction +succeeded and rapidly drew to a close, or else grew out of the ruinous +schism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem. +And as this schism had no countenance from God, still less could the +wars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that +could have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic +theory of their constitution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole +case of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength, +struck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in +Shiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the +last man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies +could tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an +excessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in +the 120,000 men, the true difficulty would lie the other way, to account +for its being so much reduced. + +It seems to me highly probable that the offence of David in numbering +the people, which ultimately was the occasion of fixing the site for the +Temple of Jerusalem, pointed to this remarkable military position of the +Jewish people--a position forbidding all fixed military institutions, +and which yet David was probably contemplating in that very _census_. +Simply to number the people could not have been a crime, nor could it be +any desideratum for David; because we are too often told of the muster +rolls for the whole nation, and for each particular tribe, to feel any +room for doubt that the reports on this point were constantly corrected, +brought under review of the governing elders, councils, judges, princes, +or king, according to the historical circumstances, so that the need and +the criminality of such a _census_ would vanish at the same moment. But +this was not the _census_ ordered by David. He wanted a more specific +return, probably of the particular wealth and nature of the employment +pursued by each individual family, so that upon this return he might +ground a permanent military organization for the people; and such an +organization would have thoroughly revolutionized the character of the +population, as well as drawn them into foreign wars and alliances. + +It is painful to think that many amiable and really candid minds in +search of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this +case the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local +examination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This +argument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of +supporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran +towards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the +altar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word +'army,' as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects +indifferently, and one which in Judæa exclusively could be applied only +to such a service as must in its own nature be sudden, brief, and always +tending to a decisive catastrophe. + +And that this was the true form of the crime, not only circumstances +lead me to suspect, but especially the remarkable demur of Joab, who in +his respectful remonstrance said in effect that, when the whole strength +of the nation was known in sum--meaning from the ordinary state +returns--what need was there to search more inquisitively into the +special details? Where all were ready to fight cheerfully, why seek for +separate _minutiæ_ as to each particular class? Those general returns +had regard only to the ordinary _causa belli_--a hostile invasion. And, +then, all nations alike, rude or refined, have gone upon the same +general outline of computation--that, subtracting the females from the +males, this, in a gross general way, would always bisect the total +return of the population. And, then, to make a second bisection of the +male half would subtract one quarter from the entire people as too young +or too old, or otherwise as too infirm for warlike labours, leaving +precisely one quarter of the nation--every fourth head--as available for +war. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about +1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy +_pospolite_ was far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had +remarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even +against himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden +rebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court +saved themselves from capture only by a few hours' start of the enemy, +and through the enemy's want of cavalry. This danger meantime having +vanished, it might be possible that for David personally no other great +conspiracy should disturb his seat upon the throne. None of David's sons +approached to Absalom in popularity; and yet the subsequent attempt of +Adonijah showed that the revolutionary temper was still awake in that +quarter. But what David feared, in a further-looking spirit, was the +tenure by which his immediate descendants would maintain their title. +The danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for +regulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things +far less determined than amongst monogamous nations--one son pleading +his priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother's higher rank, a +third pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within +the description of _porphyrogeniture_, or royal birth, which is often +felt as transcendent as _primogeniture_--even the people, apart from the +several pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as +grounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds. There seems good reason +to think that already the ten tribes, Israel as opposed to Judah, looked +upon the more favoured and royal tribe of Judah, with their +supplementary section of Benjamin, as unduly favoured in the national +economy. Secretly there is little doubt that they murmured even against +God for ranking this powerful tribe as the prerogative tribe. The +jealousy had evidently risen to a great height; it was suppressed by the +vigilant and strong government of Solomon; but at the outset of his +son's reign it exploded at once, and the Scriptural account of the case +shows that it proceeded upon old grievances. The boyish rashness of +Rehoboam might exasperate the leaders, and precipitate the issue; but +very clearly all had been prepared for a revolt. And I would remark that +by the 'young men' of Rehoboam are undoubtedly meant the soldiers--the +body-guards whom the Jewish kings now retained as an element of royal +pomp. This is the invariable use of the term in the East. Even in +Josephus the term for the military by profession is generally 'the young +men'; whilst 'the elders' mean the councilors of state. David saw +enough of the popular spirit to be satisfied that there was no political +reliance on the permanence of the dynasty; and even at home there was an +internal source of weakness. The tribe of Benjamin were mortified and +incensed at the deposition of Saul's family and the bloody proscription +of that family adopted by David. One only, a grandson of Saul, he had +spared out of love to his friend Jonathan. This was Mephibo-sheth; but +he was incapacitated for the throne by lameness. And how deep the +resentment was amongst the Benjamites is evident from the insulting +advantage taken of his despondency in the day of distress by Shimei. For +Shimei had no motive for the act of coming to the roadside and cursing +the king beyond his attachment to the house of Saul. Humanly speaking, +David's prospect of propagating his own dynasty was but small. On the +other hand, God had promised him _His_ support. And hence it was that +his crime arose, viz., upon his infidelity, in seeking to secure the +throne by a mere human arrangement in the first place; secondly, by such +an arrangement as must disorganize the existing theocratic system of the +Jewish people. Upon this crime followed his chastisement in a sudden +pestilence. And it is remarkable in how significant a manner God +manifested the nature of the trespass, and the particular course through +which He had meant originally, and _did_ still mean, to counteract the +worst issue of David's apprehensions. It happened that the angel of the +pestilence halted at the threshing-floor of Araunah; and precisely that +spot did God by dreams to David indicate as the site of the glorious +Temple. Thus it seemed as though in so many words God had declared: 'Now +that all is over, your crime and its punishment, understand that your +fears were vain. I will continue the throne in your house longer than +your anxieties can personally pursue its descent. And with regard to the +terrors from Israel, although this event of a great schism is inevitable +and essential to My councils, yet I will not allow it to operate for the +extinction of your house. And that very Temple, in that very place where +My angel was commissioned to pause, shall be one great means and one +great pledge to you of My decree in favour of your posterity. For this +house, as a common sanctuary to all Jewish blood, shall create a +perpetual interest in behalf of Judah amongst the other tribes, even +when making war upon Jerusalem.' Witness if it were but that one case +where 200,000 captives of Judah were restored without ransom, were +clothed completely, were fed, by the very men who had just massacred +their fighting relatives. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[7] Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have +been) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state--and +afterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became +so splendid that it was made so--white had always been the colour of a +monarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty' +(Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).--ED.] + +[8] This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes +a point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the +army are called by the names of _laos_, the people; _demos_, the +community; and _pleth[=u]s_, the multitude. But no notice is taken +throughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an +officer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host +is not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people, +not only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of +the chiefs.--ED. + + + + +_VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE._ + + +The argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews, +flowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of +Geneva--never mixing its waters with those which surround it--has been +by some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as +everywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide the answer. Yet how +infinitely better to state it fully, and then show that the evasion has +no form at all; but, on the contrary, powerfully argues the +inconsistency and incapacity of those who urge it. For instance, I +remember Boulanger, a French infidel, whose work was duly translated by +a Scotchman, answers it thus: What is there miraculous in all this? he +demands. Listen to me, and I will show you in two minutes that it rests +upon mere show and pure delusion. How is it, why is it, that the Jews +have remained a separate people? Simply from their usages, in the first +place; but, secondly, still more from the fact that these usages, which +with other peoples exist also in some representative shape, with _them_ +modify themselves, shift, alter, adapt themselves to the climate or to +the humour or accidents of life amongst those amidst whom chance has +thrown them; whereas amongst the Jews every custom, the most trivial, is +also part of their legislation; and their legislation is also their +religion. (Boulanger, by the way, is far from expressing that objection +so clearly as I have here done; but this is his drift and purpose, so +far as he knew how to express it.) Take any other people--Isaurians, +Athenians, Romans, Corinthians--doubtless all these and many others have +transmitted their blood down to our ages, and are now living amongst us +by representation. But why do we not perceive this? Why do the Athenians +seem to have perished utterly? Simply for this reason: they were a +plastic, yielding, unobstinate race. An Athenian lived in a port of +Italy, married an Italian woman; thence threw out lines of descent to +Milan, thence to Paris; and because his Attic usages were all local, +epichorial, and tied to a particular mythology which has given way, or +to a superstition which is defunct, or to a patriotic remembrance which +has vanished with the land and the sympathy that supported it; hence, +and upon other similar arguments, the Athenian has long since melted +into the mass with which he was intermixed; he was a unit attached to a +vast overpowering number from another source, and into that number he +has long since been absorbed; he was a drop in a vast ocean, and long +ago he has been confounded with the waters that did not differ, except +numerically, from his own. But the Jews are an obstinate, bigoted +people; and they have maintained their separation, not by any overruling +or coercing miracle, but in a way perfectly obvious and palpable to +themselves--obvious by its operation, obvious in its remedy. They would +not resign their customs. Upon these ordinances, positive and negative, +commanding and forbidding many peculiar rites, consecrating and +desecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the +stress and emphasis of religion. They would not resign them; they did +not expect others to adopt them--not in any case; _à fortiori_ not from +a degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of +Providential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to +blend with other races. + +This is the infidel's attempt to rebut, to defeat, utterly to confound, +the argumentative force of this most astonishing amongst all historical +pictures that the planet presents. + +The following is the answer: + +It is forgotten that along with the Jews there is another people +concerned as illustrations of the same prophetic fatality--of that same +inevitable eye, that same perspective of vision, which belonged to those +whose eyes God had opened. The Arabs, as children of a common ancestor, +ought not to be forgotten in this sentence upon their brother nation. +They through Ishmael, the Jews through Isaac, and more immediately +through Israel the son of Isaac, were two diverging branches of one +original stem; and to both was pronounced a corresponding doom--a +sentence which argued in both a principle of duration and +self-propagation, that is memorable in any race. The children of Ishmael +are the Arabs of the desert. Their destiny as a roving robber nation, +and liable to all men's hands, as they indifferently levied spoil on +all, was early pronounced. And here, again, we see at once how it will +be evaded: it is the desert, it is the climate, it is the solemnity of +that unchanging basis, which will secure the unchanging life of its +children. But it is remarkable enough that Gibbon and other infidels, +kicking violently against this standing miracle (because, if not so in +itself, yet, according to Bishop Butler's just explanation concerning +miraculous _per de_-_rivationem_ as recording a miraculous power of +vision), have by oscillation clung to the fixture of basis, and rejected +it; for now Gibbon denies that the Arabs have held this constant tenor +of life; they have changed it, he asserts, in large and notorious cases. +Well, then, if they have, then at once falls to the ground this alleged +overruling coercion _a priori_ of the climate and the desert. Climate +and desert do not necessarily coerce them, if in large and notorious +cases they have failed to do so. So feels Gibbon; and, by an instinct of +timidity, back he flies to the previous evasion--to the natural +controlling power of climate and soil, admitting the Scriptural fact, +but seeking for it an unscriptural ground, as before he had flown in +over-precipitate anxiety to the denial of the Scriptural fact, but in +that denial involving a withdrawal of the unscriptural ground. + +The sceptics in that instance show their secret sense of a preference +from the distracted eagerness with which they fly backwards and +forwardwise between two reciprocally hostile evasions. + +The answer I reserve, and meantime I remark: + +Secondly, that, supposing this answer to have any force, still it meets +only one moiety of the Scriptural fatality; viz., the dispersion of the +Jews--the fact that, let them be gathered in what numbers they might, +let them even be concentrated by millions, therefore in the literal +sense _not_ dispersed, yet in the political sense universally +understood, they would be dispersed, because never, in no instance, +rising to be a people, _sui juris_, a nation, a distinct community, +known to the public law of Europe as having the rights of peace and war, +but always a mere accident and vagrant excess amongst nations, not +having the bare rights of citizenship; so far from being a nation, not +being an acknowledged member of any nation. This exquisite +dispersion--not ethnographic only, but political--is that half of the +Scriptural malediction which the Boulanger answer attempts to meet; but +the other half--that they should be 'a byword, an astonishment,' +etc.--is entirely blinked. Had the work even prospered, it would still +have to recommence. The Armenians are dispersed through all Eastern +lands, so are the Arabs; even the descendants of Ali are found severed +from their natal soil; but they are not therefore dispersed: they have +endured no general indignities. + +Thirdly, it does not meet the fact of the Jewish _existence_ in any +shape, whether as a distinct or an amalgamated people. There is no doubt +that many races of men, as of brute animals, have been utterly +extinguished. In cases such as those of the Emim, or Rethinim, a race +distinguished by peculiar size, so as to be monstrous in comparison with +other men, this extinction could more readily be realized; or in the +case of a nation marked, as Herodotus records, by a slighter texture of +scale, the extinction might be ascertained by the physiologist; but no +doubt it has often occurred, precisely as a family is extinguished, or +as certain trees (for example, the true golden pippin) are observed to +die off, not by local influences only, but by a decay attacking the very +principle of their existence. Of many ancient races it is probable +enough that no blood directly traced from them could at this day be +searched by the eye of God. Families arise amongst the royal lineage of +Europe that suddenly, like a lamp fitfully glowing up just the moment +before it expires, throw off, as by some final effort, a numerous +generation of princes and princesses; then suddenly all contract as +rapidly into a single child, which perishing, the family is absolutely +extinct. And so must many nations have perished, and so must the Jews +have been pre-eminently exposed to perish, from the peculiar, fierce, +and almost immortal, persecutions which they have undergone, and the +horrid frenzies of excited mobs in cruel cities of which they have stood +the brunt. + + + + +_VIII. 'WHAT IS TRUTH?' THE JESTING PILATE SAID--A FALSE GLOSS._ + + +It is true that Pilate could not be expected fully to comprehend an idea +which was yet new to man; Christ's words were beyond his depth. But, +still, his natural light would guide him thus far--that, although he had +never heard of any truth which rose to that distinction, still, if any +one class of truth should in future come to eclipse all other classes of +truth immeasurably, as regarded its practical results, as regarded some +dark dependency of human interests, in that case it would certainly +merit the distinctive name of 'The Truth.' The case in which such a +distinction would become reasonable and available was one utterly +unrealized to his experience, not even within the light of his +conjectures as to its special conditions; but, still, as a general +possibility it was conceivable to his understanding; though not +comprehensible, yet apprehensible. And in going on to the next great +question, to the inevitable question, 'What _is_ the truth?' Pilate had +no thought of jesting. Jesting was the last thing of which his +impassioned mood in that great hour was capable. Roman magistrates of +supreme rank were little disposed to jesting on the judgment-seat +amongst a refractory and dangerous people; and of Pilate in particular, +every word, every effort, every act, demonstrate that he was agitated +with new instincts and misgivings of some shadowy revelation opening +upon man, that his heart was convulsed with desponding anxiety in the +first place to save the man who appeared the depositary of this +revelation, but who, if, after all, only a sublime lunatic, was, at the +very least, innocent of all offence. It must have struck all close +observers of early Christianity how large a proportion of the new +converts lay amongst Roman officers, or (to speak more adequately) +amongst Romans of high rank, both men and women. And for that there was +high reason. In the advance of civilization, and in the corresponding +decay of idolatrous religions, there was fast arising a new growth of +cravings amongst men. Mythological and desperately immoral religions, +that spoke only to the blind sense of power, had been giving way through +the three previous centuries to a fearful extent. They had receded from +the higher natures of both Greece and Rome as the sea has locally +receded from many shores of the earth. Such natures were left 'miserably +bare'; the sense of dependency by any tie upon the invisible world, or +at least upon the supernatural world, had decayed, and unless this +painful void were filled up by some supplementary bond in the same +direction, a condition of practical atheism must take place, such as +could not but starve and impoverish in human nature those yearnings +after the infinite which are the pledges of all internal grandeur. But +this dependency could not be replaced by one of the same vicious nature. +Into any new dependency a new element must be introduced. The sense of +insufficiency would be renewed in triple strength if merely the old +relations of weakness to power, of art to greater art, of intellect to +higher intellect, of less to more within the same exact limits as to +kind of excellence, should be rehearsed under new names or improved +theogonies. Hitherto, no relation of man to divine or demoniac powers +had included the least particle or fraction or hint of any moral +element; nor was such an element possible in that dependency, for +profound reasons. + + + + +_IX. WHAT SCALIGER SAYS ABOUT THE EPISTLE TO JUDE._ + + +Before any canon was settled, many works had become current in Christian +circles whose origin was dubious. The traditions about them varied +locally. Some, it is alleged, that would really have been entitled to a +canonical place, had been lost by accident; to some, which still +survived, this place had been refused upon grounds that might not have +satisfied _us_ of this day, if we had the books and the grounds of +rejection before us; and, finally, others, it is urged, have obtained +this sacred distinction with no right to it. In particular, the Second +Epistle of St. Peter, the Second of St. Jude, the Epistle of St. James, +and the three of St. John, are denounced as supposititious in the +'Scaligerana.' But the writer before us is wrong in laying any stress on +the opinions there expressed. They bear the marks of conversational +haste and of Scaligeran audacity. What is the objection made, for +instance, to 'in quibus sunt mira, quæ non _videntur_ esse Apostolica'? +_That_ is itself more strange as a criticism than anything in the +epistles _can_ be for its doctrine. The only thing tending to a reason +for the summary treatment is that the Eastern Church does not +acknowledge them for canonical. But opinions quoted from _ana_ are +seldom of any authority; indeed, I have myself too frequently seen the +unfaithfulness of such reports. The reporter, as he cannot decently be +taking notes at the time of speaking, endeavours afterwards to recall +the most interesting passages by memory. He forgets the context; what +introduced--what followed to explain or modify the opinions. He supplies +a conjectural context of his own, and the result is a romance. But if +the reporter were even accurate, so much allowance must be made for the +license of conversation--its ardour, its hurry, and its frequent +playfulness--that when all these deductions are made, really not a +fraction remains that one can honestly carry to account. Besides, the +elder Scaliger was drunk pretty often, and Joe seems rather 'fresh' at +times. + +Upon consideration, it may be as well to repeat what it is that Scaliger +is reported to have said: + +'The Epistle of Jude is not _his_, as neither is that of James, nor the +_second_ of Peter, in all which are strange things that seem (seem--mark +that!) far enough from being Apostolical. The three Epistles of John are +not from John the Apostle. The second of Peter and Jude belong to a +later age. The Eastern Church does not own them, neither are they of +evangelical authority. They are unlearned, and offer no marks of Gospel +majesty. As regards their internal value, believe them I may say that I +do, but it is because they are in no ways hostile to _us_.' + +Now, observe, the grounds of objection are purely æsthetical, except in +the single argument from the authority of the Eastern Church. What does +he mean by 'unlearned,' or wanting 'majesty,' or containing 'strange +things'? Were ever such vague puerilities collected into one short +paragraph? This is pure impertinence, and _Phil_. deserves to be +privately reprimanded for quoting such windy chaff without noting and +protesting it as colloquial. But what I wish the reader to mark--the +[Greek: tho hepimhythion]--is, that suppose the two Scaligers amongst +the Christian Fathers engaged in fixing the canon: greater learning you +cannot have; neither was there, to a dead certainty, one tenth part as +much amongst the canon-settlers. Yet all this marvellous learning fumes +away in boyish impertinence. It confounds itself. And every Christian +says, Oh, take away this superfluous weight of erudition, that, being so +rare a thing, cannot be wanted in the broad highways of religion. What +we _do_ want is humility, docility, reverence for God, and love for man. +These are sown broadcast amongst human hearts. Now, these apply +themselves to the _sense_ of Scripture, not to its grammatical niceties. +But if so, even that case shows indirectly how little could depend upon +the mere verbal attire of the Bible, when the chief masters of verbal +science were so ready to go astray--riding on the billows so imperfectly +moored. In the _ideas_ of Scripture lies its eternal anchorage, not in +its perishable words, which are shifting for ever like quicksands, as +the Bible passes by translation successively into every spoken language +of the earth. + +What then?--'What then?' retorts the angry reader after all this, 'why +then, perhaps, there may be a screw loose in the Bible.' True, there +may, and what is more, some very great scholars take upon them to assert +that there is. Yet, still, what then? The two possible errors open to +the Fathers of our canon, to the men upon whom rested the weighty task +of saying to all mankind what should be Bible, and what should be _not_ +Bible, of making and limiting that mighty world, are--that they may +have done that which they ought _not_ to have done, and, secondly, left +undone that which they ought to have done. They may have admitted +writers whom they ought to have excluded; and they may have excluded +writers whom they ought to have admitted. This is the extent of their +possible offences, and they are supposed by some critics to have +committed both. But suppose that they _have_, still I say--what then? +What is the nature of the wrong done to us by the worst mistake ascribed +to them? Let us consider. It is supposed by some scholars that we have +in the New Testament as it now stands a work written by Apollos, viz., +the Epistle to the Romans. Yet, if so, the error amounts only to a +misnomer. On the other hand, there are Epistles on which has been +charged the same error in relation to the name of the author, and the +more important error of thoughts unbecoming to a Christian in authority: +for instance, the Epistle of St. James. This charge was chiefly urged by +a very intemperate man, and in a very intemperate style. I notice it as +being a case which _Phil_. has noticed. But _Phil_. merits a gentle rap +on his knuckles for the inconsideration with which he has cited a charge +made and reported with so much levity. He quotes it from the +'Scaligerana.' Now, what right upon such a subject has any man to quote +such an authority? The reasons against listening with much attention to +the 'Scaligerana' are these: + +First, the Scaligers, both father and son, were the two most impudent +men that ever walked the planet. I should be loath to say so ill-natured +a thing as that their impudence was equal to their learning, because +that forces every man to say, 'Ah, then, what impudent fellows they +must have been!' It is kinder and juster to say that their learning was +at least equal to their impudence, for _that_ will force every man to +exclaim, 'Ah, if so, what prodigies of learning they must have been!' +Yes, they were--absolute monsters of learning, learned monsters. But as +much learning often makes men mad, still more frequently it makes them +furious for assault and battery; to use the American phrase, they grow +'wolfy about the shoulders,' from a periodical itchiness for fighting. +Other men being shy of attacking the Scaligers, it was no fault of +theirs, you know, but a necessity, to attack other men--unless you +expected them to have no fighting at all. It was always a reason with +_them_ for trying a fall with a writer, if they doubted much whether +they had any excuse for hanging a quarrel on. + +Secondly, all _ana_ whatever are bad authorities. Supposing the thing +really said, we are to remember the huge privilege of conversation, how +immeasurable is that! You yourself, reader, I presume, when talking, +will say more in an hour than you will stand to in a month. I'm sure _I_ +do. When the reins are put into my hands I stick at nothing--headlong I +drive like a lunatic, until the very room in which we are talking, with +all that it inherits, seems to spin round with absolute vertigo at the +extravagances I utter. + +Thirdly, but again, was the thing really said? For, as another censure +upon the whole library of _ana_, I can assert--that, if the license of +conversation is enormous, to that people who inhale that gas of +colloquial fermentation seldom mean much above one part in sixty of what +they say, on the other hand the license of reporters is far greater. To +forget the circumstances under which a thing was said is to alter the +thing, to have lost the context, the particular remark in which your +own originated, the mitigations of a harsh sentiment from playfulness of +manner; in short, to drop the _setting_ of the thoughts is oftentimes to +falsify the tendency and value of those thoughts. + + NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--The _Phil_. here referred to is the + _Philoleutheros Anglicanus_ of the essay on 'Protestantism,' as + shortened by De Quincey, and with whom De Quincey, in that essay, + deals very effectively and wittily on occasion. + + + + +_X. MURDER AS A FINE ART._ + +(SOME NOTES FOR A NEW PAPER.) + + +A new paper on Murder as a Fine Art might open thus: that on the model +of those Gentlemen Radicals who had voted a monument to Palmer, etc., it +was proposed to erect statues to such murderers as should by their +next-of-kin, or other person interested in their glory, make out a claim +either of superior atrocity, or, in equal atrocity, of superior +neatness, continuity of execution, perfect preparation or felicitous +originality, smoothness or _curiosa felicitas_ (elaborate felicity). The +men who murdered the cat, as we read in the Newgate Calendar, were good, +but Williams better who murdered the baby. And perhaps (but the hellish +felicity of the last act makes us demur) Fielding was superior. For you +never hear of a fire swallowing up a fire, or a rain stopping a deluge +(for this would be a reign of Kilkenny cats); but what fire, deluge, or +Kilkenny cats could not do, Fielding proposed, viz., to murder the +murderers, to become himself the Nemesis. Fielding was the murderer of +murderers in a double sense--rhetorical and literal. But that was, after +all, a small matter compared with the fine art of the man calling +himself Outis, on which for a moment we must dwell. Outis--so at all +events he was called, but doubtless he indulged in many aliases--at +Nottingham joined vehemently and sincerely, as it seemed, in pursuit of +a wretch taxed with having murdered, twelve years previously, a wife and +two children at Halifax, which wretch (when all the depositions were +before the magistrate) turned out to be the aforesaid Mr. Outis. That +suggests a wide field of speculation and reference.[9] + +Note the power of murderers as fine-art professors to make a new start, +to turn the corner, to retreat upon the road they have come, as though +it were new to them, and to make diversions that disarm suspicion. This +they owe to fortunate obscurity, which attests anew the wonderful +compensations of life; for celebrity and power combine to produce +drawbacks. + +A foreigner who lands in Calcutta at an hour which nobody can name, and +endeavours to effect a sneaking entrance at the postern-gate[10] of the +governor-general's palace, _may_ be a decent man; but this we know, that +he has cut the towing-rope which bound his own boat to the great ark of +his country. It may be that, in leaving Paris or Naples, he was simply +cutting the connection with creditors who showed signs of _attachment_ +not good for his health. But it may also be that he ran away by the +blaze of a burning inn, which he had fired in order to hide three +throats which he had cut, and nine purses which he had stolen. There is +no guarantee for such a man's character. Have we, then, no such +_vauriens_ at home? No, not in the classes standing favourably for +promotion. The privilege of safe criminality, not liable to exposure, is +limited to classes crowded together like leaves in Vallombrosa; for +_them_ to run away into some mighty city, Manchester or Glasgow, is to +commence life anew. They turn over a new leaf with a vengeance. Many are +the carpenters, bricklayers, bakers' apprentices, etc., who are now +living decently in Bristol, Newcastle, Hull, Liverpool, after marrying +sixteen wives, and leaving families to the care of twelve separate +parishes. That scamp is at this moment circulating and gyrating in +society, like a respectable _te-totum_, though we know not his exact +name, who, if he were pleased to reveal himself in seventeen parts of +this kingdom, where (to use the police language) he has been 'wanted' +for some years, would be hanged seventeen times running, besides putting +seventeen Government rewards into the pockets of seventeen policemen. +Oh, reader, you little know the unutterable romances perpetrated for +ever in our most populous empire, under cloud of night and distance and +utter poverty, Mark _that_--of utter poverty. Wealth is power; but it is +a jest in comparison of poverty. Splendour is power; but it is a joke to +obscurity. To be poor, to be obscure, to be a baker's apprentice or a +tailor's journeyman, throws a power about a man, clothes him with +attributes of ubiquity, _really_ with those privileges of concealment +which in the ring of Gyges were but fabulous. Is it a king, is it a +sultan, that such a man rivals? Oh, friend, he rivals a spiritual power. + +Two men are on record, perhaps many more _might_ have been on that +record, who wrote so many books, and perpetrated so many pamphlets, that +at fifty they had forgotten much of their own literary villainies, and +at sixty they commenced with murderous ferocity a series of answers to +arguments which it was proved upon them afterwards that they themselves +had emitted at thirty--thus coming round with volleys of small shot on +their own heads, as the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's begins to +retaliate any secrets you have committed to its keeping in echoing +thunders after a time, or as Sir John Mandeville under Arctic skies +heard in May all those curses thawing, and exploding like minute-guns, +which had been frozen up in November. Even like those self-replying +authors, even like those self-reverberators in St. Paul's, even like +those Arctic practitioners in cursing, who drew bills and _post obits_ +in malediction, which were to be honoured after the death of winter, +many men are living at this moment in merry England who have figured in +so many characters, illustrated so many villages, run away from so many +towns, and performed the central part in so many careers, that were the +character, the village, the town, the career, brought back with all its +circumstances to their memories, positively they would fail to recognise +their own presence or incarnation in their own acts and bodies. + +We have all read the story told by Addison of a sultan, who was +persuaded by a dervish to dip his head into a basin of enchanted water, +and thereupon found himself upon some other globe, a son in a poor +man's family, married after certain years the woman of his heart, had a +family of seven children whom he painfully brought up, went afterwards +through many persecutions, walked pensively by the seashore meditating +some escape from his miseries, bathed in the sea as a relief from the +noon-day heat, and on lifting up his head from the waves found himself +lifting up his head from the basin into which that cursed dervish had +persuaded him to dip. And when he would have cudgelled the holy man for +that long life of misery which had, through _his_ means, been inflicted +upon himself, behold! the holy man proved by affidavit that, in this +world, at any rate (where only he could be punishable), the life had +lasted but thirty-three seconds. Even so do the dark careers of many +amongst our obscure and migratory villains from years shrink up to +momentary specks, or, by their very multitude, altogether evanesce. +Burke and Hare, it is well known, had lost all count of their several +murders; they no more remembered, or could attempt to remember, their +separate victims, than a respectable old banker of seventy-three can +remember all the bills with their indorsements made payable for +half-a-century at his bank; or than Foote's turnpike-keeper, who had +kept all the toll-bar tickets to Kensington for forty-eight years, +pretended to recollect the features of all the men who had delivered +them at his gate. For a time, perhaps, Burke (who was a man of fine +sensibility) had a representative vision of spasms, and struggles, and +convulsions, terminating in a ten-pound note indorsed by Dr. ----. Hare, +on the other hand, was a man of principle, a man that you could depend +upon--order a corpse for Friday, and on Friday you had it--but he had +no feeling whatever. Yet see the unity of result for him and Burke. For +both alike all troublesome recollections gathered into one blue haze of +heavenly abstractions: orders executed with fidelity, cheques on the +bankers to be crossed and passed and cashed, are no more remembered. +That is the acme of perfection in our art. + + * * * * * + +One great class of criminals I am aware of in past times as having +specially tormented myself--the class who have left secrets, riddles, +behind them. What business has any man to bequeath a conundrum to all +posterity, unless he leaves in some separate channel the solution? This +must have been done in malice, and for the purpose of annoying us, lest +we should have too much proper enjoyment of life when he should have +gone. For nobody knows whether the scoundrel could have solved it +himself--too like in that respect to some charades which, in my boyish +days (but then I had the excuse of youth, which they had not), I not +unfrequently propounded to young ladies. Take this as a specimen: My +first raises a little hope; my second very little indeed; and my whole +is a vast roar of despair. No young lady could ever solve it; neither +could I. We all had to give it up. A charade that only needs an answer, +which, perhaps, some distant generation may supply, is but a half and +half, tentative approach to this. Very much of this nature was the +genius or Daimon (don't say _De_mon) of Socrates. How many thousands of +learned writers and printers have gone to sleep over too profound +attempts to solve _that_, which Socrates ought to have been able to +solve at sight. I am myself of opinion that it was a dram-bottle, which +someone raised a ghost to explain. Then the Entelecheia of Aristotle; +did you ever read about that, excellent reader? Most people fancy it to +have meant some unutterable crotchet in metaphysics, some horrible idea +(lest the police should be after it) without a name; that is, until the +Stagyrite repaired the injustice of his conduct by giving it a pretty +long one. My opinion now, as you are anxious to know it, is, that it was +a lady, a sweetheart of Aristotle's; for what was to hinder Aristotle +having a sweetheart? I dare say Thomas Aquinas, dry and arid as he was, +raised his unprincipled eyes to some Neapolitan beauty, began a sonnet +to some lady's eyebrow, though he might forget to finish it. And my +belief is that this lady, ambitious as Semele, wished to be introduced +as an eternal jewel into the great vault of her lover's immortal +Philosophy, which was to travel much farther and agitate far longer than +his royal pupil's conquests. Upon that Aristotle, keeping her hand, +said: 'My love, I'll think of it.' And then it occurred to him, that in +the very heavens many lovely ladies, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Ariadne, +etc., had been placed as constellations in that map which many +chronologists suppose to have been prepared for the use of the ship +_Argo_, a whole generation before the Trojan war. Berenice, though he +could not be aware of _that_, had interest even to procure a place in +that map for her ringlets; and of course for herself she might have. +Considering which, Aristotle said: 'Hang me! if I don't put her among +the ten Categories!' On after thoughts he put her higher, for an +Entelecheia is as much above a Category as our Padishah Victoria is +above a Turkish sultan. 'But now, Stag,' said the lady (privileged as a +sweetheart she called him _Stag_, though everybody else was obliged to +call him Stagyrite), 'how will they know it's meant for me, Stag?' Upon +which I am sorry to say the philosopher fell to cursing and swearing, +bestowing blessings on his own optics and on posterity's, meaning yours +and mine, saying: 'Let them find it out.' Well, now, you see I _have_ +found it out. But that is more than I hope for my crypto-criminals, and +therefore I take this my only way of giving them celebration and +malediction in one breath. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[9] Notwithstanding what he had written in the essay on the 'Essenes,' +no doubt De Quincey, if he had completed this paper, could not have +escaped characteristic, and perhaps grimly humorous, references of his +own to the Sicarii, of whom Josephus has a good deal to tell in his +'Jewish War'; for it seems to us his thoughts were bearing directly that +way. Josephus says of the Sicarii: 'In these days there arose another +sort of robbers in Jerusalem, who were named Sicarii, who slew men in +the day-time and in the middle of the city, more especially at the +festivals. There they mixed with the multitude, and having concealed +little daggers under their garments, with these they stabbed those that +were their enemies; and when any fell down dead, the murderers joined +the bystanders in expressing their indignation; so that from their +plausibilities they could by no means be discovered. The first man that +was slain by them was Jonathan the high-priest, after which many were +slain every day.'--ED. + +[10] 'Postern-gate.' See the legend of Sir Eustace the Crusader, and the +good Sir Hubert, who 'sounded the horn which he alone could sound,' as +told by Wordsworth. + + + + +_XI. ANECDOTES--JUVENAL._ + + +All anecdotes, as I have often remarked in print, are lies. It is +painful to use harsh words, and, knowing by my own feelings how much the +reader is shocked by this rude word _lies_, I should really be much +gratified if it were possible to supplant it by some gentler or more +courteous word, such as _falsehoods_, or even _fibs_, which dilutes the +atrocity of untruth into something of an amiable weakness, wrong, but +still venial, and natural (and so far, therefore, reasonable). Anything +for peace: but really in this instance I cannot indulge the reader. The +instincts of morality will not allow of it, and still less the passion +which made Juvenal a poet,[11] viz., the passion of enormous and bloody +indignation. From the beginning of this century, with wrath continually +growing, I have laid it down as a rule, and if the last year of it, +viz., A. D. 1900, should overhear _my_ voice amongst the babblings that +will then be troubling the atmosphere--in that case it will hear me +still reaffirming, with an indignation still gathering strength, and +therefore approaching ever nearer and nearer to a Juvenalian power of +versification, so that perhaps I shall then speak in rhymed +couplets--that all anecdotes pretending to be _smart_, but to a dead +certainty if they pretend to be _epigrammatic_, are and must be lies. +There is, in fact, no security for the truth of an anecdote, no +guarantee whatever, except its intense stupidity. If a man is searched +at a police-office, on the ground that he was caught trying the +window-shutters of silversmiths; then, if it should happen that in his +pockets is found absolutely nothing at all except one solitary +paving-stone, in that case Charity, which believeth all things (in fact, +is credulous to an anile degree), will be disposed to lock up the +paving-stone, and restore it to the man on his liberation as if it were +really his own, though philosophy mutters indignantly, being all but +certain that the fellow stole it. And really I have been too candid a +great deal in admitting that a man may appropriate an anecdote, and +establish his claim to it by pleading its awful stupidity. That might be +the case, and I believe it _was_, when anecdotes were many and writers +were few. But things are changed now. Fifty years ago, if a man were +seen running away with the pace of a lunatic, and you should sing out, +'Stop that fellow; he is running off with the shin-bone of my +great-grandmother!' all the people in the street would have cried out in +reply, 'Oh, nonsense! What should he want with your great-grandmother's +shin-bone?' and that would have seemed reasonable. But now, to see how +things are altered, any man of sense would reply, 'What should he want +with my great-grandmother's shin-bone? Why, he'll grind it, and then +he'll mix it with guano.' This is what he and the like of him have +actually done by shiploads of people far more entitled to consideration +than any one of my four great-grandmothers (for I had _four_, with eight +shin-bones amongst them). It is well known that the field of Waterloo +was made to render up all its bones, British or French, to certain +bone-mills in agricultural districts. Borodino and Leipzig, the two +bloodiest of modern battlefields, are supposed between them--what by the +harvest of battle, what by the harvest of neighbouring hospitals--to be +seized or possessed of four hundred thousand shin-bones, and other +interesting specimens to match. Negotiations have been proceeding at +various times between the leading bone-mills in England and the Jews in +Dresden or in Moscow. Hitherto these negotiations have broken down, +because the Jews stood out for 37 per shent., calculated upon the costs +of exhumation. But of late they show a disposition to do business at 33 +per shent.: the contract will therefore move forwards again; it will go +ahead; and the dust of the faithful armies, together with the dust of +their enemies, will very soon be found, not in the stopper of a bunghole +(as Prince Hamlet conceived too prematurely), but in an unprecedented +crop of Swedish turnips. + +Bones change their value, it seems thus clearly; and anecdotes change +their value; and in that proportion honesty, as regards one or the +other, changes the value of its chances. But what has all this to do +with 'Old Nick'? Stop: let me consider. That title was placed at the +head of this article, and I admit that it was placed there by myself. +Else, whilst I was wandering from my text, and vainly endeavouring to +recollect what it was that I had meant by this text, a random thought +came over me (immoral, but natural), that I would charge the heading of +_Old Nick_ upon the compositor, asserting that he had placed it there in +obstinate defiance of all the orders to the contrary, and supplications +to the contrary, that I had addressed to him for a month; by which means +I should throw upon _him_ the responsibility of accounting for so +portentous an ensign. + + * * * * * + + EDITOR'S NOTE.--It is evident that De Quincey meditated a much + longer essay on anecdotes as false, in which Niccolo Machiavelli + would have come in for notice--hence the playful references in the + close. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[11] '_The passion which made Juvenal a poet_.' The scholar needs no +explanation; but the reader whose scholarship is yet amongst his +futurities (which I conceive to be the civilest way of describing an +_ignoramus_) must understand that Juvenal, the Roman satirist, who was +in fact a predestined poet in virtue of his ebullient heart, that boiled +over once or twice a day in anger that could not be expressed upon +witnessing the enormities of domestic life in Rome, was willing to +forego all pretensions to natural power and inspiration for the sake of +obtaining such influence as would enable him to reprove Roman vices with +effect. + + + + +_XII. ANNA LOUISA._ + +SPECIMEN TRANSLATION FROM VOSS IN HEXAMETERS, WITH LETTER TO PROFESSOR +W. ('CHRISTOPHER NORTH'). + + +DR. NORTH, + +_Doctor_, I say, for I hear that the six Universities of England and +Scotland have sent you a doctor's degree, or, if they have not, all the +world knows they ought to have done; and the more shame for them if they +keep no 'Remembrancer' to put them in mind of what they must allow to be +amongst their most sacred duties. But that's all one. I once read in my +childhood a pretty book, called 'Wilson's Account of the Pelew Islands,' +at which islands, you know, H.M.S. _Antelope_ was wrecked--just about +the time, I fancy, when you, Doctor, and myself were in long petticoats +and making some noise in the world; the book was not written by Captain +Wilson, but by Keates, the sentimentalist. At the very end, however, is +an epitaph, and that _was_ written by the captain and ship's company: + + 'Stop, reader, stop, let nature claim a tear; + A prince of mine, Lee Boo, lies buried here.' + +This epitaph used often to make me cry, and in commemoration of that +effect, which (like that of all cathartics that I know of, no matter how +drastic at first) has long been growing weaker and weaker, I propose +(upon your allowing me an opportunity) to superscribe you in any +churchyard you will appoint: + + 'Stop, reader, stop, let genius claim a tear; + A doct'r of mine, Lee Kit, lies buried here.' + +'_Doct'r of_' you are to read into a dissyllable, and pretty much like +Boney's old friend on the road from Moscow, General Doct'roff, who +'doctor'd them off,' as the Laureate observes, and prescribed for the +whole French army _gratis_. But now to business. + +For _your_ information, Doctor, it cannot be necessary, but on account +of very many readers it will be so, to say that Voss's 'Luise' has long +taken its place in the literature of Germany as a classical work--in +fact, as a gem or cabinet _chef d'oeuvre_; nay, almost as their unique +specimen in any national sense of the lighter and less pretending muse; +less pretending, I mean, as to the pomp or gravity of the subject, but +on that very account more pretending as respects the minuter graces of +its execution. In the comparative estimate of Germans, the 'Luise' holds +a station corresponding to that of our 'Rape of the Lock,' or of +Gresset's 'Vert-vert'--corresponding, that is, in its _degree_ of +relative value. As to its _kind_ of value, some notion may be formed of +it even in that respect also from the 'Rape of the Lock,' but with this +difference, that the scenes and situations and descriptions are there +derived from the daily life and habits of a fashionable belle and the +fine gentlemen who surround her, whereas in the 'Luise' they are derived +exclusively from the homelier and more patriarchal economy of a rural +clergyman's household; and in this respect the 'Luise' comes nearest by +much, in comparison of any other work that I know of, to our own 'Vicar +of Wakefield.' Like that delightful portrait of rural life in a +particular aspect, or idyll as it might be called, the 'Luise' aims at +throwing open for our amusement the interior of a village parsonage +(_Scotice_, 'manse'); like that in its earlier half (for the latter half +of the 'Vicar' is a sad collapse from the truth and nature of the +original conception into the marvellous of a commonplace novel), the +'Luise' exhibits the several members of a rustic clergyman's family +according to their differences of sex, age, and standing, in their +natural, undisguised features, all unconsciously marked by +characteristic foibles, all engaged in the exercise of their daily +habits, neither finer nor coarser than circumstances naturally allow, +and all indulging in such natural hopes or fictions of romance as grow +out of their situation in life. The 'Luise,' in short, and the 'Vicar of +Wakefield' are both alike a succession of circumstantial delineations +selected from mere rustic life, but rustic life in its most pure and +intellectual form; for as to the noble countess in the 'Luise,' or the +squire and his uncle, Sir William, in the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' they do +not interfere sufficiently to disturb the essential level of the +movement as regards the incidents, or to colour the manners and the +scenery. Agreeing, however, in this general purpose, the two works +differ in two considerable features; one, that the 'Vicar of Wakefield' +describes the rural clergyman of England, 'Luise' the rural clergyman of +North Germany; the other, that the English idyll is written in prose, +the German in verse--both of which differences, and the separate +peculiarities growing out of them, will, it may perhaps be thought, +require a few words of critical discussion. + +There has always existed a question as to the true principles of +translation when applied, not to the mere literature of _knowledge_ +(because _there_ it is impossible that two opinions can arise, by how +much closer the version by so much the better), but to the literature of +_power_, and to such works--above all, to poems--as might fairly be +considered _works of art_ in the highest sense. To what extent the +principle of _compensation_ might reasonably be carried, the license, +that is, of departing from the strict literal forms of the original +writer, whether as to expressions, images, or even as to the secondary +thoughts, for the sake of reproducing them in some shape less repellent +to a modern ear, and therefore virtually sustaining the harmony of the +composition by preventing the attention from settling in a +disproportionate degree upon what might have a startling effect to a +taste trained under modern discipline--this question has always been +pending as a question open to revision before the modern courts of +criticism; as surely to you, Dr. North, one of the chief 'swells' on +that bench, I need not say. But, for the sake of accurate thinking, it +is worth while observing that formerly this question was moved almost +exclusively with a view to the Latin and Greek classics; and that +circumstance gave a great and a very just bias to the whole dispute. For +the difference with regard to any capital author of ancient days, as +compared with modern authors, is this, that here we have a twofold +interest--an interest with work, and a separate interest in the writer. +Take the 'Prometheus Desmotes' of Æschylus, and suppose that a +translator should offer us an English 'Prometheus,' which he +acknowledged to be very free, but at the same time contended that his +variations from the Greek were so many downright improvements, so that, +if he had not given us the genuine 'Prometheus,' he had given us +something better. In such a case we should all reply, but we do not want +something better. Our object is not the best possible drama that could +be produced on the fable of 'Prometheus'; what we want is the very +'Prometheus' that was written by Æschylus, the very drama that was +represented at Athens. The Athenian audience itself, and what pleased +its taste, is already one subject of interest. Æschylus on his own +account is another. These are collateral and alien subjects of interest +quite independent of our interest in the drama, and for the sake of +these we wish to see the real original 'Prometheus'--not according to +any man's notion of improvement, but such as came from a sublime Grecian +poet, such as satisfied a Grecian audience, more than two thousand years +ago. We wish, in fact, for the real Æschylus, 'unhousel'd, unaneal'd,' +with all his imperfections on his head. + +Such was the way, and the just way, of arguing the point when the +application was limited to a great authentic classic of the Antique; nor +was the case at all different where Ariosto or any other illustrious +Italian classic was concerned. But a new sort of casuistry in this +question has arisen in our own times, and by accident chiefly in +connection with German literature; but it may well be, Dr. North, that +you will be more diverted by a careful scrutiny of my metres after Voss +in illustration, than by any further dissertation on my part on a +subject that you know so well. + +Believe me, +Always yours admiringly, +X. Y. Z. + + +_The Parson's Dinner._ + + In the month of leafy June, beneath celestial azure + Of skies all cloudless, sate the aged Rector of Esthwaite + Dining amidst his household; but not the meridian ardour + Of sunbeams fierce he felt; him the shady veranda + With vine-clad trellis defends: beyond a pendulous awning + Of boughs self-wreath'd from limes (whose mighty limbs overarching + Spanned the low roof of the house) spreads far effectual umbrage + For young and old alike; noontide awfully breathless + Settled in deepest silence on the woods and valley of Esthwaite. + Yet not the less there would rise, after stillest interval often, 10 + Low whispering gales that stole, like sobbing murmur of infant + Dreaming in arms maternal, into the heart o' the youngest: + Gales that at most could raise a single ringlet of auburn + As it pencill'd the noble brow of the youthful Anna Louisa-- + Sole child that survived to thee, oh, aged pastor of Esthwaite. + Clad in his morning gown, the reverend priest at a table + Of sculptur'd stone was seated; and his seat was a massy but easy + Settle of oak, which in youth his ancient servitor, Isaac, + Footman, sexton, and steward, butler and gardener also, + Carved by the winter fire in nights of gloomy November, + And through many a long, long night of many a dark December. 21 + The good man's heart was glad, and his eyes were suffus'd with a + rapture + Of perfect love as they settled on her--that pulse of his heart's + blood, + The one sole prop of his house, the beautiful Anna Louisa. + By the side of himself sate his wife, that ancient tamer of + housemaids,[12] + Yet kind of heart as a dove, and with matron graces adorning + Her place as she sate dispensing hospitality boundless + To the strangers within her gates; for, lo! two strangers on one side + Sate of the long stone table; yet strangers by manner or action + One would not suppose them; nor were they, but guests ever honour'd, 30 + And dear to each heart in the house of th' ancient Rector of + Esthwaite. + The elder of them was called Augustus Harry Delancey, + And he rode as a cornet of horse in the mighty imperial army. + Him had the parents approved (and those were melodious accents, + The sweetest he ever had heard) as suitor of Anna Louisa. + But from lips more ruby far--far more melodious accents + Had reach'd his ears since then; for she, the daughter, her own self, + Had condescended at last to utter sweet ratification + Of all his hopes; low whisp'ring the 'yes'--celestial answer + That raised him to paradise gates on pinion[13] of expectation. 40 + Over against his beloved he sate--the suitor enamour'd: + And God He knows that indeed should it prove an idolatrous error + To look in the eyes of a lady till you feel a dreamy devotion, + I fear for the health of your soul that day, oh, Harry Delancey! + Next to Delancey there sate his pupil, Magnus Adolphus, + A fair-haired boy of ten, half an orphan, a count of the empire-- + Magnus Adolphus of Arnstein, that great Bavarian earldom. + Him had his widowed mother, the noble Countess of Arnstein, + Placed with Delancey betimes, as one in knightly requirements + Skilful and all-accomplished, that he the 'youthful idea'[14] 50 + Might 'teach how to shoot' (with a pistol, videlicet),--horses + To mount and to manage with boldness, hounds to follow in hunting + The fox, the tusky boar, the stag with his beautiful antlers: + Arts, whether graceful or useful, in arms or equestrian usage, + Did Augustus impart to his pupil, the youthful earl of the empire. + To ride with stirrups or none, to mount from the near-side or off-side + (Which still is required in the trooper who rides in the Austrian + army), + To ride with bridle or none, on a saddle Turkish or English, + To force your horse to curvet, pirouette, dance on his haunches, + And whilst dancing to lash with his feet, and suggest an effectual + hinting 60 + To the enemy's musqueteers to clear the road for the hinter: + Or again, if you want a guide by night, in a dangerous highway + Beset with the enemies' marksmen and swarming with murderous ambush, + To train your horse in the art of delicate insinuation, + Gently raising a hoof to tap at the door o' the woodsman. + But, if he persists in snoring, or pretending to snore, or is angry + At your summons to leave his lair in the arms of his wife or his + infants, + To practise your horse in the duty of stormy recalcitration, + Wheeling round to present his heels, and in mid caracoling + To send the emperor's greeting smack through the panel of oakwood[15] 70 + That makes the poor man so hard of hearing imperial orders. + Arts such as these and others, the use of the sabre on horseback, + All modes of skill gymnastic, modes whether forceful or artful, + Of death-grapple if by chance a cannon-shot should un-horse you, + All modes of using the limbs with address, with speed, or enormous + Effort of brutal strength, all this did Harry Delancey + Teach to his docile pupil: and arts more nobly delightful, + Arts of the head or the heart, arts intellectual; empire + Over dead men's books, over regions of high meditation, + Comparative tactics, warfare as then conducted in ages + When powder was none, nor cannon, but brute catapultæ, 81 + Blind rams, brainless wild asses, the stony slinger of huge + stones.[16] + Iron was lord of the world; iron reigned, man was his engine; + But now the rule is reversed, man binds and insults over iron. + Together did they, young tutor, young pupil, Augustus, Adolphus, + Range over history martial, or read strategical authors, + Xenophon, Arrian, old Polybius, old Polyænus + (Think not these Polys, my boy, were blooming Pollies of our days!), + And above all others, they read the laurel'd hero of heroes, + Thrice kingly Roman Julius, sun-bright leader of armies, + Who planted his god-like foot on the necks of a whole generation. 91 + Such studies, such arts were those by which young Harry Delancey + Sought to discharge the trust which to him the Lady of Arnstein + Confided with hopes maternal; thus trained, he hoped that Adolphus + Would shine in his native land, for high was his place in the empire. + + EDITOR'S NOTE.--This was, of course, written for _Blackwood's + Magazine_; but it never appeared there. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] 'That tamer of housemaids': [Greek: Hektoros ippodamoio]--of +Hector, the tamer of horses ('Iliad'). + +[13] 'On pinion of expectation.' Here I would request the reader to +notice that it would have been easy for me to preserve the regular +dactylic close by writing '_pinion of anticipation_;' as also in the +former instance of '_many a dark December_' to have written '_many a +rainy December_.' But in both cases I preferred to lock up by the massy +spondaic variety; yet never forgetting to premise a dancing +dactyle--'many a'--and 'pinion of.' Not merely for variety, but for a +separate effect of peculiar majesty. + +[14] Alluding to a ridiculous passage in Thomson's 'Seasons': + + 'Delightful task! to teach the young idea how to shoot.' + +[15] All these arts, viz., teaching the horse to fight with his forelegs +or lash out with his hind-legs at various angles in a general melée of +horse and foot, but especially teaching him the secret of 'inviting' an +obstinate German boor to come out and take the air strapped in front of +a trooper, and do his duty as guide to the imperial cavalry, were +imported into the Austrian service by an English riding-master about the +year 1775-80. And no doubt it must have been horses trained on this +learned system of education from which the Highlanders of Scotland +derived their terror of cavalry. + +[16] 'Blind rams, brainless wild asses,' etc. The 'arietes,' or +battering-rams with iron-bound foreheads, the 'onagri,' or wild asses, +etc., were amongst the poliorcetic engines of the ancients, which do not +appear to have received any essential improvement after the time of the +brilliant Prince Demetrius, the son of Alexander's great captain, +Antigonus. + + + + +_XIII. SOME THOUGHTS ON BIOGRAPHY._ + + +We have heard from a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie's 'De +Montford,' notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London +theatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the +superb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his +incomparable sister, that this unexpected disappointment began with the +gallery, who could not comprehend or enter into a hatred so fiendish +growing out of causes so slight as any by possibility supposable in the +trivial Rezenvelt. To feel teased by such a man, to dislike him, +occasionally to present him with your compliments in the shape of a +duodecimo kick--well and good, nothing but right. And the plot +manifestly tended to a comic issue. But murder!--a Macbeth murder!--not +the injury so much as the man himself was incommensurate, was too slight +by a thousand degrees for so appalling a catastrophe. It reacts upon De +Montford, making _him_ ignoble that could be moved so profoundly by an +agency so contemptible. + +Something of the same disproportion there is, though in a different way, +between any quarrel that may have divided us from a man in his life-time +and the savage revenge of pursuing the quarrel after his death through a +malicious biography. Yet, if you hated him through no quarrel, but +simply (as we all hate many men that died a thousand years ago) for +something vicious, or which you think vicious, in his modes of thinking, +why must you, of all men, be the one to undertake an edition of his +works, 'with a life of the author'? Leave that to some neutral writer, +who neither loves nor hates. And whilst crowds of men need better +biographical records whom it is easy to love and not difficult to +honour, do not you degrade your own heart or disgust your readers by +selecting for your exemplification not a model to be imitated, but a +wild beast to be baited or a criminal to be tortured? We privately hate +Mr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmsbury; we know much evil of him, and we could +expose many of his tricks effectually. We also hate Dean Swift, and upon +what we think substantial arguments. Some of our own contemporaries we +hate particularly; Cobbett, for instance, and other bad fellows in +fustian and corduroys. But for that very reason we will not write their +lives. Or, if we should do so, only because they might happen to stand +as individuals in a series, and after warning the reader of our own +bias. For it is too odious a spectacle to imprison a fellow-creature in +a book, like a stag in a cart, and turn him out to be hunted through all +his doubles for a day's amusement. It too much resembles that case of +undoubted occurrence both in France and Germany, where 'respectable' +individuals, simply as amateurs, and not at all with any view to the +salary or fees of operating, have come forward as candidates for the +post of public executioner. What is every man's duty is no man's duty by +preference. And unless where a writer is thrust upon such a duty by an +official necessity (as, if he contracts for a 'Biographia Britannica,' +in that case he is bound by his contract to go through with the whole +series--rogues and all), it is too painful to see a human being courting +and wooing the task of doing execution upon his brother in his grave. +Nay, even in the case where this executioner's task arises spontaneously +out of some duty previously undertaken without a thought of its severer +functions, we are still shocked by any exterminating vengeance too +rancorously pursued. Every reader must have been disgusted by the +unrelenting persecution with which Gifford, a deformed man, with the +spiteful nature sometimes too developed in the deformed, had undertaken +'for our fathers in the Row' an edition of Massinger. Probably he had +not thought at the time of the criminals who would come before him for +judgment. But afterwards it did not embitter the job that these +perquisites of office accrued, _lucro ponatur_, that such offenders as +Coxeter, Mr. Monck Mason, and others were to be 'justified' by course of +law. Could he not have stated their errors, and displaced their rubbish, +without further personalities? However, he does _not_, but makes the air +resound with his knout, until the reader wishes Coxeter in his throat, +and Monck Mason, like 'the cursed old fellow' in Sinbad, mounted with +patent spurs upon his back. + +We shall be interrupted, however, and _that_ we certainly foresee, by +the objection--that we are fighting with shadows, that neither the +_éloge_ in one extreme, nor the libel in the other extreme, finds a +place in _our_ literature. Does it not? Yes, reader, each of these +biographical forms exists in favour among us, and of one it is very +doubtful indeed whether it ought not to exist. The _éloge_ is found +abundantly diffused through our monumental epitaphs in the first place, +and _there_ every man will countersign Wordsworth's judgment (see 'The +Excursion' and also Wordsworth's prose Essay on Epitaphs), that it is a +blessing for human nature to find one place in this world sacred to +charitable thoughts, one place at least offering a sanctuary from evil +speaking. So far there is no doubt. But the main literary form, in which +the English _éloge_ presents itself, is the Funeral Sermon. And in this +also, not less than in the churchyard epitaph, kind feeling ought to +preside; and for the same reasons, the sanctity of the place where it is +delivered or originally published, and the solemnity of the occasion +which has prompted it; since, if you cannot find matter in the departed +person's character fertile in praise even whilst standing by the +new-made grave, what folly has tempted you into writing an epitaph or a +funeral sermon? The good ought certainly to predominate in both, and in +the epitaph nothing _but_ the good, because were it only for a reason +suggested by Wordsworth, viz., the elaborate and everlasting character +of a record chiselled out painfully in each separate letter, it would be +scandalous to confer so durable an existence in stone or marble upon +trivial human infirmities, such as do not enter into the last solemn +reckoning with the world beyond the grave; whilst, on the other hand, +all graver offences are hushed into 'dread repose,' and, where they +happen to be too atrocious or too memorable, are at once a sufficient +argument for never having undertaken any such memorial. These +considerations privilege the epitaph as sacred to charity, and tabooed +against the revelations of candour. The epitaph cannot open its scanty +records to any breathing or insinuation of infirmity. But the Funeral +Sermon, though sharing in the same general temper of indulgence towards +the errors of the deceased person, might advantageously be laid open to +a far more liberal discussion of those personal or intellectual +weaknesses which may have thwarted the influence of character otherwise +eminently Christian. The _Oraison Funèbre_ of the French proposes to +itself by its original model, which must be sought in the _Epideictic_ +or panegyrical oratory of the Greeks, a purpose purely and exclusively +eulogistic: the problem supposed is to abstract from everything _not_ +meritorious, to expand and develop the total splendour of the individual +out of that one centre, that main beneficial relation to his own age, +from which this splendour radiated. The incidents of the life, the +successions of the biographical detail, are but slightly traced, no +farther, in fact, than is requisite to the intelligibility of the +praises. Whereas, in the English Funeral Sermon, there is no principle +of absolute exclusion operating against the minutest circumstantiations +of fact which can tend to any useful purpose of illustrating the +character. And what is too much for the scale of a sermon literally +preached before a congregation, or modelled to counterfeit such a mode +of address, may easily find its place in the explanatory notes. This is +no romance, or ideal sketch of what might be. It is, and it has been. +There are persons of memorable interest in past times, of whom all that +we know is embodied in a funeral sermon. For instance, Jeremy Taylor in +that way, or by his Epistles Dedicatory, has brought out the +characteristic features in some of his own patrons, whom else we should +have known only as _nominis umbras_. But a more impressive illustration +is found in the case of John Henderson, that man of whom expectations so +great were formed, and of whom Dr. Johnson and Burke, after meeting and +conversing with him, pronounced (in the Scriptural words of the +Ethiopian queen applied to the Jewish king, Solomon) 'that the half had +not been told them.' For this man's memory almost the sole original +record exists in Aguttar's funeral sermon; for though other records +exist, and one from the pen of a personal friend, Mr. Joseph Cottle, of +Bristol, yet the main substance of the biography is derived from the +_fundus_ of this one sermon.[17] And it is of some importance to cases +of fugitive or unobtrusive merit that this more quiet and sequestered +current of biography should be kept open. For the local motives to an +honorary biographical notice, in the shape of a Funeral Sermon, will +often exist, when neither the materials are sufficient, nor a writer +happens to be disposable, for a labour so serious as a regular +biography. + +Here then, on the one side, are our English _éloges_. And we may add +that amongst the Methodists, the Baptists, and other religious +sectaries, but especially among the missionaries of all nations and +churches, this class of _éloges_ is continually increasing. Not +unfrequently men of fervent natures and of sublime aspirations are thus +rescued from oblivion, whilst the great power of such bodies as the +Methodists, their growing wealth, and consequent responsibility to +public opinion, are pledges that they will soon command all the +advantages of colleges and academic refinement; so that if, in the +manner of these funeral _éloges_, there has sometimes been missed that +elegance which should have corresponded to the weight of the matter, +henceforwards we may look to see this disadvantage giving way before +institutions more thoroughly matured. But if these are our _éloges_, on +the other hand, where are our libels? + +This is likely to be a topic of offence, for many readers will start at +hearing the upright Samuel Johnson and the good-humoured, garrulous +Plutarch denounced as traffickers in libel. But a truth is a truth. And +the temper is so essentially different in which men lend themselves to +the propagation of defamatory anecdotes, the impulses are so various to +an offence which is not always consciously perceived by those who are +parties to it, that we cannot be too cautious of suffering our hatred of +libel to involve every casual libeller, or of suffering our general +respect for the person of the libeller to exonerate him from the charge +of libelling. Many libels are written in this little world of ours +unconsciously, and under many motives. Perhaps we said that before, but +no matter. Sometimes a gloomy fellow, with a murderous cast of +countenance, sits down doggedly to the task of blackening one whom he +hates worse 'than toad or asp.' For instance, Procopius performs that +'labour of hate' for the Emperor Justinian, pouring oil into his wounds, +but, then (as Coleridge expresses it in a 'neat' sarcasm), oil of +vitriol. Nature must have meant the man for a Spanish Inquisitor, sent +into the world before St. Dominic had provided a trade for him, or any +vent for his malice--so rancorous in his malignity, so horrid and +unrelenting the torture to which he subjects his sovereign and the +beautiful Theodora. In this case, from the withering scowl which +accompanies the libels, we may be assured that they _are_ such in the +most aggravated form--not malicious only, but false. It is commonly +said, indeed, in our courts, that truth it is which aggravates the +libel. And so it is as regards the feelings or the interests of the man +libelled. For is it not insufferable that, if a poor man under common +human infirmity shall have committed some crime and have paid its +penalty, but afterwards reforming or out-growing his own follies, seeks +to gain an honest livelihood for his children in a place which the +knowledge of his past transgression has not reached, then all at once he +is to be ruined by some creature purely malignant who discovers and +publishes the secret tale? In such a case most undoubtedly it is the +truth of the libel which constitutes its sting, since, if it were not +true or could be made questionable, it would do the poor man no +mischief. But, on the other hand, it is the falsehood of the libel which +forms its aggravation as regards the publisher. And certain we are, had +we no other voucher than the instinct of our hatred to Procopius, that +his disloyal tales about his great lord and lady are odiously +overcharged, if not uniformly false. Gibbon, however, chooses to gratify +his taste for the luxury of scandal by believing at once in the perfect +malice of the slanderer, and the perfect truth of his slanders. + +Here then, in this Procopius, is an instance of the gloomy libeller, +whose very gloom makes affidavit of his foul spirit from the first. +There is also another form, less odious, of the hostile libeller: it +occurs frequently in cases where the writer is not chargeable with +secret malice, but is in a monstrous passion. A shower-bath might be of +service in that case, whereas in the Procopius case nothing but a +copious or a _Pro_copius application of the knout can answer. We, for +instance, have (or had, for perhaps it has been stolen) a biography of +that same Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, with whom Andrew Marvell +'and others who called Milton friend' had such rough-and-tumble feuds +about 1666, and at whose expense it was that Marvell made the whole +nation merry in his 'Rehearsal Transprosed.' This Parker had a 'knack' +at making himself odious; he had a _curiosa felicitas_ in attracting +hatreds, and wherever he lodged for a fortnight he trailed after him a +vast parabolic or hyperbolic tail of enmity and curses, all smoke and +fire and tarnish, which bore the same ratio to his small body of merit +that a comet's tail, measuring billions of miles, does to the little +cometary mass. The rage against him was embittered by politics, and +indeed sometimes by knavish tricks; the first not being always +'confounded,' nor the last 'frustrated.' So that Parker, on the whole, +was a man whom it might be held a duty to hate, and therefore, of +course, to knout as often as you could persuade him to expose a fair +extent of surface for the action of the lash. Many men purchased a knout +for his sake, and took their chance for getting a 'shy' at him, as +Parker might happen to favour their intentions. But one furious +gentleman, who is resolved to 'take his full change' out of Parker, and +therefore to lose no time, commences operations in the very first words +of his biography: 'Parker,' says he, 'the author of ----, was the _spawn_ +of Samuel Parker.' His rage will not wait for an opportunity; he throws +off a torrent of fiery sparks in advance, and gives full notice to +Parker that he will run his train right into him, if he can come up with +his rear. This man is not malicious, but truculent; like the elder +Scaliger, of whom it was observed that, having been an officer of +cavalry up to his fortieth year (when he took to learning Greek), he +always fancied himself on horseback, charging, and cutting throats in +the way of professional duty, as often as he found himself summoned to +pursue and 'cut up' some literary delinquent. Fire and fury, 'bubble and +squeak,' is the prevailing character of his critical composition. 'Come, +and let me give thee to the fowls of the air,' is the cry with which the +martial critic salutes the affrighted author. Yet, meantime, it is +impossible that he can entertain any personal malice, for he does not +know the features of the individual enemy whom he is pursuing. But thus +far he agrees with the Procopian order of biographers--that both are +governed, in whatever evil they may utter, by a spirit of animosity: one +by a belligerent spirit which would humble its enemy as an enemy in a +fair pitched battle, the other by a subtle spirit of malice, which would +exterminate its enemy not in that character merely, but as an individual +by poison or by strangling. + +Libels, however, may be accredited and published where there is no +particle of enmity or of sudden irritation. Such were the libels of +Plutarch and Dr. Johnson. They are libels prompted by no hostile +feelings at all, but adopted by mere blind spirit of credulity. In this +world of ours, so far as we are acquainted with its doings, there are +precisely four series--four aggregate bodies--of _Lives_, and no more, +which you can call celebrated; which _have_ had, and are likely to have, +an extensive influence--each after its own kind. Which be they? To +arrange them in point of time, first stand Plutarch's lives of eminent +Greeks and Romans; next, the long succession of the French Memoirs, +beginning with Philippe de Commines, in the time of Louis XI. or our +Edward IV., and ending, let us say, with the slight record of himself +(but not without interest) of Louis XVIII.; thirdly, the _Acta +Sanctorum_ of the Bollandists; fourthly, Dr. Johnson's 'Lives of the +Poets.' The third is a biographical record of the Romish saints, +following the order of the martyrology as it is digested through the +Roman calendar of the year; and, as our own 'Biographia Britannica' has +only moved forwards in seventy years to the letter 'H,' or thereabouts +(which may be owing to the dissenting blight of Dr. Kippis), _pari +passu_, the _Acta Sanctorum_ will be found not much farther advanced +than the month of May--a pleasant month certainly, but (as the +_Spectator_ often insinuates) perilous to saintship. Laying this work +out of consideration, as being chiefly employed in eulogy such as +_could_ not be extravagant when applied to the glorious army of martyrs +(although here also, we doubt not, are many libels against men +concerning whom it matters little whether they were libelled or not), +all the rest of the great biographical works are absolutely saturated +with libels. Plutarch may be thought to balance his extravagant slanders +by his impossible eulogies. He sees nothing wonderful in actions that +were far beyond the level of any motives existing under pagan +moralities; and, on the other hand, he traduces great men like Cæsar, +whose natures were beyond his scale of measurement, by tracing their +policy to petty purposes entirely Plutarchian. But he was a Greekling in +a degenerate age of Grecians. As to the French Memoirs, which are often +so exceedingly amusing, they purchase their liveliness by one eternal +sacrifice of plain truth. Their repartees, felicitous _propos_, and +pointed anecdotes are but one rolling fire of falsehoods. And, +generally, it may be laid down as a rule, that all collectors of happy +retorts and striking anecdotes are careless of truth. Louis XIV. _does_ +seem to have had a natural gift of making brilliant compliments and +happy impromptus; and yet the very best of his reputed _mots_ were +spurious. Some may be traced to Cicero, Hierocles, Diogenes; and some to +his modern predecessors. That witty remark ascribed to him about the +disposition of Fortune, as being a lady, to withdraw her favours from +old men like himself and the Maréchal Boufflers, was really uttered +nearly two centuries before by the Emperor Charles V., who probably +stole it from some Spanish collection of jests. And so of fifty in every +hundred beside. And the French are not only apt beyond other nations to +abuse the license of stealing from our predecessor _quod licuit +semperque licebit_, but also, in a degree peculiar to themselves, they +have a false de-naturalized taste in the humorous, and as to the limits +of the extravagant. We have formerly illustrated this point, and +especially we noticed it as a case impossible to any nation _but_ the +French to have tolerated the pretended 'absences' of La Fontaine--as, +for instance, his affecting to converse with his own son as an entire +stranger, and asking the lady who had presented him what might be the +name of that amiable young man. The _incredulus odi_ faces one in every +page of a French memoir; veracity is an unknown virtue, and, wherever +that is the taste, look for libels by wholesale. Too often even the +unnatural and the monstrous is courted, rather than miss the object of +arresting and startling. Now, Dr. Johnson's calumnies or romances were +not of that order. He had a healthy spirit of reverence for truth; but +he was credulous to excess, and he was plagued by an infirmity not +uncommon amongst literary men who have no families of young people +growing up around their hearth--the hankering after gossip. He was +curious about the domestic habits of his celebrated countrymen; +inquisitive in a morbid degree about their pecuniary affairs: 'What have +you got in that pocket which bulges out so prominently?' 'What did your +father do with that hundred guineas which he received on Monday from +Jacob Jonson?' And, as his 'swallow' was enormous--as the Doctor would +believe more fables in an hour than an able-bodied liar would invent in +a week--naturally there was no limit to the slanders with which his +'Lives of the Poets' are overrun. + +Of the four great biographical works which we have mentioned, we hold +Dr. Johnson's to be by far the best in point of composition. Even +Plutarch, though pardonably overrated in consequence of the great +subjects which he treats (which again are 'great' by benefit of distance +and the vast abstracting process executed by time upon the petty and the +familiar), is loose and rambling in the principles of his _nexus_; and +there lies the great effort for a biographer, there is the strain, and +that is the task--viz., to weld the disconnected facts into one +substance, and by interfusing natural reflections to create for the +motions of his narrative a higher impulse than one merely chronologic. +In this respect, the best of Dr. Johnson's 'Lives' are undoubtedly the +very best which exist. They are the most highly finished amongst all +masterpieces of the biographic art, and, as respects the Doctor +personally, they are, beyond comparison, his best work. It is a great +thing in any one art or function, even though it were not a great one, +to have excelled all the literature of all languages. And if the reader +fancies that there lurks anywhere a collection of lives, or even one +life (though it were the 'Agricola' of Tacitus), which as a work of +refined art and execution can be thought equal to the best of Dr. +Johnson's, we should be grateful to him if he would assign it in a +letter to Mr. Blackwood: + + 'And though the night be raw, + We'll see it too, the first we ever saw.' + +We say nothing of the Calmuck Tartars; they hold (see Bergmann's +'Streifereien') that their 'Dschangariade' is the finest of all epic +poems, past or coming; and, therefore, the Calmuck Lives of the Poets +will naturally be inimitable. But confining our view to the unhappy +literatures of Europe, ancient or modern, this is what we think of Dr. +Johnson's efforts as a biographer. Consequently, we cannot be taxed with +any insensibility to his merit. And as to the critical part of his +Lives, if no thoughtful reader can be expected to abide by his haughty +decisions, yet, on the other hand, every man reads his opinions with +pleasure, from the intellectual activity and the separate justice of the +thoughts which they display. But as to his libellous propensity, that +rests upon independent principles; for all his ability and all his logic +could not elevate his mind above the region of gossip. + +Take his 'Life of Savage.' This was the original nest-egg, upon which, +as a basis, and perhaps as the occasional suggestion of such an +enterprise, all the rest--allow us a pompous word--supervened. It was +admirably written, because written _con amore_, and also because written +_con odio_; and under either impulse is it possible to imagine grosser +delusions? Johnson persuaded himself that Savage was a fine gentleman (a +_rôle_ not difficult to support in that age, when ceremony and a +gorgeous _costume_ were amongst the auxiliary distinctions of a +gentleman), and also that he was a man of genius. The first claim was +necessarily taken upon trust by the Doctor's readers; the other might +have been examined; but after a few painful efforts to read 'The +Wanderer' and other insipid trifles, succeeding generations have +resolved to take _that_ upon trust also; for in very truth Savage's +writings are of that order which 'do not let themselves be read.' Why, +then, had publishers bought them? Publishers in those days were mere +tradesmen, without access to liberal society. Even Richardson, though a +man of great genius, in his publisher's character was an obsequious, +nay, servile, admirer of the fine gentleman who wore a sword, +embroidered clothes, and Mechlin ruffles about his wrists; above all +things, he glorified and adored a Lovelace, with a fine person, who sang +gaily to show his carelessness of low people, never came abroad except +in a sedan-chair, and liberally distributed his curses to the right and +the left in all respectable men's shops. This temper, with her usual +sagacity, Lady M. Wortley Montagu could detect in Richardson, and for +this she despised him. But this it was, and some little vision of +possible patronage from Lord Tyrconnel, which had obtained any prices at +all for Savage from such knowing publishers as were then arising; but +generally Savage had relied upon subscriptions, which were still common, +and, in his case, as a man supposed unfortunate, were given purely as +charity. With what astonishment does a literary foreigner of any +judgment find a Savage placed amongst the classics of England! and from +the scale of his life reasonably he must infer that he is ranked amongst +the leaders, whilst the extent in which his works are multiplied would +throw him back upon the truth--that he is utterly unknown to his +countrymen. These, however, were the delusions of good nature. But what +are we to think of Dr. Johnson's abetting that monstrous libel against +Lady Macclesfield? She, unhappily, as a woman banished without hope from +all good society by her early misconduct as a wife (but, let it not be +forgotten, a neglected wife), had nobody to speak a word on her behalf: +all evil was believed of one who had violated her marriage vows. But had +the affair occurred in our days, the public journals would have righted +her. They would have shown the folly of believing a vain, conceited man +like Savage and his nurse, with no vouchers whatever, upon a point where +they had the deepest interest at stake; whilst on the opposite side, +supposing their story true, spoke for them the strongest of all natural +instincts--the pleading of the maternal heart, combated by no +self-interest whatever. Surely if Lady Macclesfield had not been +supported by indignation against an imposture, merely for her own ease +and comfort, she would have pensioned Savage, or have procured him some +place under Government--not difficult in those days for a person with +her connections (however sunk as respected _female_ society) to have +obtained for an only son. In the sternness of her resistance to all +attempts upon her purse we read her sense of the fraud. And, on the +other hand, was the conduct of Savage that of a son? He had no legal +claims upon her, consequently no pretence for molesting her in her +dwelling-house. And would a real son--a great lubberly fellow, well able +to work as a porter or a footman--however wounded at her obstinate +rejection, have been likely, in pursuit of no legal rights, to have +alarmed her by threatening letters and intrusions, for no purpose but +one _confessedly_ of pecuniary extortion? From the very mode of pursuing +his claim it is plain that Savage felt it to be a false one. It seems, +also, to be forgotten by most readers, that at this day real sons--not +denied to be such--are continually banished, nay, ejected forcibly by +policemen, from the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate +conduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still +he was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been +consigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax. + +Savage, however, is but a single case, in relation to which Dr. Johnson +stood in a special position, that diseased his judgment. But look at +Pope's life, at Swift's, at Young's--at all the lives of men +contemporary with himself: they are overrun with defamatory stories, or +traits of that order which would most have stung them, had they returned +to life. But it was an accident most beneficial to Dr. Johnson that +nearly all these men left no near relatives behind to call him to +account. The public were amused, as they always are by exhibitions of +infirmity or folly in one whom otherwise they were compelled to admire; +that was a sort of revenge for them to set off against a painful +perpetuity of homage. Thus far the libels served only as jests, and, +fortunately for Dr. Johnson, there arose no after-reckoning. One period, +in fact, of thirty years had intervened between the last of these men +and the publication of the Lives; it was amongst the latest works of Dr. +Johnson: thus, and because most of them left no descendants, he escaped. +Had the ordinary proportion of these men been married, the result would +have been different; and whatever might have been thought of any +individual case amongst the complaints, most undoubtedly, from the great +number to which the Doctor had exposed himself, amongst which many were +not of a nature to be evaded by any vouchers whatsoever, a fatal effect +would have settled on the Doctor's moral reputation. He would have been +passed down to posterity as a dealer in wholesale scandal, who cared +nothing for the wounded feelings of relatives. It is a trifle after that +to add that he would frequently have been cudgelled. + +This public judgment upon Dr. Johnson and these cudgellings would have +been too severe a chastisement for the offences, which, after all, +argued no heavier delinquency than a levity in examining his chance +authorities, and a constitutional credulity. Dr. Johnson's easiness of +faith for the supernatural, the grossness of his superstition in +relation to such miserable impostures as the Cock Lane ghost, and its +scratchings on the wall, flowed from the same source; and his +conversation furnishes many proofs that he had no principle of +resistance in his mind, no reasonable scepticism, when any disparaging +anecdote was told about his nearest friends. Who but he would have +believed the monstrous tale: that Garrick, so used to addressing large +audiences _extempore_, so quick and lively in his apprehensions, had +absolutely been dismissed from a court of justice as an idiot--as a man +incapable of giving the court information even upon a question of his +own profession? As to his credulity with respect to the somewhat +harmless forgeries of Psalmanazer, and with respect to the villainous +imposture of Lander, we imagine that other causes co-operated to those +errors beyond mere facility of assenting. In the latter case we fear +that jealousy of Milton as a scholar, a feeling from which he never +cleansed himself, had been the chief cause of his so readily delivering +himself a dupe to allegations _not_ specious, backed by forgeries that +were anything but ingenious. Dr. Johnson had a narrow escape on that +occasion. Had Dr. Douglas fastened upon him as the collusive abettor of +Lander, as the man whose sanction had ever won even a momentary credit +for the obscure libeller, and as the one beyond all others of the age +whose critical occupation ought most to have secured him against such a +delusion, the character of Johnson would have suffered seriously. +Luckily, Dr. Douglas spared him; and Johnson, seeing the infamy of the +hoax, and the precipice near which he stood, hastened to separate +himself from Lander, and to offer such reparation as he could, by +dictating that unhappy letter of recantation. Lander must have consented +to this step from hopes of patronage; and perhaps the obscure place of +slave-driver in the West Indies, in which he died (after recanting his +recantation), might be the unsatisfactory bait of his needy ambition. +But assuredly Lander could have made out a better case for himself than +that which, under his name, the Doctor addressed to the Bishop; it was a +dark spot in Dr. Johnson's life. A Scotsman, said he, must be a strange +one who would not tell a falsehood in a case where Scotland was +concerned; and we fear that any fable of defamation must have been gross +indeed which Dr. Johnson would not have countenanced against Milton. His +'Life of Milton,' as it now stands, contains some of the grossest +calumnies against that mighty poet which have ever been hazarded; and +some of the deepest misrepresentations are coloured, to the unsuspecting +reader, by an affectation of merriment. But in his 'heart of hearts' Dr. +Johnson detested Milton. Gray, even though, as being little of a meddler +with politics, he furnished no handle to the Doctor for wrath so +unrelenting, was a subject of deep jealousy from his reputed +scholarship. Never did the spite of the Doctor more emblazon itself +than in his review of Gray's lyrical compositions; the very affectation +of prefacing his review by calling the two chief odes 'the wonderful +wonder of wonders' betrays a female spite; and never did the arrogance +of Dr. Johnson's nature flame out so conspicuously as in some of the +phrases used on this occasion. Perhaps it is an instance of +self-inflation absolutely unique where he says, 'My kindness for a man +of letters'; this, it seems, caused him to feel pain at seeing Gray +descending to what he, the Doctor (as a one-sided opinion of his own), +held to be a fantastic foppery. The question we point at is not this +supposed foppery--was it such or not? Milton's having cherished that +'foppery' was a sufficient argument for detesting it. What we fix the +reader's eye upon is, the unparalleled arrogance of applying to Gray +this extreme language of condescending patronage. He really had 'a +kindness' for the little man, and was not ashamed, as some people would +be, to own it; so that it shocked him more than else it would have done, +to see the man disgracing himself in this way. + +However, it is probable that all the misstatements of Dr. Johnson, the +invidious impressions, and the ludicrous or injurious anecdotes fastened +_ad libitum_ upon men previously open to particular attacks, never will +be exposed; and for this, amongst other reasons, that sometimes the +facts of the case are irrecoverable, though falsehood may be apparent; +and still more because few men will be disposed to degrade themselves by +assuming a secondary and ministerial office in hanging upon the errors +of any man. Pope was a great favourite with Dr. Johnson, both as an +unreflecting Tory, who travelled the whole road to Jacobitism--thus far +resembling the Doctor himself; secondly, as one who complimented +himself whilst yet a young man, and even whilst wearing a +masque--complimented him under circumstances which make compliments +doubly useful, and make them trebly sincere. If any man, therefore, he +would have treated indulgently Pope: yet his life it is which has mainly +fixed upon Pope that false impression which predominates at this +day--that doubtless intellectually he was a very brilliant little man; +but morally a spiteful, peevish, waspish, narrow-hearted cynic. Whereas +no imputation can be more unfounded. Pope, unless in cases when he had +been maddened by lampoons, was a most benignant creature; and, with the +slightest acknowledgment of his own merit, there never lived a literary +man who was so generously eager to associate others in his own +honours--those even who had no adequate pretensions. If you, reader, +should, like ourselves, have had occasion to investigate Pope's life, +under an intention of recording it more accurately or more +comprehensively than has yet been done, you will feel the truth of what +we are saying. And especially we would recommend to every man, who +wishes to think justly of Pope in this respect, that he should compare +his conduct towards literary competitors with that of Addison. Dr. +Johnson, having partially examined the lives of both, must have been so +far qualified to do justice between them. But justice he has _not_ done; +and to him chiefly we repeat that at this day are owing the false +impressions of Pope's selfish, ungenial, or misanthropic nature; and the +humiliating associations connected with Pope's petty manoeuvring in +trivial domestic affairs, chiefly through Dr. Johnson's means, will +never be obliterated. Let us turn, however, from Dr. Johnson, whom, with +our general respect for his upright nature, it is painful to follow +through circumstances where either jealousy (as sometimes) or credulity +and the love of gossip (as very often) has misled him into gratifying +the taste of the envious at a great sacrifice of dignity to the main +upholders of our literature. These men ought not to have been 'shown up' +for a comic or malicious effect. A nation who value their literature as +we have reason to value ours ought to show their sense of this value by +forgetting the _degrading_ infirmities (not the venial and human +infirmities) of those to whose admirable endowments they owe its +excellence. + +Turning away, therefore, from those modes of biography which have +hitherto pursued any vicious extreme, let us now briefly explain our own +ideal of a happier, sounder, and more ennobling biographical art, having +the same general objects as heretofore, but with a more express view to +the benefit of the reader. Looking even at those memoirs which, like +Hayley's of Cowper, have been checked by pathetic circumstances from +fixing any slur or irreverential scandal upon their subject, we still +see a great fault in the mass of biographic records; and what _is_ it? +It is--that, even where no disposition is manifested to copy either the +_éloge_ or the libellous pasquinade, too generally the author appears +_ex officio_ as the constant 'patronus' or legal advocate for the person +recorded. And so he ought, if we understand that sort of advocacy which +in English courts the judge was formerly presumed to exercise on behalf +of the defendant in criminal trials. Before that remarkable change by +which a prisoner was invested with the privilege of employing separate +counsel, the judge was his counsel. The judge took care that no wrong +was done to him; that no false impression was left with the jury; that +the witnesses against him should not be suffered to run on without a +sufficient rigour of cross-examination. But certainly the judge thought +it no part of his duty to make 'the worse appear the better reason'; to +throw dust into the eyes of the jury; or to labour any point of +equivocation for the sake of giving the prisoner an extra chance of +escaping. And, if it is really right that the prisoner, when obviously +guilty, should be aided in evading his probable conviction, then +certainly in past times he had less than justice. For most undoubtedly +no judge would have attempted what we all saw an advocate attempting +about a year ago, that, when every person in court was satisfied of the +prisoner's guilt, from the proof suddenly brought to light of his having +clandestinely left the plate of his murdered victim in a particular +party's safe keeping, at that moment the advocate (though secretly +prostrated by this overwhelming discovery) struggled vainly to fix upon +the honourable witness a foul stigma of self-contradiction and perjury +for the single purpose of turning loose a savage murderer upon society. +If this were not more than justice, then assuredly in all times past the +prisoner had far less. Now, precisely the difference between the +advocacy of the judge, and the advocacy of a special counsel retained by +the prisoner, expresses the difference which we contemplate between the +biographer as he has hitherto protected his hero and that biographer +whom we would substitute. Is he not to show a partiality for his +subject? Doubtless; but hitherto, in those lives which have been +farthest from _éloges_, the author has thought it his duty to uphold the +general system, polity, or principles upon which his subject has acted. +Thus Middleton and all other biographers of Cicero, whilst never +meditating any panegyrical account of that statesman, and oftentimes +regretting his vanity, for instance, have quite as little thought it +allowable to condemn the main political views, theories, and +consequently actions, of Cicero. But why not? Why should a biographer be +fettered in his choice of subjects by any imaginary duty of adopting the +views held by him whose life he records? To make war upon the man, to +quarrel with him in every page, _that_ is quite as little in accordance +with our notions; and we have already explained above our sense of its +hatefulness. For then the question recurs for ever: What necessity +forced you upon a subject whose conduct you thoroughly disapprove? But +let him show the tenderness which is due to a great man even when he +errs. Let him expose the _total_ aberrations of the man, and make this +exposure salutary to the pathetic wisdom of his readers, not alimentary +to their self-conceit, by keeping constantly before their eyes the +excellence and splendour of the man's powers in contrast with his +continued failures. Let him show such patronage to the hero of his +memoir as the English judge showed to the poor prisoner at his bar, +taking care that he should suffer no shadow of injustice from the +witnesses; that the prisoner's own self-defence should in no part be +defeated of its effect by want of proper words or want of proper skill +in pressing the forcible points on the attention of the jury; but +otherwise leaving him to his own real merits in the facts of his case, +and allowing him no relief from the pressure of the hostile evidence but +such as he could find either in counter-evidence or in the intrinsic +weight of his own general character. On the scheme of biography there +would be few persons in any department of life who would be accompanied +to the close by a bowing and obsequious reporter; there would be far +less of uniform approbation presumable in memoirs; but, on the other +hand, there would be exhibited pretty generally a tender spirit of +dealing with human infirmities; a large application of human errors to +the benefit of succeeding generations; and, lastly, there would be an +opening made for the free examination of many lives which are now in a +manner closed against criticism; whilst to each separate life there +would be an access and an invitation laid bare for minds hitherto +feeling themselves excluded from approaching the subject by imperfect +sympathy with the principles and doctrines which those lives were +supposed to illustrate. + +But our reformed view of biography would be better explained by a sketch +applied to Cicero's life or to Milton's. In either case we might easily +show, consistently with the exposure of enormous errors, that each was +the wisest man of his own day. And with regard to Cicero in particular, +out of his own letters to Atticus, we might show that every capital +opinion which he held on the politics of Rome in his own day was false, +groundless, contradictory. Yet for all that, we would engage to leave +the reader in a state of far deeper admiration for the man than the +hollow and hypocritical Middleton ever felt himself, or could therefore +have communicated to his readers. + + EDITOR'S NOTE.--The reference on p. 122 is to the famous case of + Courvoisier, in 1840, and this fixes 1841 as the date of the essay. + Courvoisier was a valet who murdered and robbed his master, putting + the plate into the care of an old woman, and making it appear a + burglary. He was defended by a barrister named Philips, who + received from the prisoner a confession of his guilt, and + afterwards, in court, took Heaven to witness that he believed him + innocent, though the woman, by accident almost, had been found, and + given evidence. Philips was disbarred. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[17] In Mrs. Hannah More's drawing-room at Barley Wood, amongst the few +pictures which adorned it, hung a kit-kat portrait of John Henderson. +This, and our private knowledge that Mrs. H. M. had personally known and +admired Henderson, led us to converse with that lady about him. What we +gleaned from her in addition to the notices of Aguttar and of some +amongst Johnson's biographers may yet see the light. + + + + +_XIV. GREAT FORGERS: CHATTERTON AND WALPOLE, AND 'JUNIUS.'_ + + +I have ever been disposed to regard as the most venial of deceptions +such impositions as Chatterton had practised on the public credulity. +Whom did he deceive? Nobody but those who well deserved to be deceived, +viz., shallow antiquaries, who pretended to a sort of knowledge which +they had not so much as tasted. And it always struck me as a judicial +infatuation in Horace Walpole, that he, who had so brutally pronounced +the death of this marvellous boy to be a matter of little consequence, +since otherwise he would have come to be hanged for forgery, should +himself, not as a boy under eighteen (and I think under seventeen at the +first issuing of the Rowley fraud), slaving for a few guineas that he +might procure the simplest food for himself, and then buy presents for +the dear mother and sister whom he had left in Bristol, but as an +elderly man, with a clear six thousand per annum,[18] commit a far more +deliberate and audacious forgery than that imputed (if even accurately +imputed) to Chatterton. I know of no published document, or none +published under Chatterton's sanction, in which he formally _declared_ +the Rowley poems to have been the compositions of a priest living in +the days of Henry IV., viz., in or about the year 1400. Undoubtedly he +suffered people to understand that he had found MSS. of that period in +the tower of St. Mary Redcliff at Bristol, which he really _had_ done; +and whether he simply tolerated them in running off with the idea that +these particular poems, written on _discoloured_ parchments by way of +colouring the hoax, were amongst the St. Mary treasures, or positively +_said so_, in either view, considering the circumstances of the case, no +man of kind feelings will much condemn him. + +But Horace Walpole roundly and audaciously affirmed in the first +sentence of his preface to the poor romance of 'Otranto,' that it had +been translated from the Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, and that the MS. +was still preserved in the library of an English Catholic family; +circumstantiating his needless falsehood by other most superfluous +details. _Needless_, I say, because a book with the Walpole name on the +title-page was as sure of selling as one with Chatterton's obscure name +was at that time sure of _not_ selling. Possibly Horace Walpole did not +care about selling, but wished to measure his own intrinsic power as a +novelist, for which purpose it was a better course to preserve his +_incognito_. But this he might have preserved without telling a +circumstantial falsehood. Whereas Chatterton knew that his only chance +of emerging from the obscure station of a grave-digger's son, and +carrying into comfort the dear female relatives that had half-starved +themselves for _him_ (I speak of things which have since come to my +knowledge thirty-five years after Chatterton and his woes had been +buried in a pauper's coffin), lay in bribing public attention by some +_extrinsic_ attraction. Macpherson had recently engaged the public gaze +by his 'Ossian'--an abortion fathered upon the fourth century after +Christ. What so natural as to attempt other abortions--ideas and +refinements of the eighteenth century--referring themselves to the +fifteenth? Had this harmless hoax succeeded, he would have delivered +those from poverty who delivered _him_ from ignorance; he would have +raised those from the dust who raised _him_ to an aerial height--yes, to +a height from which (but it was after his death), like _Ate_ or _Eris_, +come to cause another Trojan war, he threw down an apple of discord +amongst the leading scholars of England, and seemed to say: 'There, Dean +of Exeter! there, Laureate! there, Tyrwhitt, my man! Me you have +murdered amongst you. Now fight to death for the boy that living you +would not have hired as a shoeblack. My blood be upon you!' Rise up, +martyred blood! rise to heaven for a testimony against these men and +this generation, or else burrow in the earth, and from that spring up +like the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha into harvests of feud, +into armies of self-exterminating foes. Poor child! immortal child! +Slight were thy trespasses on this earth, heavy was thy punishment, and +it is to be hoped, nay, it is certain, that this disproportion did not +escape the eye which, in the algebra of human actions, estimates _both_ +sides of the equation. + +Lord Byron was of opinion that people abused Horace Walpole for several +sinister reasons, of which the first is represented to be that he was a +gentleman. Now, I, on the contrary, am of opinion that he was _not_ +always a gentleman, as particularly seen in his correspondence with +Chatterton. On the other hand, it is but just to recollect that in +retaining Chatterton's MSS. (otherwise an unfeeling act, yet chiefly +imputable to indolence), the worst aggravation of the case under the +poor boy's construction, viz., that if Walpole had not known his low +rank 'he would not have dared to treat him in that way,' though a very +natural feeling, was really an unfounded one. Horace Walpole (I call him +so, because he was not _then_ Lord Orford) certainly had not been aware +that Chatterton was other than a gentleman by birth and station. The +natural dignity of the boy, which had not condescended to any degrading +applications, misled this practised man of the world. But recurring to +Lord Byron's insinuations as to a systematic design of running Lord +Orford down, I beg to say that I am no party to any such design. It is +not likely that a furious Conservative like myself, who have the +misfortune also to be the most bigoted of Tories, would be so. I +disclaim all participation in any clamour against Lord Orford which may +have arisen on democratic feeling. Feeling the profoundest pity for the +'marvellous boy' of Bristol, and even love, if it be possible to feel +love for one who was in his unhonoured grave before I was born, I resent +the conduct of Lord Orford, in this one instance, as universally the +English public has resented it. But generally, as a writer, I admire +Lord Orford in a very high degree. As a letter-writer, and as a +brilliant sketcher of social aspects and situations, he is far superior +to any French author who could possibly be named as a competitor. And as +a writer of personal or anecdotic history, let the reader turn to +Voltaire's 'Siècle de Louis Quatorze,' in order to appreciate his +extraordinary merit. + + * * * * * + +Next will occur to the reader the forgery of 'Junius.' Who did _that_? +Oh, villains that have ever doubted since '"Junius" Identified'! Oh, +scamps--oh, pitiful scamps! You, reader, perhaps belong to this wretched +corps. But, if so, understand that you belong to it under false +information. I have heard myriads talk upon this subject. One man said +to me, 'My dear friend, I sympathize with your fury. You are right. +Righter a man cannot be. Rightest of all men you are.' I was +right--righter--rightest! That had happened to few men. But again this +flattering man went on, 'Yes, my excellent friend, right you are, and +evidently Sir Philip Francis was the man. His backer proved it. The day +after his book appeared, if any man had offered me exactly two thousand +to one in guineas, that Sir Philip was _not_ the man, by Jupiter! I +would have declined the bet. So divine, so exquisite, so Grecian in its +perfection, was the demonstration, the _apodeixis_ (or what do you call +it in Greek?), that this brilliant Sir Philip--who, by the way, wore +_his_ order of the Bath as universally as ever he taxed Sir William +Draper with doing--had been the author of "Junius." But here lay the +perplexity of the matter. At the least five-and-twenty excellent men +proved by posthumous friends that they, every mother's son of them, had +also perpetrated "Junius."' 'Then they were liars,' I answered. 'Oh no, +my right friend,' he interrupted, 'not liars at all; amiable men, some +of whom confessed on their death-beds (three to my certain knowledge) +that, alas! they had erred against the law of charity. "_But how?_" said +the clergyman. "Why, by that infernal magazine of sneers and all +uncharitableness, the 'Letters of Junius.'" "Let me understand you," +said the clergyman: "you wrote 'Junius'?" "Alas! I did," replied A. Two +years after another clergyman said to another penitent, "And so you +wrote 'Junius'?" "Too true, my dear sir. Alas! I did," replied B. One +year later a third penitent was going off, and upon the clergyman +saying, "Bless me, is it possible? Did _you_ write 'Junius'?" he +replied, "Ah, worshipful sir, you touch a painful chord in my +remembrances--I now wish I had not. Alas! reverend sir, I did." Now, you +see,' went on my friend, 'so many men at the New Drop, as you may say, +having with tears and groans taxed themselves with "Junius" as the +climax of their offences, one begins to think that perhaps _all_ men +wrote "Junius."' Well, so far there was reason. But when my friend +contended also that the proofs arrayed in pamphlets proved the whole +alphabet to have written 'Junius,' I could not stand his absurdities. +Death-bed confessions, I admitted, were strong. But as to these wretched +pamphlets, some time or other I will muster them all for a field-day; I +will brigade them, as if the general of the district were coming to +review them; and then, if I do not mow them down to the last man by +opening a treacherous battery of grape-shot, may all my household die +under a fiercer Junius! The true reasons why any man fancies that +'Junius' is an open question must be these three: + +First, that they have never read the proofs arrayed against Sir Philip +Francis; this is the general case. + +Secondly, that, according to Sancho's proverb, they want better bread +than is made of wheat. They are not content with proofs or absolute +demonstrations. They require you, like the witch of Endor, to raise Sir +Philip from the grave, that they may cross-examine him. + +Thirdly (and this is the fault of the able writer who unmasked Sir +Philip), there happened to be the strongest argument that ever picked a +Bramah-lock against the unknown writer of 'Junius'; apply this, and if +it fits the wards, oh, Gemini! my dear friend, but you are +right--righter--rightest; you have caught 'Junius' in a rabbit-snare. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[18] 'Six thousand per annum,' viz., on the authority of his own +confession to Pinkerton. + + + EDITOR'S NOTE.--De Quincey is guilty of a slight lapse of memory in + reference to 'The Castle of Otranto' and Onuphrio Muralto. It was + not in the first sentence of the preface, but on the title-page, + that Walpole so plainly attributed the work to another. The + _original_ title-page, which, of course, was dropped out when it + became known to all the world that Walpole was the author, read + thus: 'The Castle of Otranto: a Story. Translated by William + Marshall, Gent. From the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, + Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas, at Otranto. London: printed + for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street. 1765.' + + + + +_XV. DANIEL O'CONNELL._ + + +With a single view to the _intellectual_ pretensions of Mr. O'Connell, +let us turn to his latest General Epistle, dated from 'Conciliation +Hall,' on the last day of October. This is no random, or (to use a +pedantic term) _perfunctory_ document; not a document is this to which +indulgence is due. By its subject, not less than by its address, it +stands forth audaciously as a deliberate, as a solemn, as a national +state paper; for its subject is the future political condition of +Ireland under the assumption of Repeal; for its address is, 'To the +People of Ireland.' So placing himself, a writer has it not within his +choice to play the fool; it is not within his competence to tumble or +'come aloft' or play antics as a mountebank; his theme binds him to +decency, his audience to gravity. Speaking, though it be but by the +windiest of fictions, to a nation, is not a man pledged to respectful +language? speaking, though it is but by a chimera as wild as Repeal to a +question of national welfare, a man is pledged to sincerity. Had he +seven devils of mockery and banter within him, for that hour he must +silence them all. The foul fiend must be rebuked, though it were Mahu +and Bohu who should prompt him to buffoonery, when standing at the bar +of nations. + +This is the law, this the condition, under which Mr. O'Connell was +speaking when he issued that recent address. Given such a case, similar +circumstances presupposed, he could not evade the obligations which they +impose. From such obligations there is no dispensation to be bought--no, +not at Rome; from the obligations observe, and those obligations, we +repeat, are--sincerity in the first place, and respectful or deferential +language in the second. Such were the duties; now let us look to the +performance. And that we may judge of _that_ with more advantage for +searching and appraising the qualities of this document, permit us to +suggest three separate questions, the first being this: What was the +occasion of the Address? Secondly, what was its ostensible object? +Thirdly, what are the arguments by which, as its means, the paper +travels towards that object? + +First, as to the _occasion_ of the Address. We have said that the date, +viz., the 31st of October, is falsified. It was _not_ dated on the 31st +of October, but on or about the seventh day of November. Even that +falsehood, though at first sight trivial, is enough for suspicion. If X, +a known liar, utters a lie at starting, it is not for him to plead in +mitigation the apparent uselessness of the lie, it is for us to presume +out of the fact a use, where the fact exists. A leader in the French +Revolution protested often against bloodshed and other atrocities--not +as being too bad, but, on the contrary, as being too good, too precious +to be wasted upon ordinary occasions. And, on the same principle, we may +be sure that any habitual liar, who has long found the benefit of +falsehoods at his utmost need, will have formed too profound a reverence +for this powerful resource in a moment of perplexity ever to throw away +a falsehood, or to squander upon a caprice of the moment that lie which, +being seasonably employed, might have saved him from confusion. The +artist in lying is not the man to lie gratuitously. From the first, +therefore, satisfied ourselves that there was a lurking motive--the key +to this falsification of date--we paused to search it out. In that we +found little difficulty. For what was the professed object of this +Address? It was to meet and to overthrow two notions here represented as +great popular errors. But why at this time? Wherefore all this heat at +the present moment? Grant that the propositions denounced as erroneous +_were_ so in very deed, why should criminals standing under the shadow +of public vengeance ready to descend, so childishly misuse the interval, +mercifully allowed for their own defence, in reading lectures upon +abstract political speculations, confessedly bearing no relation to any +militant interest now in question? Quite as impertinent it would be, +when called upon for the answer upon 'Guilty or not Guilty?' to read a +section from the Council of Trent, or a rescript from Cardinal +Bellarmine. Yet the more extravagant was the logic of this proceeding, +the more urgent became the presumption of a covert motive, and that +motive we soon saw to be this. Let the reader weigh it, and the good +sense of the man who at such a moment could suffer such a motive to +prevail. Thus it is: when Clontarf was intercepted, and implicitly, +though not formally, all similar meetings were by that one act for ever +prohibited, the first days of terror were naturally occupied with the +panic of the conspirators, and in providing for their personal terrors. +But when the dust of this great uproar began to settle, and objects +again became distinguishable in natural daylight, the first consequence +which struck the affrighted men of the conspiracy was the chilling +effect of the Government policy upon the O'Connell rent; not the weekly +rent, applied nobody knows how, but the annual rent applied to Mr. +O'Connell's _private_ benefit. This was in jeopardy, and on the +following argument: Originally this rent had been levied as a +compensation to Mr. O'Connell in his character of Irish barrister--not +for services rendered or _to be_ rendered, but for current services +continually being rendered in Parliament from session to session, for +expenses incident to that kind of duty, and also as an indemnification +for the consequent loss of fees at the Irish Bar. Yet now, in 1843, +having ceased to attend his duty in Parliament, Mr. O'Connell could no +longer claim in that senatorial character. Such a pretension would be +too gross for the understanding even of a Connaught peasant. And in +_that_ there was a great loss. For the allegation of a Parliamentary +warfare, under the vague idea of pushing forward good bills for Ireland, +or retarding bad ones, had been a pleasant and easy labour to the parish +priests. It was not necessary to horsewhip[19] their flocks too +severely. If all was not clear to 'my children's' understanding, at +least my children had no mutinous demur in a positive shape ready for +service. Recusants there were, and sturdy ones, but they could put no +face on their guilt, and their sin was not contagious. Unhappily, from +this indefinite condition of merit Mr. O'Connell himself had translated +his claim to a very distinct one founded upon a clear, known, absolute +attempt to coerce the Government into passive collusion with prospective +treason. This attempt, said the peasantry, will the Government stand, or +will it not? 'Why, then,' replied the Government, on the 17th of +October, 'we will _not_.' + +The aristocracy of Ireland may not have done their duty as regards the +Repeal; it is too certain that they have not, because they have done +nothing at all. But it is also certain that their very uttermost would +have been unavailing for one principal object concerned. Other great +objects, however, might have been attained. Foreign nations might have +been disabused of their silly delusions on the Irish relations to +England, although the Irish peasantry could _not_. The monstrous +impression also upon many English and Scotch parties, that a general +unity of sentiment prevailed in Ireland as to the desirableness of an +independent Parliament--this, this, we say loudly, would have been +dissipated, had every Irish county met by its gentry disavowing and +abominating all sentiments tending towards a purpose so guilty as +political disunion. Yet, in palliation of this most grievous failure, +we, in the spirit of perfect candour, will remind our readers of the +depressing effect too often attending one flagrant wound in any system +of power or means. Let a man lose by a sudden blow--by fire, by +shipwreck, or by commercial failure--a sum of twenty thousand pounds, +that being four-fifths of his entire property, how often it is found +that mere dejection of mind will incapacitate him from looking +cheerfully after the remaining fifth! And this though it is now become +far more essential to his welfare; and, secondly, upon a motion +tending upwards and not downwards, he would have regarded five +thousand pounds as a precious treasure worthy of his efforts, whether +for protection or for improvement. Something analogous to this weighs +down the hearty exertions of the Irish gentry. Met at the very +threshold, affronted at starting, by this insufferable tyranny of +priestly interference--humiliated and stung to the heart by the +consciousness that those natural influences which everywhere else +settle indefeasibly upon property, are in Ireland intercepted, +filched, violently robbed and pocketed by a body of professional +nuisances sprung almost universally from paupers--thus disinherited of +their primary rights, thus pillaged, thus shorn like Samson of those +natural ornaments in which resided their natural strength, feeling +themselves (like that same Samson in the language of Milton) turned +out to the scorn of their countrymen as 'tame wethers' ridiculously +fleeced and mutilated--they droop, they languish as to all public +spirit; and whilst by temperament, by natural endowment, by continual +intercourse with the noble aristocracy of Britain (from whom also they +are chiefly descended), they _should_ be amongst the leading +chivalries of Europe, in very fact they are, for political or social +purposes, the most powerless gentry in existence. Acting in a +corporate capacity, they can do nothing. The malignant planet of this +low-born priesthood comes between them and the peasantry, eclipsing +oftentimes the sunshine of their comprehensive beneficence, and +_always_ destroying their power to discountenance[20] evil-doers. Here +is the sad excuse. But, for all that, we must affirm that, if the +Irish landed gentry do not yet come forward to retrieve the ground +which they have forfeited by inertia, history will record them as +passive colluders with the Dublin repealers. The evil is so +operatively deep, looking backward or forward, that we have purposely +brought it forward in a second aspect, viz., as contrasted with the +London press. For the one, as we have been showing, there is a strong +plea in palliation; for the other there is none. + +Let us be frank. This is what we affirm, that it was, it is, it will be +hereafter, within the powers of the London press to have extinguished +the Repeal or any similar agitation; they could have done this, and this +they have _not_ done. But let us also not be misunderstood. Do we say +this in a spirit of disrespect? Are we amongst the parties who (when +characterizing the American press) infamously say, 'Let us, however, +look homewards to our own press, and be silent for very shame'? Are we +the people to join the vicious correspondent of an evening paper whom +but a week ago we saw denouncing the editor of the _Examiner_ newspaper +as a public nuisance, and recommending him as a fit subject of some +degrading punishment, for no better reason than that he had exercised +his undoubted right of exposing delinquencies or follies in a garrulous +lord? Far be such vilenesses from us. We honour the press of this +country. We know its constitution, and we know the mere impossibility +(were it only from the great capital required) that any but men of +honour and sensibilities and conspicuous talent, and men brilliantly +accomplished in point of education, should become writers or editors of +a _leading_ journal, or indeed of any daily journal. Here and there may +float _in gurgite vasto_ some atrocious paper lending itself upon system +to the villainies of private slander. But such a paper is sure to be an +inconsiderable one in the mere sense of property, and therefore, +by a logical consequence in our frame of society, _every_ way +inconsiderable--rising without effort, sinking without notice. In fact, +the whole staff and establishment of newspapers have risen in social +consideration within our own generation; and at this moment not merely +proprietors and editors, but reporters and other ministerial agents to +these vast engines of civility, have all ascended in their superior +orders to the highest levels of authentic responsibility. + +We make these acknowledgments in the mere spirit of equity, and because +we disdain to be confounded with those rash persons who talk glibly of a +'licentious press' through their own licentious ignorance. Than +ignorance nothing is so licentious for rash saying or for obstinate +denying. The British press is _not_ licentious; neither in London nor in +Edinburgh is it ever licentious; and there is much need that it should +be otherwise, having at this time so unlimited a power over the public +mind. But the very uprightness of the leading journalists, and all the +other elements of their power, do but constitute the evil, do but +aggravate the mischief, where they happen to go astray; yes, in every +case where these journalists miss the narrow path of thoughtful +prudence. They _do_ miss it occasionally; they must miss it; and we +contend that they _have_ missed it at present. What they have done that +they ought _not_ to have done. Currency, buoyancy, they ought _not_ to +have impressed upon sedition, upon conspiracy, upon treason. Currency, +buoyancy, they _have_ impressed upon sedition, upon conspiracy, upon +treason. + +As to Mr. O'Connell himself, it is useless, and it argues some thick +darkness of mind, to remonstrate or generally to address any arguments +from whatsoever quarter, which either appeal to a sense of truth, which, +secondly, manifest inconsistencies, or, thirdly, which argue therein a +tendency ruinous to himself. Let us think. Burke asserted of himself, +and to our belief truly, that having at different periods set his face +in different directions--now to the east, now to the west, now pointing +to purposes of relaxation or liberality, now again to purposes of +coercive and popular restraint--he had notwithstanding been uniform, if +measured upon a higher scale. Transcending objects, coinciding neither +instantly with the first, nor except by accident with the last, but +indifferently aided by aristocratic forces or by democratic, shifting +weights which sometimes called for accessories of gravity, sometimes for +subtraction, mighty fluctuating wheels which sometimes needed flywheels +to moderate or harmonize, sometimes needed concurrent wheels to urge or +aggravate their impetus--these were the powers which he had found +himself summoned to calculate, to check, to support, the vast algebraic +equation of government; for this he had strengthened substantially by +apparent contrarieties of policy; and in a system of watch-work so +exquisite as to vary its fine balances eternally, eternally he had +consulted by redressing the errors emergent, by varying the poise in +order that he might _not_ vary the equipoise, by correcting +inequalities, or by forestalling extremes. That was a man of heroic +build, and of him it might be said at his death, 'Truly this man was a +son of Anak.' Now, of Mr. O'Connell a man might affirm something +similar; that as with regard to Edmund Burke it is altogether useless to +detect contradictions in form, seeing that he knows of this, that he +justifies this, glories in this, vehemently demands praise for this +contradiction, as all discord is harmony not understood, planned in the +letter and overruled in the spirit; so may O'Connell say, 'Gentlemen, +grubs, reptiles, vermin, trouble not yourselves to find out +contradictions or discords in my conduct; vex not your slender faculties +by arraying hosts of promises that defeat promises, or principles that +destroy principles--you shall not need to labour; I will make you a +present of three huge canisters laden and running over with the flattest +denials in one breath of that which I affirmed in another. But, like +Edmund Burke, I register my conduct by another table and by its final +result. On the dial which you see, the hands point thus and thus; but +upon a higher and transcendent dial these fingers do but precipitate or +retard one gigantic hand, pointing always and monotonously to the unity +of a perfect selfishness. The everlasting tacking in my course gives me +often the air of retrograding and losing; but, in fact, these +retrogressions are momentary, these losings of my object are no more +than seeming, are still but the same stealthy creeping up under cover of +frequent compliances with the breeze that happens to thwart me, towards +the one eternal pole of my own self-interest; that is the pole-star +which only never sets, and I flatter myself that amidst vast apparent +wanderings or multiplied divergences there will be detected by the eye +of the philosopher a consistency in family objects which is absolute, a +divine unity of selfishness.' + +This we do not question. But to will is not to do; and Mr. O'Connell, +with a true loyalty to his one object of private aims, has _not_ +maintained the consistency of his policy. All men know that he has +adventured within the limits of conspiracy; that could not be for his +benefit. He has touched even the dark penumbra of treason; that could +not but risk the sum of his other strivings. But he who has failed for +himself in a strife so absolute, for that only must be distrusted by +his countrymen. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] 'To horsewhip,' etc. Let it not be said that this is any slander of +ours; would that we could pronounce it a slander! But those who (like +ourselves) have visited Ireland extensively know that the parish priest +uses a horsewhip, in many circumstances, as his professional _insigne_. + +[20] Look at Lord Waterford's case, in the very month of November, 1843. +Is there a county in all England that would have tamely witnessed his +expulsion from amongst them by fire, and by sword and by poison? + + + NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--This article on O'Connell, written in the end + of 1843, is printed, not on account of any political reference it + might be presumed to have, but only because of its historical and + literary interest. Apart from the light it may throw on De + Quincey's leanings, as, in certain respects, distinctly in the + direction of patriotic Toryism of the most rampant type, it may be + of value as suggesting how essentially, in not a few points, the + Irish question to-day remains precisely as it was in the time of + O'Connell; and how the Tories of to-day are apt to view it from + precisely the same plane as those of 1843. It might also be cited + as another proof not only of De Quincey's very keen interest in all + the leading questions of the time, but as an illustration of the + John Bull warmth and heat which he, the dreamer, the recluse, the + lover of abstract problems, could bring into such discussions. + Here, at all events, his views were definite enough, and stated + with a bold precision of English plainness that would have pleased + the most pronouncedly Tory or Unionist newspaper editors of that + day. + + + + +_XVI. FRANCE PAST AND FRANCE PRESENT._ + + +To speak in the simplicity of truth, caring not for party or partisan, +is not the France of this day, the France which has issued from that +great furnace of the Revolution, a better, happier, more hopeful France +than the France of 1788? Allowing for any evil, present or reversionary, +in the political aspects of France, that may yet give cause for anxiety, +can a wise man deny that from the France of 1840, under Louis Philippe +of Orleans, ascends to heaven a report of far happier days from the sons +and daughters of poverty than from the France of Louis XVI.? Personally +that sixteenth Louis was a good king, sorrowing for the abuses in the +land, and willing (at least, after affliction had sharpened his +reflecting conscience), had that choice been allowed him, to have +redeemed them by any personal sacrifice. But that was not possible. +Centuries of misrule are not ransomed by an individual ruin; and had it +been possible that the dark genius of his family, the same who once +tolled funeral knells in the ears of the first Bourbon, and called him +out as a martyr hurrying to meet his own sacrifice--could we suppose +this gloomy representative of his family destinies to have met him in +some solitary apartment of the Tuileries or Versailles, some twilight +gallery of ancestral portraits, he could have met him with the purpose +of raising the curtain from before the long series of his household +woes--from him the king would have learned that no personal ransom could +be accepted for misgovernment so ancient. Leviathan is not so tamed. +Arrears so vast imply a corresponding accountability, corresponding by +its amount, corresponding by its personal subjects. Crown and +people--all had erred; all must suffer. Blood must flow, tears must be +shed through a generation; rivers of lustration must be thrown through +that Augean accumulation of guilt. + +And exactly there, it is supposed, lay the error of Burke; the compass +of the penalty, the arch which it traversed, must bear some proportion +to that of the evil which had produced it. + +When I referred to the dark genius of the family who once tolled funeral +knells in the ears of the first Bourbon, I meant, of course, the first +who sat upon the throne of France, viz., Henri Quatre. The allusion is +to the last hours of Henry's life, to the remarkable prophecies which +foreran his death, to their remarkable fulfilment, and (what is more +remarkable than all beside) to his self-surrender, in the spirit of an +unresisting victim, to a bloody fate which he regarded as inexorably +doomed. This king was not the good prince whom the French hold out to +us; not even the accomplished, the chivalrous, the elevated prince to +whom history points for one of her models. French and ultra-French must +have been the ideal of the good or the noble to which he could have +approximated in the estimate of the most thoughtless. He had that sort +of military courage which was, and is, more common than weeds. In all +else he was a low-minded man, vulgar in his thoughts, most unprincely in +his habits. He was even worse than that: wicked, brutal, sensually +cruel. And his wicked minister, Sully, than whom a more servile mind +never existed, illustrates in one passage his own character and his +master's by the apology which he offers for Henry's having notoriously +left many illegitimate children to perish of hunger, together with their +too-confiding mothers. What? That in the pressure of business he really +forgot them. Famine mocked at last the deadliest offence. His own +innocent children, up and down France, because they were illegitimate, +their too-confiding mothers, because they were weak and friendless by +having for his sake forfeited the favour of God and man, this amiable +king had left to perish of hunger. They _did_ perish; mother and infant. +A cry ascended against the king. Even in sensual France such atrocities +could not utterly sink to the ground. But what says the apologetic +minister? Astonished that anybody could think of abridging a king's +license in such particulars, he brushes away the whole charge as so much +ungentlemanly impertinence, disdaining any further plea than the +pressure of business, which so naturally accounted for the royal +inattention or forgetfulness in these little affairs. Observe that this +pressure of business never was such that the king could not find time +for pursuing these intrigues and multiplying these reversions of woe. +What enormities! A king (at all times of Navarre, and for half his life +of France) suffers his children to die of hunger, consigns their mothers +to the same fate, but aggravated by remorse and by the spectacle of +their perishing infants! These clamours could not penetrate to the +Louvre, but they penetrated to a higher court, and were written in books +from which there is no erasure allowed. So much for the vaunted +'generosity' of Henry IV. As to another feature of the chivalrous +character, elegance of manners, let the reader consult the report of an +English ambassador, a man of honour and a gentleman, Sir George Carew. +It was published about the middle of the last century by the +indefatigable Birch, to whom our historic literature is so much +indebted, and it proves sufficiently that this idol of Frenchmen allowed +himself in habits so coarse as to disgust the most creeping of his own +courtiers; such that even the blackguards of a manly nation would revolt +from them as foul and self-dishonouring. Deep and permanent is the +mischief wrought in a nation by false models; and corresponding is the +impression, immortal the benefit, from good ones. The English people +have been the better for their Alfred, that pathetic ideal of a good +king, through a space of now nearly a thousand years. The French are the +worse to this hour in consequence of Francis I. and Henry IV. And note +this, that even the spurious merit of the two French models can be +sustained only by disguises, by suppressions, by elaborate varnishings; +whereas the English prince is offered to our admiration with a +Scriptural simplicity and a Scriptural fidelity, not as some gay legend +of romance, some Telemachus of Fénelon, but as one who had erred, +suffered, and had been purified; as a shepherd that had gone astray, and +saw that through his transgressions the flock also had been scattered. + + + + +_XVII. ROME'S RECRUITS AND ENGLAND'S RECRUITS._ + + +Two facts on which a sound estimate of the Roman corn-trade depends are +these: first, the very important one, that it was not Rome in the sense +of the Italian peninsula which relied upon foreign corn, but in the +narrowest sense Rome the city; as respected what we now call Lombardy, +Florence, Genoa, etc., Rome did not disturb the ancient agriculture. The +other fact offers, perhaps, a still more important consideration. Rome +was latterly a most populous city--we are disposed to agree with +Lipsius, that it was four times as populous as most moderns esteem--most +certainly it bore a higher ratio to the total Italy than any other +capital (even London) has since borne to the territory over which it +presided. Consequently it will be argued that in such a ratio must the +foreign importations of Rome, even in the limited sense of Rome the +city, have operated more destructively upon the domestic agriculture. +Grant that not Italy, but Rome, was the main importer of foreign grain, +still, if Rome to all Italy were as one to four in population, which +there is good reason to believe it was, then even upon that distinction +it will be insisted that the Roman importation crushed one-fourth of the +native agriculture. Now, this we deny. Some part of the African and +Egyptian grain was but a substitution for the Sardinian, and so far made +no difference to Italy in ploughs, but only in _denarii_. But the main +consideration of all is, that the Italian grain was not withdrawn from +the vast population of Rome--this is _not_ the logic of the case--no; on +the contrary, the vast population of Rome arose and supervened as a +consequence upon the opening of the foreign Alexandrian corn trade. It +was not Rome that quirted the home agriculture. Rome, in the full sense, +never would have existed without foreign supplies. If, therefore, Rome, +by means of foreign grain, rose from four hundred thousand heads to four +millions, then it follows that (except as to the original demand for the +four hundred thousand) not one plough was disused in Italy that ever had +been used. Whilst, even with regard to the original demand of the four +hundred thousand, by so much of the Egyptian grain as had been a mere +substitution for Sardinian no effect whatever could have followed to +Italian agriculture. + +Here, therefore, we see the many limitations which arise to the modern +doctrine upon the destructive agricultural consequences of the Roman +corn trade. Rome may have prevented the Italian agriculture from +expanding, but she could not have caused it to decline.[21] Now, let us +see how far this Roman corn trade affected the Roman recruiting service. +It is alleged that agriculture declined under the foreign corn trade, +and that for this reason ploughmen declined. But if we have shown cause +for doubting whether agriculture declined, or only did not increase, +then we are at liberty to infer that ploughmen did not decline, but only +did not increase. Even of the real and not imaginary ploughmen at any +time possessed by Italy, too many in the south were slaves, and +therefore ineligible for the legionary service, except in desperate +intestine struggles like the Social war or the Servile. Rome could not +lose for her recruiting service any ploughmen but those whom she had +really possessed; nor out of those whom really she possessed any that +were slaves; nor out of those whom (not being slaves) she _might_ have +used for soldiers could it be said that she was liable to any absolute +loss except as to those whom ordinarily she _did_ use as soldiers, and +preferred to use in circumstances of free choice. + +These points premised, we go on to say that no craze current amongst +learned men has more deeply disturbed the truth of history than the +notion that 'Marsi' and 'Peligni,' or other big-boned Italian rustics, +ever by choice constituted the general or even the favourite recruiting +fund of the Roman republic. In thousands of books we have seen it +asserted or assumed that the Romans triumphed so extensively chiefly +because their armies were composed of Roman or kindred blood. This is +false. Not the material, but the military system, of the Romans was the +true key to their astonishing successes. In the time of Hannibal a Roman +consul relied chiefly, it is true, upon Italian recruits, because he +could seldom look for men of other blood. And it is possible enough that +the same man, Fabius or Marcellus, if he had been sent abroad as a +proconsul, might find his choice even then in what formerly had been his +necessity. In some respects it is probable that the Italian rustic of +true Italian blood was at that period the best raw material[22] easily +procured for the legionary soldier. But circumstances altered; as the +range of war expanded to the East it became far too costly to recruit in +Italy; nor, if it had been less costly, could Italy have supplied the +waste. Above all, with the advantages of the Roman military system, no +particular physical material was required for making good soldiers. For +these reasons it was that, after the Levant was permanently occupied by +the Romans, where any legion had been originally stationed _there_ it +continued to be stationed, and _there_ it was recruited, and, unless in +some rare emergency of a critical war arising at a distance, _there_ it +was so continually recruited, that in the lapse of a generation it +contained hardly any Roman or Italian blood in its composition, like the +Attic ship which had been repaired with cedar until it retained no +fragment of its original oak. Thus, the legion stationed at Antioch +became entirely Syrian; that stationed at Alexandria, Grecian, Jewish, +and, in a separate sense, Alexandrine. Cæsar, it is notorious, raised +one entire legion of Gauls (distinguished by the cognizance upon the +helmet of the _lark_, whence commonly called the legion of the +_Alauda_). But he recruited all his legions in Gaul. In Spain the armies +of Assanius and Petreius, who surrendered to Cæsar under a convention, +consisted chiefly of Spaniards (not _Hispanienses_, or Romans born in +Spain, but _Hispani_, Spaniards by blood); at Pharsalia a large part of +Cæsar's army were Gauls, and of Pompey's it is well known that many even +amongst the legions contained no Europeans at all, but (as Cæsar +seasonably reminded his army) consisted of vagabonds from every part of +the East. From all this we argue that _S.P.Q.R._ did not depend latterly +upon native recruiting. And, in fact, they did not need to do so; their +system and discipline would have made good soldiers out of mop-handles, +if (like Lucian's magical mop-handles) they could only have learned to +march and to fill buckets with water at the word of command. + +We see, too, the secret power and also the secret political wisdom of +Christianity in another instance. Those public largesses of grain, +which, in old Rome, commenced upon principles of ambition and of +factious encouragement to partisans, in the new Rome of Constantinople +were propagated for ages under the novel motive of Christian charity to +paupers. This practice has been condemned by the whole chorus of +historians who fancy that from this cause the domestic agriculture +languished, and that a bounty was given upon pauperism. But these are +reveries of literary men. That particular section of rural industry +which languished in Italy, did so by a reaction from _rent_ in the +severe modern sense. The grain imported from Sardinia, from Africa the +province, and from Egypt, was grown upon soils less costly, because with +equal cost more productive. The effect upon Italy from bringing back +any considerable portion of this provincial corn-growth[23] to her +domestic districts would have been suddenly to develop rent upon a large +series of evils, and to load the provincial grain as well as the +home-grown--the cheap provincial as well as the dear home-grown--with +the whole difference of these new costs. Neither is the policy of the +case at all analogous to our own at the moment. In three circumstances +it differs essentially: + +First, provinces are not foreigners; colonies are not enemies. An exotic +corn-trade could not for Rome do the two great injuries which assuredly +it would do for England; it could not transfer the machinery of opulence +to a hostile and rival state; it could not invest a jealous competitor +with power suddenly to cut off supplies that had grown into a necessity, +and thus to create in one month a famine or an insurrection. Egypt had +neither the power nor any prospect of the power to act as an independent +state towards Rome; the transfer to Egypt of the Roman agriculture, +supposing it to have been greater than it really was, could have +operated but like a transfer from Norfolk to Yorkshire. + +Secondly, as respected Italy, the foreign grain _did not enter the same +markets as the native_. Either one or the other would have lost its +advantage, and the natural bounty which it enjoyed from circumstances, +by doing so. Consequently the evils of an artificial scale, where grain +raised under one set of circumstances fixes or modifies the price for +grain raised under a different set of circumstances, were unknown in the +Italian markets. But these evils by a special machinery, viz., the +machinery of good and bad seasons, are aggravated for a modern state +intensely, whenever she depends too much upon alien stores; and +specifically they are aggravated by the fact that both grains _enter the +same market_, so that the one by too high a price is encouraged +unreasonably, the other by the same price (too low for opposite +circumstances) is depressed ruinously as regards coming years; whence in +the end two sets of disturbances--one set frequently from the _present_ +seasons, and a second set from the way in which these are made to act +upon the _future_ markets. + +Thirdly, the Roman corn-trade did not of necessity affect her military +service injuriously, and for this reason, that rural economy did not of +necessity languish because agriculture languished locally; some other +culture, as of vineyards, _oliveta_, orchards, pastures, replaced the +declining culture of grain; if ploughmen were fewer, other labourers +were more. It is forgotten, besides, that the decline of Italian +agriculture, never more than local, was exceedingly gradual; for two +hundred and fifty years before the Christian era Italy never _had_ +depended exclusively upon herself. Sardinia and Sicily, at her own +doors, were her granaries; consequently the change never _had_ been that +abrupt change which modern writers imagine. + +But let us indulge in the luxury of confirming what we have said by the +light of contrast. Suppose the circumstances changed, suppose them +reversed, and then all those evil consequence sought to take effect +which in the case of Rome we have denied. Now, it happened that they +_were_ reversed; not, indeed, for Rome, who had been herself ruined as +metropolis of the West before the effects of a foreign corn-dependence +could unfold themselves, but for her daughter and rival in the East. +Early in the seventh century, near to the very crisis of the Hegira +(which dates from the Christian year 622), Constantinople, Eastern Rome, +suddenly became acquainted with the panic of famine. In one hour perhaps +this change fell upon the imperial city, and, but for the imperial +granaries, not the panic of famine, but famine itself, would have +surprised the imperial city; for the suddenness of the calamity would +have allowed no means of searching out or raising up a relief to it. At +that time the greatest man who ever occupied the chair of the Eastern +Cæsars, viz., Heraclius,[24] was at the head of affairs. But the +perplexity was such that no man could face it. On the one hand +Constantine, the founder of this junior Rome, had settled upon the +houses of the city a claim for a weekly _dimensum_ of grain. Upon this +they relied; so that doubly the Government stood pledged--first, for the +importation of corn that should be sufficient; secondly, for its +distribution upon terms as near to those of Constantine as possible. +But, on the other hand, Persia (the one great stationary enemy of the +empire) had in the year 618 suddenly overrun Egypt; grain became +deficient on the banks of the Nile--had it even been plentiful, to so +detested an enemy it would have been denied--and thus, without a month's +warning, the supply, which had not failed since the inauguration of the +city in 330, ceased in one week. The people of this mighty city were +pressed by the heaviest of afflictions. The emperor, under false +expectations, was tempted into making engagements which he could not +keep; the Government, at a period which otherwise and for many years to +come was one of awful crisis, became partially insolvent; the shepherd +was dishonoured, the flocks were ruined; and had that Persian armament +which about ten years later laid siege to Constantinople then stood at +her gates, the Cross would have been trampled on by the fire-worshipping +idolater, and the barbarous Avar would have desolated the walls of the +glorified Cæsar who first saw Christ marching in the van of Roman +armies. Such an iliad of woes would have expanded itself _seriatim_, and +by a long procession, from the one original mischief of depending for +daily bread upon those who might suddenly become enemies or tools of +enemies. England! read in the distress of that great Cæsar,[25] who may +with propriety be called the earliest (as he was the most prosperous) of +Crusaders, read in the internal struggle of his heart--too conscious +that dishonour had settled upon his purple--read in the degradations +which he traversed as some fiery furnace (yet not unsinged), the +inevitable curses which await nations who sacrifice, for a momentary +convenience of bread, sacrifice for a loaf, the charter of their +supremacy! This is literally to fulfil the Scriptural case of selling a +birthright for a mess of pottage. + +For England we may say of this case--_Transeat in exemplum!_ + +Great Britain, on the contrary, is limited in her recruiting-grounds by +modern political relations as respects Europe: she _has_ formed an +excellent foreign corps long ago in the Mediterranean; a Hessian corps +in America; an admirable Hanoverian legion during the late war. But +circumstances too often prevent her relying (as the Romans did) on the +perfection of her military _system_ so far as to dispense with native +materials; except, indeed, in the East, where the Roman principle is +carried out to the widest extent, needing only one-tenth of British by +way of model and inspiration under circumstances of peculiar trial! In +African stations also, in the West Indies and on the American continent +(as in Honduras), England proceeds (though insufficiently) upon this +fine Roman principle, making her theory, her discipline, and the network +of her rules do the work of her own too costly hands. She, like Rome, +finds the benefit of her fine system chiefly in the dispensation which +it facilitates from working with any exhaustible fund of means. +Excellent must be that workmanship which can afford to be careless about +its materials; yet still--where naturally and essentially it must be +said that _materiem superabat opus_, because one section of our martial +service moves by nautical soldiers, and with respect to the other half +because it is necessary to meet European troops by men of British +blood--we cannot, for European purposes, look to any other districts +than our own native _officinæ_ of population. The Life Guards (1st +regiment) and the Blues (2nd) recruit chiefly, or did so thirty years +ago, in Yorkshire. This is a manufacturing county, though in a mode of +manufacturing which escapes many evils of the factory system. And +generally we are little disposed pedantically to disparage towns as +funds of a good soldiery. Men of mighty bone and thews, sons of Anak, to +our own certain knowledge, arise in Kendal, Wakefield, Bradford and +Leeds; huge men, by thousands, amongst the spinners and weavers of +Glasgow, Paisley, etc., well able to fight their way through battalions +of clod-hoppers whose talk is of oxen. But, unless in times subject to +special distress, it is not so easy to tempt away the weaver from his +loom as the delver from his spade. We believe the reason to be, that the +monotony of a rustic life is more oppressive to those who have limited +resources than the corresponding monotony of a town life. For this +reason, and for many others, it is certain--and perhaps (unless we get +to fighting with steam-men) it will continue to be certain through +centuries--that, for the main staple of her armies and her navies, +England must depend upon the quality of her bold peasantry and noble +yeomanry; for we must remember that, of those huge-limbed men who are +found in the six northern counties of England and in the Scottish +Lowlands, of those elegantly-formed men who are found in Devonshire, +Cornwall, etc., of those _hardy_ men (a feature in human physics still +more important) who are found in every district--if many are now +resident in towns, most of them originated in rustic life; and from +rustic life it is that the reservoir of towns is permanently fed. Rome +was, England never will be, independent of her rural population. Rome +never had a yeomanry, Rome never had a race of country gentlemen; +England has both upon a scale so truly noble that it will be the +simplest expression of that nobility to say, pointing to our villages, +'Behold the cradle of our army!' as inversely to say, pointing to that +army: 'Behold the manhood of our villages!' As regards Rome, from the +bisection of the Roman territory into two several corn districts +depending upon a separate agriculture, it results that _her_ wealth +could not be defeated and transferred; secondly, it results from the +total subjection of Egypt, that no embargo _could_ be laid on the +harvests of the Nile, and no famine _could_ be organized against Rome; +thirdly, it results that the Roman military system was thus not liable +to be affected by any dependency upon foreign grain. On the argument +that this dependency had _always_ been proceeding gradually in Italy, so +as virtually to reimburse itself by _vicarious_ culture, whereas in +England the transition from independency to dependency, being +accomplished (if at all) in one day by Act of Parliament, would be +ruinously abrupt; and also on the argument _B_, that Rome, if slowly +losing any recruiting districts at home, found compensatory districts +all round the Mediterranean, whilst England could find no such +compensatory districts--we deny that the circumstances of the Roman corn +trade have _ever_ been stated truly; and we expect the thanks of our +readers for drawing their attention to this outline of the points which +essentially differenced it from the modern corn trade of England. +England must, but Rome could _not_, reap from a foreign corn dependency: +firstly, ruinous disturbance to the natural expansions of her wealth; +secondly, famine by intervals for her vast population; thirdly, +impoverishment to her recruiting service. These are the dreadful evils +(some uniform, some contingent) which England would inherit of her +native agriculture, but which Rome escaped under that partial transfer, +never really accomplished. Meantime, let the reader remember that it is +Rome, and not England--Rome historically, not England politically--which +forms the _object_ of our exposure. England is but the _means_ of the +illustration. + +In our own days wars in their ebbs and flows are but another name for +the resources of the national exchequer, or expressions of its +artificial facilities for turning those resources to account. The great +artifice of anticipation applied to national income--an artifice sure to +follow where civilization has expanded, and which would have arisen to +Rome had her civilization been either (_A_) completely developed, or +(_B_) expanded originally from a true radix--has introduced a new era +into national history. The man who, having had property, invests in the +Funds, and divides between his grandchildren and the five subsequent +generations what will yield them subsistence, is the author of an +expansive improvement which has been enjoyed by all in turn, and with +more fixed assurance in the last case than in the first. He is a public +benefactor in more ways than appears on the surface: he takes the most +efficient guarantees against needless wars. + +Captain Jenkins's ears[26] might have been redeemed at a less price; but +still the war taught a lesson, which, if avoidable at that instant, was +certainly blamable; but it had its use in enforcing on other nations the +conviction that England washed out insult with retribution, and for +every drop of blood wantonly spilt demanded an ocean in return. Perhaps +you will say _this_ was no great improvement on the old. No; not in +_appearance_, it may be; but that was because war had to open a field +which mere diplomacy, unsupported by the sword, could not open, and +secured what we may well call a _moral_ result in the eye of the whole +world, which diplomacy could not secure in our guilty Europe. But was +that, you ask, a condition to be contemplated with complete +satisfaction? No; nor is it right that it should. But the dawn of a new +era is approaching, for which that may have done its installment of +preparation. Not that war will cease for many generations, but that it +will continually move more in greater subjection to national laws and +Christian opinion. Nevermore will it be excited by mere court intrigue, +or even by ministerial necessities. No more will a quarrel between two +ladies about a pair of gloves, or a fit of ill-temper in a prince toward +his minister, call forth the dread scourge by way of letting off +personal irritation or redressing the balance of parties. + +_Funding_, therefore, was a great step in advance; and even already we +have only to look into the Exchequer in order to read the possibilities, +the ebbs and flows of war beforehand. This consideration of money, it is +true--even as the sinews of war--was not so great in ancient history. +And the reason is evident. Kings did not then go to war _by_ money, but +_for_ money. They did not look into the Exchequer for the means of a +campaign, but they looked into a campaign for the means of an Exchequer. +Yet even in these nations, more of their history, of their doings and +sufferings, lay in their economy than anywhere else. The great Oriental +phantoms, such as the Pharaohs and the Sargons, did, it is true, bring +nations to war without much more care for the commissariat department +than is given in the battles of the Kites and Daws. Yet even there the +political economy made itself felt, obscurely and indirectly it may be, +but really and effectively, acting by laws that varied their force +rather to the eye than to the understanding, and presented indeed a +final restraining force to these kings also. For examine these wars, +fabulous as they are; look into the when, the whence, the how; into the +duration of the campaigns, into their objects, and into the quality of +the troops, into the circumstances under which they were trained and +fought, and this will abundantly appear. + +Certainly, the commissariat which we do by foresight, they did by brute +efforts of power; but the leading economical laws which are now clear to +us, and which, with full perception of their inevitable operation, we +take into account, made themselves felt in the last result if only then +blindly realized; and in the fact that these laws are now clearly +apprehended lies the prevailing reason that modern wars must, on the +side alike of the commissariat and of social effects in various +directions, be widely different from war in ancient times. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[21] One pretended proof of a decline is found in the supposed +substitution of slave labour for free Italian labour. This began, it is +urged, on the opening of the Nile corn trade. Unfortunately, that is a +mere romance. Ovid, describing rural appearances in Italy when as yet +the trade was hardly in its infancy, speaks of the rustic labourer as +working in fetters. Juvenal, in an age when the trade had been vastly +expanded, notices the same phenomenon almost in the same terms. + +[22] 'The best raw material.' Some people hold that the Romans and +Italians were a cowardly nation. We doubt this on the whole. Physically, +however, they were inferior to their neighbours. It is certain that the +Transalpine Gauls were a conspicuously taller race. Cæsar says: 'Gallis, +præ magnitudine corporum quorum, brevitas nostra contemptui est' ('Bell. +Gall.' 2, 30 _fin_.); and the Germans, in a still higher degree, were +both larger men and every way more powerful. The kites, says Juvenal, +had never feasted on carcases so huge as those of the Cimbri and +Teutones. But this physical superiority, though great for special +purposes, was not such absolutely. For the more general uses of the +legionary soldier, for marching, for castrametation, and the daily +labours of the spade or mattock, a lighter build was better. As to +single combats, it was one effect from the Roman (as from every good) +discipline--that it diminished the openings for such showy but perilous +modes of contest. + +[23] '_Any considerable portion of this provincial corn growth,' i.e._, +of the provincial culture which was pursued on account of Rome, meaning +not the government of Rome, but, in a rigorous sense, on account of Rome +the city. For here lies a great oversight of historians and economists. +Because Rome, with a view to her own _privileged_ population, _i.e._, +the urban population of Rome, the metropolis, in order that she might +support her public distributions of grain, almost of necessity depended +on foreign supplies, _we are not to suppose that the great mass of +Italian towns and municipia did so_. Maritime towns, having the benefit +of ports or of convenient access, undoubtedly were participators in the +Roman advantage. But inland towns would in those days have forfeited the +whole difference between foreign and domestic grain by the enormous cost +of inland carriage. Of canals there was but one; the rivers were not +generally navigable, and ports as well as river shipping were wanting. + +[24] '_Heraclius._' The same prosodial fault affects this name as that +of _Alexandria_. In each name the Latin _i_ represents a Greek _ei_, and +in that situation (viz., as a penultimate syllable) should receive the +emphasis in pronunciation as well as the sound of a long _i_ (that sound +which is heard in Long_i_nus). So again Academ_i_a, not Acad_e_mia. The +Greek accentuation may be doubted, but not the Roman. + +[25] We have already said that Heraclius, who and whose family filled +the throne of Eastern Cæsar for exactly one hundred years (611-711), +consequently interesting in this way (if in no other), that he, as the +reader will see by considering the limits in point of time, must have +met and exhausted the first rage of the Mahometan _avalanche_, merits +according to our estimate the title of first and noblest amongst the +Oriental Cæsars. There are records or traditions of his earliest acts +that we could wish otherwise. Which of us would _not_ offend even at +this day, if called upon to act under one scale of sympathies, and to be +judged under another? In his own day, too painfully we say it, Heraclius +could not have followed what we venture to believe the suggestions of +his heart, in relation to his predecessor, because a policy had been +established which made it dangerous to be merciful, and a state of +public feeling which made it effeminate to pardon. First make it safe to +permit a man's life, before you pronounce it ignoble to authorize his +death. Strip mercy of ruin to its author, before you affirm upon a +judicial punishment of death (as then it was) cruelty in the adviser or +ignobility in the approver. Escaping from these painful scenes at the +threshold of his public life, we find Heraclius preparing for a war, the +most difficult that in any age any hero has confronted. We call him the +earliest of Crusaders, because he first and _literally_ fought for the +recovery of the Cross. We call him the most prosperous of Crusaders, +because he first--he last--succeeded in all that he sought, bringing +back to Syria (ultimately to Constantinople) that sublime symbol of +victorious Christianity which had been disgracefully lost at Jerusalem. +Yet why, when comparing him not with Crusaders, but with Cæsars, do we +pronounce him the noblest? Reader, which is it that is felt by a +thoughtful man--supposing him called upon to select one act by +preference before all others--to be the grandest act of our own +Wellesley? Is it not the sagacious preparation of the lines at Torres +Vedras, the self-mastery which lured the French on to their ruin, the +long-suffering policy which reined up his troops till that ruin was +accomplished? '_I bide my time_,' was the dreadful watchword of +Wellington through that great drama; in which, let us tell the French +critics on Tragedy, they will find _the most_ absolute unity of plot; +for the forming of the lines as the fatal noose, the wiling back the +enemy, the pursuit when the work of disorganization was perfect, all +were parts of one and the same drama. If he (as another Scipio) saw +another Zama, in this instance he was not our Scipio or Marcellus, but +our Fabius Maximus: + +'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.'--'Ann.' 8, 27. + +Now, such was the Emperor Heraclius. He also had his avenging Zama. But, +during a memorable interval of eleven years, he held back; fiercely +reined up his wrath; brooded; smiled often balefully; watched in his +lair; and then, when the hour had struck, let slip his armies and his +thunderbolts as no Cæsar had ever done, except that one who founded the +name of Cæsar. + +[26] A brutal outrage on a Captain Jenkins--i.e., cutting off his +ears--was the cause of a war with Spain in the reign of George II.--ED. + + + + +_XVIII. NATIONAL MANNERS AND FALSE JUDGMENT OF THEM._ + + +Anecdotes illustrative of manners, above all of national manners, will +be found on examination, in a far larger proportion than might be +supposed, rank falsehoods. Malice is the secret foundation of all +anecdotes in that class. The ordinary course of such falsehoods is, that +first of all some stranger and alien to those feelings which have +prompted a particular usage--incapable, therefore, of entering fully +into its spirit or meaning--tries to exhibit its absurdity more forcibly +by pushing it into an extreme or trying case. Coming himself from some +gross form of _Kleinstädtigkeit_, where no restraints of decorum exist, +and where everybody speaks to everybody, he has been utterly confounded +by the English ceremony of 'introduction,' when enforced as the _sine +quâ non_ condition of personal intercourse. If England is right, then +how clownishly wrong must have been his own previous circles! If England +is not ridiculously fastidious, then how bestially grovelling must be +the spirit of social intercourse in his own land! But no man reconciles +himself to this view of things in a moment. He kicks even against his +own secret convictions. He blushes with shame and anger at the thought +of his own family perhaps brought suddenly into collision with polished +Englishmen; he thrills with wrath at the recollection of having himself +trespassed upon this code of restriction at a time when he was yet +unwarned of its existence. In this temper he is little qualified to +review such a regulation with reason and good sense. He seeks to make it +appear ridiculous. He presses it into violent cases for which it was +never intended. He supposes a case where some fellow-creature is +drowning. How would an Englishman act, how _could_ he act, even under +such circumstances as these? _We_ know, we who are blinded by no spite, +that as a bar to personal communication or to any interchange of good +offices under appeals so forcible as these, this law of formal +presentation between the parties never did and never will operate. The +whole motive to such a law gives way at once. + + + + +_XIX. INCREASED POSSIBILITIES OF SYMPATHY IN THE PRESENT AGE._ + + +Some years ago I had occasion to remark that a new era was coming on by +hasty strides for national politics, a new organ was maturing itself for +public effects. Sympathy--how great a power is that! Conscious +sympathy--how immeasurable! Now, for the total development of this +power, _time_ is the most critical of elements. Thirty years ago, when +the Edinburgh mail took ninety-six hours in its transit from London, how +slow was the reaction of the Scottish capital upon the English! Eight +days for the _diaulos_[27] of the journey, and two, suppose, for getting +up a public meeting, composed a cycle of _ten_ before an act received +its commentary, before a speech received its refutation, or an appeal +its damnatory answer. What was the consequence? The sound was +disconnected from its echo, the kick was severed from the +recalcitration, the '_Take you this!_' was unlinked from the '_And take +you that!_' Vengeance was defeated, and sympathy dissolved into the air. +But now mark the difference. A meeting on Monday in Liverpool is by +possibility reported in the London _Standard_ of Monday evening. On +Tuesday, the splendid merchant, suppose his name were Thomas Sands, who +had just sent a vibration through all the pulses of Liverpool, of +Manchester, of Warrington, sees this great rolling fire (which hardly +yet has reached his own outlying neighbourhoods) taken up afar off, +redoubled, multiplied, peal after peal, through the vast artilleries of +London. Back comes rolling upon him the smoke and the thunder--the +defiance to the slanderer and the warning to the offender--groans that +have been extorted from wounded honour, aspirations rising from the +fervent heart--truth that had been hidden, wisdom that challenged +co-operation. + +And thus it is that all the nation, thus 'all that mighty heart,' +through nine hundred miles of space, from Sutherlandshire by London to +the myrtle climate of Cornwall, has become and is ever more becoming one +infinite harp, swept by the same breeze of sentiment, reverberating the +same sympathies + + 'Here, there, and in all places at one time.'[28] + +Time, therefore, that ancient enemy of man and his frail purposes, how +potent an ally has it become in combination with great mechanic changes! +Many an imperfect hemisphere of thought, action, desire, that could not +heretofore unite with its corresponding hemisphere, because separated by +ten or fourteen days of suspense, now moves electrically to its +integration, hurries to its complement, realizes its orbicular +perfection, spherical completion, through that simple series of +improvements which to man have given the wings and _talaria_ of Gods, +for the heralds have dimly suggested a future rivalship with the +velocities of light, and even now have inaugurated a race between the +child of mortality and the North Wind. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[27] 'The _diaulos_ of the journey.' We recommend to the amateur in +words this Greek phrase, which expresses by one word an egress linked +with its corresponding regress, which indicates at once the voyage +outwards and the voyage inwards, as the briefest of expressions for what +is technically called '_course of post,' i.e._, the reciprocation of +post, its systole and diastole. + +[28] Wordsworth. + + + + +_XX. THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL._ + + +We are not to suppose the rebel, or, more properly, corrupted +angels--the rebellion being in the result, not in the intention (which +is as little conceivable in an exalted spirit as that man should prepare +to make war on gravitation)--were essentially evil. Whether a principle +of evil--essential evil--anywhere exists can only be guessed. So gloomy +an idea is shut up from man. Yet, if so, possibly the angels and man +were nearing it continually. + +Possibly after a certain approach to that Maelstrom recall might be +hopeless. Possibly many anchors had been thrown out to pick up, had +all dragged, and last of all came to the Jewish trial. (Of course, +under the Pagan absence of sin, _a fall was impossible_. A return was +impossible, in the sense that you cannot return to a place which you +have never left. Have I ever noticed this?) We are not to suppose that +the angels were really in a state of rebellion. So far from that, it +was evidently amongst the purposes of God that what are called false +Gods, and are so in the ultimate sense of resting on tainted +principles and tending to ruin--perhaps irretrievable (though it would +be the same thing practically if no restoration were possible but +through vast æons of unhappy incarnations)--but otherwise were as +real as anything can be into whose nature a germ of evil has entered, +should effect a secondary ministration of the last importance to man's +welfare. Doubt there can be little that without any religion, any +sense of dependency, or gratitude, or reverence as to superior +natures, man would rapidly have deteriorated; and that would have +tended to such destruction of all nobler principles--patriotism +(strong in the old world as with us), humanity, ties of parentage or +neighbourhood--as would soon have thinned the world; so that the +Jewish process thus going on must have failed for want of +correspondencies to the scheme--possibly endless oscillations which, +however coincident with plagues, would extirpate the human race. We +may see in manufacturing neighbourhoods, so long as no dependency +exists on masters, where wages show that not work, but workmen, are +scarce, how unamiable, insolent, fierce, are the people; the poor +cottagers on a great estate may sometimes offend you by too obsequious +a spirit towards all gentry. That was a transition state in England +during the first half of the eighteenth century, when few +manufacturers and merchants had risen to such a generous model. But +this leaves room for many domestic virtues that would suffer greatly +in the other state. Yet this is but a faint image of the total +independency. Oaths were sacred only through the temporal judgments +supposed to overtake those who insulted the Gods by summoning them to +witness a false contract. But this would have been only part of the +evil. So long as men acknowledged higher natures, they were doubtful +about futurity. This doubt had little strength on the side of hope, +but much on the side of fear. The blessings of any future state were +cheerless and insipid mockeries; so Achilles--how he bemoans his +state! But the torments were real. By far more, however, they, +through this coarse agency of syllogistic dread, would act to show man +the degradation of his nature when all light of a higher existence had +disappeared. That which did not exist for natures supposed capable +originally of immortality, how should it exist for him? And that man +must have observed with little attention what takes place in this +world if he needs to be told that nothing tends to make his own +species cheap and hateful in his eyes so certainly as moral +degradation driven to a point of no hope. So in squalid dungeons, in +captivities of slaves, nay, in absolute pauperism, all hate each other +fiercely. Even with us, how sad is the thought--that, just as a man +needs pity, as he is stript of all things, when most the sympathy of +men should settle on him, then most is he contemplated with a +hard-hearted contempt! The Jews when injured by our own oppressive +princes were despised and hated. Had they raised an empire, licked +their oppressors well, they would have been compassionately loved. So +lunatics heretofore; so galley-slaves--Toulon, Marseilles, etc. This +brutal principle of degradation soon developed in man. The Gods, +therefore, performed a great agency for man. And it is clear that God +did not discourage _common_ rites or rights for His altar or theirs. +Nay, he sent Israel to Egypt--as one reason--to learn ceremonies +amongst a people who sequestered them. In evil the Jews always clove +to their religion. Next the difficulty of people, miracles, though +less for false Gods, and least of all for the meanest, was _alike_ for +both. Astarte does not kill Sayth on the spot, but by a judgment. +Gods, no more their God, spake an instant law. Even the prophets are +properly no prophets, but only the mode of speech by God,--as clear as +He _can_ speak. Men mistake God's hate by their own. So neither could +He reveal Himself. A vast age would be required for seeing God. + +But for the thought of man as evil (or of any other form of evil), as +reconcilable with their idea of a perfect God, a happy idea may, like +the categories, proceed upon a necessity for a perfect _inversion_ of +the _methodus conspiciendi_. Let us retrace, but in such a form as to be +apprehensible by all readers. Analytic and synthetic propositions at +once throw light upon the notion of a category. Once it had been a mere +abstraction; of no possible use except as a convenient cell for +referring (as in a nest of boxes), which may perhaps as much degrade the +idea as a relative of my own degraded the image of the crescent moon by +saying, in his abhorrence of sentimentality, that it reminded him of the +segment from his own thumb-nail when clean cut by an instrument called a +nail-cutter. This was the Aristotelian notion. But Kant could not +content himself with this idea. His own theory (1) as to time and space, +(2) the refutation of Hume's notion of cause, and (3) his own great +discovery of synthetic and analytic propositions, all prepared the way +for a totally new view. But, now, what is the origin of this necessity +applied to the category as founded in the synthesis? How does a +synthesis make itself or anything else necessary? Explain me that. + +This was written perhaps a fortnight ago. Now, Monday, May 23 (day fixed +for Dan Good's execution), I _do_ explain it by what this moment I seem +to have discovered--the necessity of cause, of substance, etc., lies in +the intervening synthesis. This you _must_ pass through in the course +tending to and finally reaching the idea; for the analytical presupposes +this synthesis. + +Not only must the energies of destruction be equal to those of creation, +but, in fact, perhaps by the trespassing a little of the first upon the +last, is the true advance sustained; for it must be an advance as well +as a balance. But you say this will but in other words mean that forces +devoted (and properly so) to production or creation are absorbed by +destruction. True; but the opposing phenomena will be going on in a +large ratio, and each must react on the other. The productive must meet +and correspond to the destructive. The destructive must revise and +stimulate the continued production. + + + + +_XXI. ON MIRACLES._ + + +What else is the laying of such a stress on miracles but the case of 'a +wicked and adulterous generation asking a sign'? + +But what are these miracles for? To prove a legislation from God. But, +first, this could not be proved, even if miracle-working were the test +of Divine mission, by doing miracles until we knew whether the power +were genuine; _i.e._, not, like the magicians of Pharaoh or the witch of +Endor, from below. Secondly, you are a poor, pitiful creature, that +think the power to do miracles, or power of any kind that can exhibit +itself in an act, the note of a god-like commission. Better is one ray +of truth (not seen previously by man), of _moral_ truth, _e.g._, +forgiveness of enemies, than all the powers which could create the +world. + +'Oh yes!' says the objector; 'but Christ was holy as a man.' This we +know first; then we judge by His power that He must have been from God. +But if it were doubtful whether His power were from God, then, until +this doubt is _otherwise_, is independently removed, you cannot decide +if He _was_ holy by a test of holiness absolutely irrelevant. With other +holiness--apparent holiness--a simulation might be combined. You can +never tell that a man is holy; and for the plain reason that God only +can read the heart. + +'Let Him come down from the cross, and we,' etc. Yes; they fancied so. +But see what would really have followed. They would have been stunned +and confounded for the moment, but not at all converted in heart. Their +hatred to Christ was not built on their unbelief, but their unbelief in +Christ was built on their hatred; and this hatred would not have been +mitigated by another (however astounding) miracle. This I wrote (Monday +morning, June 7, 1847) in reference to my saying on the general question +of miracles: Why these _dubious_ miracles?--such as curing blindness +that may have been cured by a _process_?--since the _unity_ given to the +act of healing is probably (more probably than otherwise) but the +figurative unity of the tendency to _mythus_; or else it is that unity +misapprehended and mistranslated by the reporters. Such, again, as the +miracles of the loaves--so liable to be utterly gossip, so incapable of +being watched or examined amongst a crowd of 7,000 people. Besides, were +these people mad? The very fact which is said to have drawn Christ's +pity, viz., their situation in the desert, surely could not have escaped +their own attention on going thither. Think of 7,000 people rushing to a +sort of destruction; for if less than that the mere inconvenience was +not worthy of Divine attention. Now, said I, why not give us (if +miracles _are_ required) one that nobody could doubt--removing a +mountain, _e.g._? Yes; but here the other party begin to _see_ the evil +of miracles. Oh, this would have _coerced_ people into believing! Rest +you safe as to that. It would have been no believing in any proper +sense: it would, at the utmost--and supposing no vital demur to popular +miracle--have led people into that belief which Christ Himself describes +(and regrets) as calling Him Lord! Lord! The pretended belief would have +left them just where they were as to any real belief in Christ. +Previously, however, or over and above all this, there would be the +demur (let the miracle have been what it might) of, By what power, by +whose agency or help? For if Christ does a miracle, probably He may do +it by alliance with some _Z_ standing behind, out of sight. Or if by His +own skill, how or whence derived, or of what nature? This obstinately +recurrent question remains. + +There is not the meanest court in Christendom or Islam that would not +say, if called on to adjudicate the rights of an estate on such evidence +as the mere facts of the Gospel: 'O good God, how can we do this? Which +of us knows who this Matthew was--whether he ever lived, or, if so, +whether he ever wrote a line of all this? or, if he did, how situated as +to motives, as to means of information, as to judgment and +discrimination? Who knows anything of the contrivances or the various +personal interests in which the whole narrative originated, or when? All +is dark and dusty.' Nothing in such a case _can_ be proved but what +shines by its own light. Nay, God Himself could not attest a miracle, +but (listen to this!)--but by the internal revelation or visiting of the +Spirit--to evade which, to dispense with which, a miracle is ever +resorted to. + +Besides the objection to miracles that they are not capable of +attestation, Hume's objection is not that they are false, but that they +are incommunicable. Two different duties arise for the man who witnesses +a miracle and for him who receives traditionally. The duty of the first +is to confide in his own experience, which may, besides, have been +repeated; of the second, to confide in his understanding, which says: +'Less marvel that the reporter should have erred than that nature should +have been violated.' + +How dearly do these people betray their own hypocrisy about the divinity +of Christianity, and at the same time the meanness of their own natures, +who think the Messiah, or God's Messenger, must first prove His own +commission by an act of power; whereas (1) a new revelation of moral +forces could not be invented by all generations, and (2) an act of power +much more probably argues an alliance with the devil. I should gloomily +suspect a man who came forward as a magician. + +Suppose the Gospels written thirty years after the events, and by +ignorant, superstitious men who have adopted the fables that old women +had surrounded Christ with--how does this supposition vitiate the report +of Christ's parables? But, on the other hand, they could no more have +invented the parables than a man alleging a diamond-mine could invent a +diamond as attestation. The parables prove themselves. + + + + +_XXII. 'LET HIM COME DOWN FROM THE CROSS.'_ + + +Now, this is exceedingly well worth consideration. I know not at all +whether what I am going to say has been said already--life would not +suffice in every field or section of a field to search every nook and +section of a nook for the possibilities of chance utterance given to any +stray opinion. But this I know without any doubt at all, that it cannot +have been said effectually, cannot have been so said as to publish and +disperse itself; else it is impossible that the crazy logic current upon +these topics should have lived, or that many separate arguments should +ever for very shame have been uttered. Said or not said, let us presume +it unsaid, and let me state the true answer as if _de novo_, even if by +accident somewhere the darkness shelters this same answer as uttered +long ago. + +Now, therefore, I will suppose that He _had_ come down from the Cross. +No case can so powerfully illustrate the filthy falsehood and pollution +of that idea which men generally entertain, which the sole creditable +books universally build upon. What would have followed? This would have +followed: that, inverting the order of every true emanation from God, +instead of growing and expanding for ever like a [symbol: <], it would +have attained its _maximum_ at the first. The effect for the half-hour +would have been prodigious, and from that moment when it began to flag +it would degrade rapidly, until, in three days, a far fiercer hatred +against Christ would have been moulded. For observe: into what state of +mind would this marvel have been received? Into any good-will towards +Christ, which previously had been defeated by the belief that He was an +impostor in the sense that He pretended to a power of miracles which in +fact He had not? By no means. The sense in which Christ had been an +impostor for them was in assuming a commission, a spiritual embassy with +appropriate functions, promises, prospects, to which He had no title. +How had that notion--not, viz., of miraculous impostorship, but of +spiritual impostorship--been able to maintain itself? Why, what should +have reasonably destroyed the notion? This, viz., the sublimity of His +moral system. But does the reader imagine that this sublimity is of a +nature to be seen intellectually--that is, insulated and _in vacuo_ for +the intellect? No more than by geometry or by a _sorites_ any man +constitutionally imperfect could come to understand the nature of the +sexual appetite; or a man born deaf could make representable to himself +the living truth of music, a man born blind could make representable the +living truth of colours. All men are not equally deaf in heart--far from +it--the differences are infinite, and some men never could comprehend +the beauty of spiritual truth. But no man could comprehend it without +preparation. That preparation was found in his training of Judaism; +which to those whose hearts were hearts of flesh, not stony and charmed +against hearing, had already anticipated the first outlines of Christian +ideas. Sin, purity, holiness unimaginable, these had already been +inoculated into the Jewish mind. And amongst the race inoculated Christ +found enough for a central nucleus to His future Church. But the natural +tendency under the fever-mist of strife and passion, evoked by the +present position in the world operating upon robust, full-blooded life, +unshaken by grief or tenderness of nature, or constitutional sadness, is +to fail altogether of seeing the features which so powerfully mark +Christianity. Those features, instead of coming out into strong relief, +resemble what we see in mountainous regions where the mist covers the +loftiest peaks. + +We have heard of a man saying: 'Give me such titles of honour, so many +myriads of pounds, and then I will consider your proposal that I should +turn Christian.' Now, survey--pause for one moment to survey--the +immeasurable effrontery of this speech. First, it replies to a proposal +having what object--our happiness or his? Why, of course, his: how are +we interested, except on a sublime principle of benevolence, in his +faith being right? Secondly, it is a reply presuming money, the most +fleshly of objects, to modify or any way control religion, _i.e._, a +spiritual concern. This in itself is already monstrous, and pretty much +the same as it would be to order a charge of bayonets against +gravitation, or against an avalanche, or against an earthquake, or +against a deluge. But, suppose it were _not_ so, what incomprehensible +reasoning justifies the notion that not we are to be paid, but that he +is to be paid for a change not concerning or affecting our happiness, +but his? + + + + +_XXIII. IS THE HUMAN RACE ON THE DOWN GRADE?_ + + +As to individual nations, it is matter of notoriety that they are often +improgressive. As a whole, it may be true that the human race is under a +necessity of slowly advancing; and it may be a necessity, also, that the +current of the moving waters should finally absorb into its motion that +part of the waters which, left to itself, would stagnate. All this may +be true--and yet it will not follow that the human race must be moving +constantly upon an ascending line, as thus: + + B + / + / + / + / + / + / + A + +nor even upon such a line, with continual pauses or rests interposed, as +thus: + + +[Illustration] + +where there is no going back, though a constant interruption to the +going forward; but a third hypothesis is possible: there may be +continual loss of ground, yet so that continually the loss is more than +compensated, and the total result, for any considerable period of +observation, may be that progress is maintained: + +[Illustration] + +At O, by comparison with the previous elevation at A, there is a +repeated falling back; but still upon the whole, and pursuing the +inquiry through a sufficiently large segment of time, the constant +report is--ascent. + +Upon this explanation it is perfectly consistent with a general belief +in the going forward of man--that this particular age in which we live +might be stationary, or might even have gone back. It cannot, therefore, +be upon any _à priori_ principle that I maintain the superiority of this +age. It is, and must be upon special examination, applied to the +phenomena of this special age. The last century, in its first thirty +years, offered the spectacle of a death-like collapse in the national +energies. All great interests suffered together. The intellectual power +of the country, spite of the brilliant display in a lower element, made +by one or two men of genius, languished as a whole. The religious +feeling was torpid, and in a degree which insured the strong reaction of +some irritating galvanism, or quickening impulse such as that which was +in fact supplied by Methodism. It is not with that age that I wish to +compare the present. I compare it with the age which terminated thirty +years ago--roused, invigorated, searched as that age was through all its +sensibilities by the electric shock of the French Revolution. It is by +comparison with an age so keenly alive, penetrated by ideas stirring and +uprooting, that I would compare it; and even then the balance of gain in +well-calculated resource, fixed yet stimulating ideals, I hold to be in +our favour--and this in opposition to much argument in an adverse spirit +from many and influential quarters. Indeed, it is a remark which more +than once I have been led to make in print: that if a foreigner were to +inquire for the moral philosophy, the ethics, and even for the +metaphysics, of our English literature, the answer would be, 'Look for +them in the great body of our Divinity.' Not merely the more scholastic +works on theology, but the occasional sermons of our English divines +contain a body of richer philosophical speculation than is elsewhere to +be found; and, to say the truth, far more instructive than anything in +our Lockes, Berkeleys, or other express and professional philosophers. +Having said this by way of showing that I do not overlook their just +pretensions, let me have leave to notice a foible in these writers which +is not merely somewhat ludicrous, but even seriously injurious to +truth. One and all, through a long series of two hundred and fifty +years, think themselves called upon to tax their countrymen--each +severally in his own age--with a separate, peculiar, and unexampled +guilt of infidelity and irreligion. Each worthy man, in his turn, sees +in his own age overt signs of these offences not to be matched in any +other. Five-and-twenty periods of ten years each may be taken, +concerning each of which some excellent writer may be cited to prove +that it had reached a maximum of atrocity, such as should not easily +have been susceptible of aggravation, but which invariably the _relays_ +through all the subsequent periods affirm their own contemporaries to +have attained. Every decennium is regularly worse than that which +precedes it, until the mind is perfectly confounded by the _Pelion upon +Ossa_ which must overwhelm the last term of the twenty-five. It is the +mere necessity of a logical _sorites_, that such a horrible race of +villains as the men of the twenty-fifth decennium ought not to be +suffered to breathe. Now, the whole error arises out of an imbecile +self-surrender to the first impressions from the process of abstraction +as applied to remote objects. Survey a town under the benefit of a ten +miles' distance, combined with a dreamy sunshine, and it will appear a +city of celestial palaces. Enter it, and you will find the same filth, +the same ruins, the same disproportions as anywhere else. So of past +ages, seen through the haze of an abstraction which removes all +circumstantial features of deformity. Call up any one of those ages, if +it were possible, into the realities of life, and these worthy praisers +of the past would be surprised to find every feature repeated which they +had fancied peculiar to their own times. Meanwhile this erroneous +doctrine of sermons has a double ill consequence: first, the whole +chain of twenty-five writers, when brought together, consecutively +reflect a colouring of absurdity upon each other; separately they might +be endurable, but all at once, predicating (each of his own period +exclusively) what runs with a rolling fire through twenty-five such +periods in succession, cannot but recall to the reader that senseless +doctrine of a physical decay in man, as if man were once stronger, +broader, taller, etc.--upon which hypothesis of a gradual descent why +should it have stopped at any special point? How could the human race +have failed long ago to reach the point of _zero_? But, secondly, such a +doctrine is most injurious and insulting to Christianity. If, after +eighteen hundred years of development, it could be seriously true of +Christianity that it had left any age or generation of men worse in +conduct, or in feeling, or in belief, than all their predecessors, what +reasonable expectation could we have that in eighteen hundred years more +the case would be better? Such thoughtless opinions make Christianity to +be a failure. + + + + +_XXIV. BREVIA: SHORT ESSAYS (IN CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER.)_ + + +1.--PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY--THE IDEAS OF DUTY AND HOLINESS. + +The Pagan God could have perfect peace with his votary, and yet could +have no tendency to draw that votary to himself. Not so with the God of +Christianity, who cannot give His peace without drawing like a vortex to +Himself, who cannot draw into His own vortex without finding His peace +fulfilled. + +'An age when lustre too intense.'--I am much mistaken if Mr. Wordsworth +is not deeply wrong here. Wrong he is beyond a doubt as to the _fact_; +for there could have been no virtual intensity of lustre (unless merely +as a tinsel toy) when it was contradicted by everything in the +_manners_, _habits_, and situations of the Pagan Gods--they who were +content to play in the coarsest manner the part of gay young bloods, +_sowing_ their wild oats, and with a recklessness of consequences to +their female partners never by possibility rivalled by men. I believe +and affirm that lustre the most dazzling and blinding would not have any +_ennobling_ effect except as received into a matrix of previous +unearthly and holy type. + + +As to Bacchus being eternally young, the ancients had no idea or power +to frame the idea of eternity. Their eternity was a limitary thing. And +this I say not empirically, but _à priori_, on the ground that without +the idea of holiness and unfleshliness, eternity cannot rise buoyant +from the ground, cannot sustain itself. But waive this, and what becomes +of the other things? If he were characteristically distinguished as +young, then, by a mere rebound of the logic, the others were not so +honoured, else where is the special privilege of Bacchus? + + +'And she shall sing there as in the days of her youth' (Hosea ii. +15).--The case of pathos, a person coming back to places, recalling the +days of youth after a long woe, is quite unknown to the ancients--nay, +the maternal affection itself, though used inevitably, is never +consciously reviewed as an object of beauty. + + +Duties arise everywhere, but--do not mistake--not under their sublime +form _as_ duties. I claim the honour to have first exposed a fallacy too +common: duties never did, never will, arise save under Christianity, +since without it the sense of a morality lightened by religious motive, +aspiring to holiness, not only of act, but of motive, had not before it +even arisen. It is the pressure of society, its mere needs and palpable +claims, which first calls forth duties, but not _as_ duties; rather as +the casting of parts in a scenical arrangement. A duty, under the low +conception to which at first it conforms, is a _rôle_, no more; it is +strictly what we mean when we talk of a _part_. The sense of conscience +strictly is not touched under any preceding system of religion. It is +the daughter of Christianity. How little did Wordsworth seize the fact +in his Ode: 'Stern Daughter of the Voice of God' is not enough; the +voice of God is the conscience; and neither has been developed except by +Christianity. + + +The conscience of a pagan was a conscience pointing to detection: it +pointed only to the needs of society, and caused fear, shame, anxiety, +only on the principles of sympathy; that is, from the impossibility of +releasing himself from a dependence on the reciprocal feelings--the +rebound, the dependence on the _re_sentments of others. + + +_Morals._--Even ordinary morals could have little practical weight with +the ancients: witness the Roman juries and Roman trials. Had there been +any sense of justice predominant, could Cicero have hoped to prevail by +such defences as that of Milo and fifty-six others, where the argument +is merely fanciful--such a _Hein-gespinst_ as might be applauded with +'very good!' 'bravo!' in any mock trial like that silly one devised by +Dean Swift. + + +The slowness and obtuseness of the Romans to pathos appears _à priori_ +in their amphitheatre, and its tendency to put out the theatre; +secondly, _à posteriori_, in the fact that their theatre was put out; +and also, _à posteriori_, in the coarseness of their sensibilities to +real distresses unless costumed and made sensible as well as +intelligible. The grossness of this demand, which proceeded even so far +as pinching to elicit a cry, is beyond easy credit to men of their time. + + +The narrow range of the Greek intellect, always revolving through seven +or eight centuries about a few memorable examples--from the Life of +Themistocles to Zeno or Demosthenes. + + +The Grecian glories of every kind seem sociable and affable, courting +sympathy. The Jewish seem malignantly [Greek: autarkeis]. + + +But just as Paganism respected only rights of action, possession, etc., +Christianity respects a far higher scale of claims, viz., as to the +wounds to feelings, to deep injury, though not grounded in anything +measurable or expoundable by external results. Man! you have said that +which you were too proud and obstinate to unsay, which has lacerated +some heart for thirty years that had perhaps secretly and faithfully +served you and yours. Christianity lays hold on that as a point of +conscience, if not of honour, to make _amends_, if in no other way, by +remorse. + + +As to the tears of Oedipus in the crises. I am compelled to believe that +Sophocles erred as regarded nature; for in cases so transcendent as this +Greek nature and English nature could not differ. In the great agony on +Mount Oeta, Hercules points the pity of his son Hyllus to the extremity +of torment besieging him on the humiliating evidence of the tears which +they extorted from him. 'Pity me,' says he, 'that weep with sobs like a +girl: a thing that no one could have charged upon the man' (pointing to +himself); 'but ever without a groan I followed out to the end my +calamities.' Now, on the contrary, on the words of the oracle, that +beckoned away with impatient sounds Oedipus from his dear sublime +Antigone, Oedipus is made to weep. + +But this is impossible. Always the tears arose, and will arise, on the +_relaxation_ of the torment and in the rear of silent anguish on its +sudden suspense, amidst a continued headlong movement; and also, in +looking back, tears, unless checked, might easily arise. But never +during the torment: on the rack there are no tears shed, and those who +suffered on the scaffold never yet shed tears, unless it may have been +at some oblique glance at things collateral to their suffering, as +suppose a sudden glimpse of a child's face which they had loved in life. + + +Is not every [Greek: aiôn] of civilization an inheritance from a +previous state not so high? Thus, _e.g._, the Romans, with so little of +Christian restraint, would have perished by reaction of their own vices, +but for certain prejudices and follies about trade, manufacture, etc., +and but for oil on their persons to prevent contagion. Now, this oil had +been, I think, a secret bequeathed from some older and higher +civilization long since passed away. We have it not, but neither have we +so much needed it. Soon, however, we shall restore the secret by science +more perfect. + + +Was Christianity meant to narrow or to widen the road to future +happiness? If I were translated to some other planet, I should say: + +1. _No_; for it raised a far higher standard--_ergo_, made the +realization of this far more difficult. + +2. _Yes_; for it introduced a new machinery for realizing this standard: +(first) Christ's atonement, (second) grace. + + +But, according to some bigots (as Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne), +as cited by Coleridge, Christianity first opened any road at all. Yet, +surely they forget that, if simply to come too early was the fatal bar +to their claims in the case, Abraham, the father of the faithful, could +not benefit. + + +Yesterday, Thursday, October 21 (1843), I think, or the day before, I +first perceived that the first great proof of Christianity is the proof +of Judaism, and the proof of that lies in the Jehovah. What merely +natural man capable of devising a God for himself such as the Jewish? + + +Of all eradications of this doctrine (of human progress), the most +difficult is that connected with the outward shows--in air, in +colouring, in form, in grouping of the great elements composing the +furniture of the heavens and the earth. It is most difficult, even when +confining one's attention to the modern case, and neglecting the +comparison with the ancient, at all to assign the analysis of those +steps by which to us Christians (but never before) the sea and the sky +and the clouds and the many inter-modifications of these, A, B, C, D, +and again the many interactions of the whole, the sun (S.), the moon +(M.), the noon (N. S.)--the breathless, silent noon--the gay +afternoon--the solemn glory of sunset--the dove-like glimpse of Paradise +in the tender light of early dawn--by which these obtain a power utterly +unknown, undreamed of, unintelligible to a Pagan. If we had spoken to +Plato--to Cicero--of the deep pathos in a sunset, would he--would +either--have gone along with us? The foolish reader thinks, Why, perhaps +not, not altogether as to the quantity--the degree of emotion. +Doubtless, it is undeniable that we moderns have far more sensibility to +the phenomena and visual glories of this world which we inhabit. And it +_is_ possible that, reflecting on the singularity of this characteristic +badge worn by modern civilization, he may go so far as to suspect that +Christianity has had something to do with it. But, on seeking to +complete the chain which connects them, he finds himself quite unable to +recover the principal link. + +Now, it will prove, after all, even for myself who have exposed and +revealed these new ligatures by which Christianity connects man with +awful interests in the world, a most insurmountable task to assign the +total nidus in which this new power resides, or the total phenomenology +through which that passes to and fro. Generally it seems to stand thus: +God reveals Himself to us more or less dimly in vast numbers of +processes; for example, in those of vegetation, animal growth, +crystallization, etc. These impress us not primarily, but secondarily on +reflection, after considering the enormity of changes worked annually, +and working even at the moment we speak. Then, again, other arrangements +throw us more powerfully upon the moral qualities of God; _e.g._, we see +the fence, the shell, the covering, varied in ten million ways, by which +in buds and blossoms He insures the ultimate protection of the fruit. +What protection, analogous to this, has He established for animals; or, +taking up the question in the ideal case, for man, the supreme of His +creatures? We perceive that He has relied upon love, upon love +strengthened to the adamantine force of insanity or delirium, by the +mere aspect of utter, utter helplessness in the human infant. It is not +by power, by means visibly developed, that this result is secured, but +by means spiritual and 'transcendental' in the highest degree. + + +The baseness and incorrigible ignobility of the Oriental mind is seen in +the radical inability to appreciate justice when brought into collision +with the royal privileges of rulers that represent the nation. Not only, +for example, do Turks, etc., think it an essential function of royalty +to cut off heads, but they think it essential to the consummation of +this function that the sacrifice should rest upon caprice known and +avowed. To suppose it wicked as a mere process of executing the laws +would rob it of all its grandeur. It would stand for nothing. Nay, even +if the power were conceded, and the sovereign should abstain from using +it of his own free will and choice, this would not satisfy the wretched +Turk. Blood, lawless blood--a horrid Moloch, surmounting a grim company +of torturers and executioners, and on the other side revelling in a +thousand unconsenting women--this hideous image of brutal power and +unvarnished lust is clearly indispensable to the Turk as incarnating the +representative grandeur of his nation. With this ideal ever present to +the Asiatic and Mohammedan mind, no wonder that even their religion +needs the aid of the sword and bloodshed to secure conversion. + + +In the _Spectator_ is mentioned, as an Eastern apologue, that a vizier +who (like Chaucer's Canace) had learned the language of birds used it +with political effect to his sovereign. The sultan had demanded to know +what a certain reverend owl was speechifying about to another owl +distantly related to him. The vizier listened, and reported that the +liberal old owl was making a settlement upon his daughter, in case his +friend's son should marry her, of a dozen ruined villages. Loyally long +life to our noble sultan! I shall, my dear friend, always have a ruined +village at your service against a rainy day, so long as our present +ruler reigns and desolates. + + +_Obliviscor jam injurias tuas, Clodia._--This is about the most +barefaced use of the rhetorical trick--viz., to affect _not_ to do, to +pass over whilst actually doing all the while--that anywhere I have met +with.--'Pro Cælio,' p. 234 [p. 35, Volgraff's edition]. + + +_Evaserint_ and _comprehenderint._--Suppose they had rushed out, and +suppose they had seized Licinus. So I read--not _issent._--_Ibid., p. +236_ [_Ibid., p. 44_]. + + +_Velim vel potius quid nolim dicere._--Aristotle's case of throwing +overboard your own property. He _vult dicere_, else he could not mean, +yet _nonvult_, for he is shocked at saying such things of +Clodia.--_Ibid., p. 242_ [_Ibid., p. 49_]. + + +2.--MORAL AND PRACTICAL. + +_Morality._--That Paley's principle does not apply to the higher +morality of Christianity is evident from this: when I seek to bring +before myself some ordinary form of wickedness that all men offend by, I +think, perhaps, of their ingratitude. The man born to £400 a year thinks +nothing of it, compares himself only with those above his own standard, +and sees rather a ground of discontent in his £400 as not being £4,000 +than any ground of deep thankfulness. Now, this being so odious a form +of immorality, should--by Paley--terminate in excessive evil. On the +contrary, it is the principle, the very dissatisfaction which God uses +for keep_ing_ the world mov_ing_ (how villainous the form--these +'ings'!). + + +All faith in the great majority is, and ought to be, implicit. That is, +your faith is not unrolled--not separately applied to each individual +doctrine--but is applied to some individual man, and on him you rely. +What he says, you say; what he believes, you believe. Now, he believes +all these doctrines, and you implicitly through him. But what I chiefly +say as the object of this note is, that the bulk of men must believe by +an implicit faith. _Ergo_, decry it not. + + +You delude yourself, Christian theorist, with the idea of offences that +else would unfit you for heaven being washed out by repentance. But +hearken a moment. Figure the case of those innumerable people that, +having no temptation, small or great, to commit murder, _would_ have +committed it cheerfully for half-a-crown; that, having no opening or +possibility for committing adultery, _would_ have committed it in case +they had. Now, of these people, having no possibility of repentance (for +how repent of what they have not done?), and yet ripe to excess for the +guilt, what will you say? Shall they perish because they _might_ have +been guilty? Shall they not perish because the potential guilt was not, +by pure accident, accomplished _in esse_? + + +Here is a mistake to be guarded against. If you ask why such a man, +though by nature gross or even Swift-like in his love of dirty ideas, +yet, because a gentleman and moving in corresponding society, does not +indulge in such brutalities, the answer is that he abstains through the +modifications of the sympathies. A low man in low society would not be +doubtful of its reception; but he, by the anticipations of sympathy (a +form that should be introduced as technically as Kant's anticipations of +perception), feels it would be ill or gloomily received. Well now, I, +when saying that a man is altered by sympathy so as to think _that_, +through means of this power, which otherwise he would not think, shall +be interpreted of such a case as that above. But wait; there is a +distinction: the man does not think differently, he only acts as if he +thought differently. The case I contemplate is far otherwise; it is +where a man feels a lively contempt or admiration in consequence of +seeing or hearing such feelings powerfully expressed by a multitude, or, +at least, by others which else he would not have felt. Vulgar people +would sit for hours in the presence of people the most refined, totally +unaware of their superiority, for the same reason that most people (if +assenting to the praise of the Lord's Prayer) would do so +hyper-critically, because its real and chief beauties are negative. + + +Not only is it false that my understanding is no measure or rule for +another man, but of necessity it is so, and every step I take towards +truth for myself is a step made on behalf of every other man. + + +We doubt if the world in the sense of a synthesis of action--the +procession and carrying out of ends and purposes--_could_ consist with +the [Greek: anti]-world (in a religious sense). Men who divide all into +pious people and next to devils see in such a state of evil the natural +tendency (as in all other _monstrous_ evils--which this must be if an +evil at all) to correction and redress. But now assume a man, sober, +honourable, cheerful, healthy, active, occupied all day long in toilsome +duties (or what he believes duties) for ends not selfish; this man has +never had a thought of death, hell, etc., and looking abroad on those +who dwell in such contemplations, he regards them sincerely, not +unkindly or with contempt; partially he respects them, but he looks on +them as under a monstrous delusion, in a fever, in a panic, as in a case +of broken equilibrium. Now he is right. And, moreover, secondly, two +other feelings or suspicions come on, (1) of hypocrisy, (2) of the +violation of inner shame in publishing the most awful private feelings. + + +_The Tendency of a Good Fortune inherited._--I know not that any man has +reason to wish a _sufficient_ patrimonial estate for his son. Much to +have something so as to start with an advantage. But the natural +consequence of having a full fortune is to become idle and vapid. For, +on asking what a young man has that he can employ himself upon, the +answer would be, 'Oh! why, those pursuits which presuppose solitude.' At +once you feel this to be hollow nonsense. Not one man in ten thousand +has powers to turn solitude into a blessing. They care not, _e.g._, for +geometry; and the cause is chiefly that they have been ill taught in +geometry; and the effect is that geometry must and will languish, if +treated as a mere amateur pursuit. So of any other. Secondly, yet of +Englishmen I must say that beyond all nations a man so situated does +not, in fact, become idle. He it is, and his class, that discharge the +public business of each county or district. Thirdly: And in the view, +were there no other, one sees at once the use of fox-hunting, let it be +as boisterous as you please. Is it not better to be boisterous than +gossip-ridden, eaves-dropping, seeking aliment for the spirits in the +petty scandal of the neighbourhood? + + +'He' (_The Times_) 'declares that the poorest artisan has a greater +stake than they' ('the Landed Interest') 'in the prosperity of the +country, and is, consequently, more likely to give sound advice. His +exposition of the intimate connection existing between the welfare of +the poor workman and the welfare of the country is both just and +admirable. But he manifestly underrates the corresponding relations of +the landowners, and wholly omits to show, even if the artisan's state +were the greatest, how his opinions are likely to be most valuable. To +suppose that a man is necessarily the best judge in whatever concerns +him most is a sad _non-sequitur_; for if self-interest ensured wisdom, +no one would ever go wrong in anything. Every man would be his own +minister, and every invalid would be his own best physician. The wounded +limbs of the community are the best judges of the pain they suffer; but +it is the wise heads of the community that best can apply a remedy that +best can cure the wound without causing it to break out in another +quarter. Poverty is blind; but the upper classes "education has +enlightened, and habit made foreseeing."' + + +We live in times great from the events and little from the character of +the actors. Every month summons us to the spectacle of some new perfidy +in the leaders of parties and the most conspicuous public servants; and +the profligacy which we charge upon the statesmen of the seventeenth +century has revolved in full measure upon our own days. + + +_Justifications of Novels._--The two following justifications of novels +occur to me. Firstly, that if some dreadful crisis awaited a ship of +passengers at the line--where equally the danger was mysterious and +multiform, the safety mysterious and multiform--how monstrous if a man +should say to a lady, 'What are you reading?' 'Oh, I'm reading about our +dreadful crisis, now so near'; and he should answer, 'Oh, nonsense! read +something to improve your mind; read about Alexander the Great, about +Spurius Ahala, about Caius Gracchus, or, if you please, Tiberius.' But +just such nonsense it is, when people ridicule reading romances in which +the great event of the fiction is the real great event of a female +life. + +There are others, you say--she loses a child. Yes, that's a great event. +But that arises out of this vast equinoctial event. + +Secondly, as all things are predisposed to the natures which must be +surrounded by them, so we may see that the element of social evolution +of character, manners, caprices, etc., has been adapted to the vast mass +of human minds. It is a mean element, you say. The revelations of Albert +Smith, Dickens, etc., are essentially mean, vulgar, plebeian, not only +in an aristocratic sense, but also in a philosophical sense. True, but +the minds that are to live and move in it are also mean, essentially +mean. Nothing grand in them? Yes, doubtless in the veriest grub as to +capacity, but the capacity is undeveloped. + +_Ergo_, as to the intrigue or fable, and as to the conduct or evolution +of this fable--novels must be the chief natural resource of woman. + + +_Moral Certainty._--As that a child of two years (or under) is not party +to a plot. Now, this would allow a shade of doubt--a child so old might +cry out or give notice. + + +This monstrous representation that the great war with France (1803-15) +had for its object to prevent Napoleon from sitting on the throne of +France--which recently, in contempt of all truth and common-sense, I +have so repeatedly seen advanced--throws a man profoundly on the +question of what _was_ the object of that war. Surely, in so far as we +are concerned, the matter was settled at Amiens in the very first year +of the century. December, 1799, Napoleon had been suffered by the +unsteady public opinion of France--abhorring a master, and yet sensible +that for the chief conscious necessity of France, viz., a developer of +her latent martial powers, she must look for a master or else have her +powers squandered--to mount the consular throne. He lived, he _could_ +live, only by victorious war. Most perilous was the prospect for +England. In the path which not Napoleon, but France, was now preparing +to tread, and which was the path of Napoleon no otherwise than that he +was the tool of France, was that servitor who must gratify her grand +infirmity or else be rapidly extinguished himself, unhappily for +herself, England was the main counter-champion. The course of honour +left to England was too fatally the course of resistance. Resistance to +what? To Napoleon personally? Not at all; but to Napoleon as pledged by +his destiny to the prosecution of a French conquering policy. That +personally England had no hostility to Napoleon is settled by the fact +that she had at Amiens cheerfully conceded the superior power. Under +what title? would have been the most childish of demurs. That by act she +never conceded the title of emperor was the mere natural diplomatic +result of never having once been at peace with Napoleon under that +title. Else it was a point of entire indifference. Granting the +consulship, she had granted all that could be asked. And what she +opposed was the determined war course of Napoleon and the schemes of +ultra-Polish partition to which Napoleon had privately tempted her under +circumstances of no such sense as existed and still exist for Russia. +This policy, as soon as exposed, and not before bitter insults to +herself, England resisted. And therefore it is that at this day we live. +But as to Napoleon, as apart from the policy of Napoleon, no +childishness can be wilder. + + +At some unlucky moment when the Crown commanded unusual resources, the +De Quinceys met with the fate ascribed, perhaps fabulously, to some +small heavenly bodies (asteroids or what, I do not precisely know): on +some dark day, by mistake perhaps, they exploded, and scattered their +ruins all over the central provinces of England, where chiefly had lain +their territorial influence. Especially in the counties of Leicester, +Lincoln and Rutland were found fragments of the vast landed estates held +by these potentates when Earls of Winchester. + + +The hatred of truth at first dawning--that instinct which makes you +revolt from the pure beams which search the foul depths and abysses of +error--is well illustrated by the action of the atmospheric currents, +when blowing through an open window upon smoke. What do you see? +Sometimes the impression is strong upon your _ocular_ belief that the +window is driving the smoke in. You can hardly be convinced of the +contrary--scarcely when five or seven minutes has absolutely rarefied the +smoke so much that a book-lettering previously invisible has become even +legible. And at last, when the fact, the result, the experience, has +corrected the contradictory theory of the eye, you begin to suspect, +without any aid from science, that there were two currents, one of which +comes round in a curve [Illustration: )] and effects the exit for the +other which the window had driven in; just as in the Straits of Gibraltar +there is manifestly an upper current setting one way, which you therefore +conjecture to argue a lower current setting the other, and thus +redressing the equilibrium. Here the smoke corresponds to bits of chip or +any loose suspended body in the Gibraltar current. What answers to the +current of water is the air, and if the equilibrium _is_ kept up, the +re-entrant current balances your retiring current, and the latter carries +out the smoke entangled in itself. By the objection, say, of a child, +there ought to be a re-entrant column of smoke, which there is not. For +the air drives the smoke of the fire up the chimney, and of its own +contribution the air has no smoke to give. + +Or the Augean stable may image it. Doubtless when the first disturbance +took place in the abominable mess, those acting would be apt to question +for a moment whether it had not been more advisable to leave it alone. + + +Moralists say, 'Nobody will attack you, or hate you, or blame you for +your virtues.' What falsehood! Not _as_ virtues, it may be in their +eyes, but virtues, nevertheless. Connect with Kant the error of +supposing _ætas parentum_, etc., to be the doctrine of sin. + + +Not for what you have done, but for what you are--not because in life +you did forsake a wife and children--did endure to eat and drink and lie +softly yourself whilst those who should have been as your heart-drops +were starving: not because you did that so much is forgiven you, but +because you were capable of that, therefore you are incapable of heaven. + + +_Immodesty._--The greatest mistake occurs to me now (Wednesday, April +17th, '44). A girl who should have been unhappily conscious of +voluptuous hours, her you would call modest in case of her passing with +downcast looks. But why, then, is she not so? That girl is immodest who +reconciles to herself such things, and yet assumes the look of +innocence. + + +_About Women._--A man brings his own idle preconceptions, and fancies +that he has learned them from his experience. + + +Far more to be feared than any depth of serious love, however absorbing +and apparently foolish, is that vicious condition in which trifling +takes the place of all serious love, when women are viewed only as +dolls, and addressed with an odious leer of affected knowingness as 'my +dear,' wink, etc. Now to this tends the false condition of women when +called 'the ladies.' On the other hand, what an awful elevation arises +when each views in the other a creature capable of the same noble +duties--she no less than he a creature of lofty aspirations; she by the +same right a daughter of God as he a son of God; she bearing her eyes +erect to the heavens no less than he! + + +_Low Degree._--We see often that this takes place very strongly and +decidedly with regard to men, notoriously pleasant men and remarkably +good-natured, which shows at once in what road the thing travels. And if +such a nature should be combined with what Butler thinks virtue, it +might be doubtful to which of the two the tribute of kind attentions +were paid; but now seeing the true case, we know how to interpret this +hypothetical case of Butler's accordingly. + + +'Visit the sins of the fathers,' etc. This people pretend to think +monstrous. Yet what else in effect happens and must happen to Jews +inheriting by filial obedience and natural sympathy all that +anti-Christian hostility which prevailed in the age succeeding to that +of Christ? What evil--of suffering, of penalties now or in reserve may +be attached to this spirit of hostility--follows the children through +all generations! + + +Case of Timoleon, whose killing of his brother might afterwards be read +into X Y Z or into X a b according to his conduct (either into murder or +patriotism), is a good illustration of synthesis. + + +To illustrate Cicero's argument in 'Pro Cælio' as to the frequency of +men wild and dissipated in youth becoming eminent citizens, one might +adduce this case from the word _Themistocles_ in the Index to the Græci +Rhetorici. But I see or I fancy cause to notice this passage for the +following cause: it contains only nine words, four in the first comma, +five in the last, and of these nine four are taken up in noting the time +[Greek: to prôton to telen]; ergo, five words record the remarkable +revolution from one state to another, and the character of each state. + +Two cases of young men's dissipation--1. Horace's record of his father's +advice: 'Concessa,' etc.; 2. Cicero's 'Pro Cælio.' + + +_What Crotchets in every Direction!_--1. The Germans, or, let me speak +more correctly, some of the Germans (and doubtless full of Hoch beer or +strong drink), found out some thirty years ago that there were only +three men of genius in the records of our planet. And who were they? (1) +Homer; (2) Shakespeare; (3) Goethe. So that absolutely Milton was shut +out from the constellation. Even he wanted a ticket, though Master +Sorrows-of-Werther had one. The porter, it seems, fancied he had no +marriage garment, a mistake which a mob might correct, saying, 'No +marriage garment! then, damme, he shall have this fellow's' (viz., +Goethe's). The trinity, according to these vagabonds, was complete +without Milton, as the Roman pomp was full to the eye of the sycophant +without the bust of Brutus. + +2. Macaulay fancied there were only two men of genius in the reign of +Charles II., viz., Milton and the tinker Bunyan. + +3. Coleridge (p. 237, 'Table-Talk') fancied there were only two men of +genius in his own generation: W. W. and Sir Humphrey Davy. + + +Jeremy Taylor having mentioned two religious men, St. Paul the Hermit +and Sulpitius, as having atoned for some supposed foolish garrulities, +the one by a three years' silence, the other by a lifelong silence, goes +on to express his dissatisfaction with a mode of _rabiosa silentia_ so +memorable as this. + +Yet it is certain in silence there is wisdom, and there may be deep +religion. And indeed it is certain, great knowledge, if it be without +vanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. For so I have heard +that all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and +toads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the +light of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge +checks the dissoluteness of the tongue. 'Ut quisque contemplissimus est, +ita solutissimæ linguæ est,' said Seneca. + +The silence must be [Greek: kairios], not sullen and ill-natured; 'nam +sic etiam tacuisse nocet'?--of all things in the world a prating +religion and much talk in holy things does most profane the +mysteriousness of it, and dismantles its regard, and makes cheap its +reverence and takes off fear and awfulness, and makes it loose and +garish, and like the laughters of drunkenness. + + +_Public Morality._--It ought not to be left to a man's interest merely +to protect the animals in his power. Dogs are no longer worked in the +way they were, although the change must have arbitrarily robbed many +poor men of half bread. But in a case as valuable as that of the horse, +it has been known that a man has incurred the total ruin of a series of +horses against even his own gain or self-interest. There ought to be a +_custos veteranorum_, a keeper and protector of the poor brutes who are +brought within the pale of social use and service. The difficulty, you +say! Legislation has met and dealt effectively with far more complicated +and minute matters than that. For, after all, consider how few of the +brute creation on any wide and permanent scale are brought into the +scheme of human life. Some birds as food, some fishes as ditto; beeves +as food and _sometimes_ as appliers of strength; horses in both +characters. These with elephants and camels, mules, asses, goats, dogs, +and sheep, cats and rabbits, gold-fishes and singing-birds, really +compose the whole of our animal equipage harnessed to the car of human +life. + + +3.--On Words And Style. + +There are a number of words which, unlocked from their absurd +imprisonment, would become extensively useful. We should say, for +instance, 'condign honours,' 'condign treatment' (treatment appropriate +to the merits), thus at once realizing two rational purposes, viz., +giving a useful function to a word, which at present has none, and also +providing an intelligible expression for an idea which otherwise is left +without means of uttering itself except through a ponderous +circumlocution. Precisely in the same circumstances of idle and absurd +sequestration stands the term _polemic_. At present, according to the +popular usage, this word has some fantastic inalienable connection with +controversial theology. There cannot be a more childish chimera. No +doubt there is a polemic side or aspect of theology; but so there is of +_all_ knowledge; so there is of _every_ science. The radical and +characteristic idea concerned in this term _polemic_ is found in our own +Parliamentary distinction of _the good speaker_, as contrasted with _the +good debater_. The good speaker is he who unfolds the whole of a +question in its affirmative aspects, who presents these aspects in their +just proportions, and according to their orderly and symmetrical +deductions from each other. But the good debater is he who faces the +negative aspects of the question, who meets sudden objections, has an +answer for any momentary summons of doubt or difficulty, dissipates +seeming inconsistencies, and reconciles the geometrical smoothness of _à +priori_ abstractions with the coarse angularities of practical +experience. The great work of Ricardo is of necessity, and almost in +every page, polemic; whilst very often the particular objections or +difficulties, to which it replies, are not indicated at all, being +spread through entire systems, and assumed as _precognita_ that are +familiar to the learned student. + + +Writing to scholastic persons, I should be ashamed to explain, but +hoping that I write to many also of the non-scholastic, and even of the +unlearned, I rejoice to explain the proper sense of the word _implicit_. +As the word _condign_, so capable of an extended sense, is yet +constantly restricted to one miserable association, viz., that with the +word _punishment_ (for we never say, as we might say, 'condign +rewards'), so also the word _implicit_ is in English always associated +with the word _faith_. People say that Papists have an _implicit_ faith +in their priests. What they mean is this: If a piece of arras, or a +carpet, is folded up, then it is _implicit_ according to the original +Latin word; if it is unfolded and displayed, then it is _explicit_. +Therefore, when a poor illiterate man (suppose a bog-trotter of Mayo or +Galway) says to his priest (as in effect always he _does_ say), 'Sir, I +cannot comprehend all this doctrine; bless you, I have not the +thousandth part of the learning for it, so it is impossible that I +should directly believe it. But your reverence believes it, the thing is +_wrapt up_ (implicit) in you, and I believe it on that account.' Here +the priest believes explicitly: _he_ believes implicitly. + + +_Modern._--Is it not shameful that to this hour even literary men of +credit and repute cannot for the life of them interpret this line from +'As You Like It'-- + + 'Full of wise saws and modern instances'? + +A man as well read as Mr. Theodore Hook, and many a hundred beside, have +seriously understood it to mean 'Full of old proverbs, the traditionary +wisdom of nations, and of illustrative examples drawn from modern +experience.' Nonsense! The meaning is, 'Full of old maxims and proverbs, +and of trivial attempts at argument.' That is, tediously redundant in +rules derived from the treasury of popular proverbs,' and in feeble +attempts at connecting these general rules with the special case before +him. The superannuated old magistrate sets out with a proverb, as for +instance this, that _the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's +wing_. That proverb forms his major proposition. In his minor +proposition he goes on to argue that the trespass charged upon the +particular prisoner before him was very little bigger than a midge's +wing. And then in his conclusion triumphantly he infers, Ergo, the +prisoner at the bar is the mother of mischief. But says the constable, +'Please, your worship, the prisoner is a man, a hulking clodhopper, some +six or seven feet high, with a strong black beard.' 'Well, that makes no +odds,' rejoins his worship; 'then he's the father of mischief. Clerk, +make out his mittimus.' + +The word 'instance' (from the scholastic _instantia_) never meant +_example_ in Shakespeare's age. The word 'modern' never once in +Shakespeare means what it means to _us_ in these days. Even the monkish +Latin word 'modernus' fluctuated in meaning, and did not always imply +_recens_, _neotericus_; but in Shakespeare never. What _does_ it mean in +Shakespeare? Once and for ever it means _trivial_, _inconsiderable_. Dr. +Johnson had too much feeling not to perceive that the word 'modern' had +this value in Shakespeare's acceptation; practically, he felt that it +_availed_ for that sense, but theoretically he could not make out the +_why_. It means that, said the Doctor; but feebly and querulously, like +one sick of the pip, he added, 'Yet I don't know why.' Don't you? Now, +we _do_. The fact is, Dr. Johnson was in a fit of the dismals at that +time; he had recently committed a debauch of tea, having exceeded his +usual allowance by seventy-five cups, so that naturally he had a +'curmurring' in the stomach. Else he could not have failed to see what +we are now going to explain with a wet finger. Everybody is aware that +to be _material_ is the very opposite of being trivial. What is +'material' in a chain of evidence, or in an argument, can never be +trifling. Now, therefore, if you can find a word that will flatly +contradict this word _material_, then you have a capital term for +expressing what is trivial. Well, you find in the word _immaterial_ all +that you are seeking. 'It is quite immaterial' will suit Mr. Touts's +purpose just as well as 'It is really of no consequence, of no +consequence in the world.' To say in a law court that the objection is +immaterial is otherwise to say that it is trivial. Here, then, is the +first step: to contradict the idea of _material_ is effectually to +express the idea of _trivial_. Let us now see if we can find any other +contradiction to the idea of _material_, for one antithesis to that idea +will express as well as any other antithesis the counterpole of the +trivial. Now, clearly the substance of a thing, the material out of +which it is made, is oftentimes of great importance by comparison with +its shape, fashion, or mode. It is of value in your eyes to know whether +your family plate is in substance of gold or of silver; but whether such +a vessel is round or square, ornamented with a wreath of acanthus or +ivy, supported by tigers or by fawns, may be a trivial consideration, or +even worse; for the fashion of your plate, after it has once become +obsolete, may count against you for so much loss as something that will +cost a good deal of money to alter. Here, then, is another contradiction +to the material, and therefore another expression for the trivial: +matter, as against vacancy or the privation of matter, yields the +antithesis of material or immaterial, substantial and unsubstantial; +matter, as against form, yields the antithesis of substance and shape, +or otherwise of material and modal--what is matter and what is the mere +modification of matter, its variation by means of ornament or shape. + +The word 'modern' is therefore in Shakespeare uniformly to be pronounced +with the long _o_, as in the words m_o_dal, m_o_dish, and never with the +short _o_ of m[)o]derate, m[)o]dest, or our present word m[)o]dern. And +the law under which Shakespeare uses the word is this: whatsoever is so +trivial as to fall into the relation of a mere shape or fleeting mode to +a permanent substance, _that_ with Shakespeare is modish, or (according +to his form) modern.[29] Thus, a weak, trivial argument (or _instantia_, +the scholastic term for an argument not latent merely, or merely having +the office of sustaining a truth, but urged as an objection, having the +polemic office of contradicting an opponent) is in Shakespeare's idiom, +when viewed as against a substantial argument, a _modern_ argument. + +Again, when Cleopatra, defending herself against the perfidy of her +steward, wishes to impress upon Octavius that any articles which she may +have kept back from the inventory of her personal chattels are but +trifles, she expresses this by saying that they are but + + 'Such as we greet modern friends withal;' + +_i.e._, such as we bestow, at welcoming or at parting, upon the +slightest acquaintances. The whole stress of the logic lies upon the +epithet _modern_--for simply as friends, had they been substantial +friends, they might have levied any amount from the royal lady's bounty; +kingdoms would have been slight gifts in her eyes, and _that_ would soon +have been objected to by her conqueror. But her argument is, that the +people to whom such gifts would be commensurate are mere _modish_ +friends, persons known to us on terms of bare civility, people with whom +we exchange salutations in the street, or occasional calls, what now we +call acquaintances, for whom in Shakespeare's time there was no +distinguishing expression. + +Another case we remember at this moment in 'All's Well that Ends Well.' +It occurs in Act II., at the very opening of scene iii.; the particular +edition, the only one we can command at the moment, is an obscure one +published by Scott, Webster and Geary, Charterhouse Square, 1840, and we +mention it thus circumstantially because the passage is falsely +punctuated; and we have little doubt that in all other editions, whether +with or without the false punctuation, the syntax is generally +misapprehended. In reality, the false punctuation has itself grown out +of the false apprehension of the syntax, and not _vice versâ_. Thus the +words stand _literatim et punctuatim_: 'They say, miracles are past: and +we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things, +supernatural and causeless.' The comma ought to have been placed after +'familiar,' the sense being this--and we have amongst us sceptical and +irreligious people to represent as trivial and of daily occurrence +things which in reality are supernatural and causeless (that is, not +lying amongst the succession of physical causes and effects, but sent as +miracles by the immediate agency of God). According to the true sense, +_things supernatural and causeless_ must be understood as the subject, +of which _modern and familiar_ is the predicate. + + +Mr. Grindon fancies that _frog_ is derived from the syllable [Greek: +trach (k)] of [Greek: batrachos]. This will cause some people to smile, +and recall Menage's pleasantry about Alfana, the man of Orlando; It is +true that _frog_ at first sight seems to have no letter in common except +the snarling letter (_litera canina_). But this is not so; the _a_ and +the _o_, the _s_ and the _k_, are perhaps essentially the same. And even +in the case where, positively and literally, not a single letter is +identical, it is odd, but undeniable, that the two words may be nearly +allied as mother and child. One instance is notorious, but it is worth +citing for a purpose of instructive inference. 'Journal,' as a French +word, or, if you please, as an English word--whence came that? +Unquestionably and demonstrably from the Latin word _dies_, in which, +however, visibly there is not one letter the same as any one of the +seven that are in journal. Yet mark the rapidity of the transition. +_Dies_ (a day) has for its derivative adjective _daily_ the word +_diurnus_. Now, the old Roman pronunciation of _diu_ was exactly the +same as _gio_, both being pronounced as our English _jorn_. Here, in a +moment, we see the whole--_giorno_, a day, was not derived directly from +_dies_, but secondarily through _diurnus_. Then followed _giornal_, for +a diary, or register of a day, and from that to French, as also, of +course, the English _journal_. But the _moral_ is, that when to the eye +no letter is the same, may it not be so to the ear? Already the _di_ of +_dies_ anticipates and enfolds the _giorno_. + +Mr. Grindon justly remarks upon the tendency, in many instances, of the +German _ss_ to reappear in English forms as _t_. Thus _heiss_ (hot), +_fuss_ (foot), etc. These are Mr. Grindon's own examples, and a striking +confirmation occurs in the old English _hight_, used for _he was +called_, and again for the participle _called_, and again, in the 'Met. +Romanus,' for _I was called_: 'Lorde, he saide, I highth Segramour.' +Now, the German is _heissen_ (to be called). And this is a tendency +hidden in many long ages: as, for instance, in Greek, every person must +remember the transition of [Greek: tt] and [Greek: ss] as in [Greek: +thattô], [Greek: thassô]. + + +_On Pronunciation and Spelling._--If we are to surrender the old +vernacular sound of the _e_ in certain situations to a ridiculous +criticism of the _eye_, and in defiance of the protests rising up +clamorously from every quarter of old English scholarship, let us at +least know to _what_ we surrender. What letter is to usurp the vacant +seat? What letter? retorts the purist--why, an _e_, to be sure. An _e_? +And do you call _that_ an _e_? Do you pronounce 'ten' as if it were +written 'tun', or 'men' as if written 'mun'? The 'Der' in Derby, +supposing it tolerable at all to alter its present legitimate sound, +ought, then, to be pronounced as the 'Der' in the Irish name Derry, not +as 'Dur'; and the 'Ber' in Berkeley not as 'Bur,' but as the 'Ber' in +Beryl. But the whole conceit has its origin in pure ignorance of English +archæology, and in the windiest of all vanities, viz., the attempt to +harmonize the spelling and the pronunciation of languages. + +Naturally, it fills one with contempt for these 'Derby' purists to find +that their own object, the very purpose they are blindly and +unconsciously aiming at, has been so little studied or steadily +contemplated by them in anything approaching to its whole extent. Why, +upon the principle which they silently and virtually set up, though +carrying it out so contradictorily (driving out an _a_ on the plea that +it is not an _e_, only to end by substituting, _and without being +aware_, the still remoter letter _u_), the consequence must be that the +whole language would go to wreck. Nine names out of every ten would need +tinkering. 'London,' for instance, no more receives the normal sound of +the _o_ in either of its syllables than does the _e_ in 'Derby.' The +normal sound of the _o_ is that heard in 'song,' 'romp,' 'homage,' +'drop.' Nevertheless, the sound given to the _o_ in 'London,' +'Cromwell,' etc., which strictly is the short sound of _u_ in 'lubber,' +'butter,' etc., is a secondary sound of _o_ in particular combinations, +though not emphatically its proper sound. The very same defence applies +to the _e_ in 'Berkeley,' etc. It is the legitimate sound of the English +_e_ in that particular combination, viz., when preceding an _r_, though +not its normal sound. But think of the wild havoc that would be made of +other more complex anomalies, if these purists looked an inch in +advance. Glocester or Gloucester, Worcester, Cirencester, Pontefract, +etc. What elaborate and monstrous pronunciations would they affix to +these names? The whole land would cease to recognise itself. And that +the purists should never have contemplated these veritable results, this +it is which seals and rivets one's contempt for them. + +Now, if such harmony were at all desirable (whereas, on the contrary, we +should thus be carrying ruin into the traditions and obliteration into +the ethnological links of languages, industriously, in fact, throwing up +insuperable obstacles in the path of historical researches), it would be +far better, instead of adjusting the pronunciation to the imaginary +value of the spelling, inversely to adjust the spelling to the known and +established pronunciation, as a certain class of lunatics amongst +ourselves, viz., the _phonetic gang_, have for some time been doing +systematically. + +Here, therefore, I hope is one fixed point. Here there is anchorage. The +usage is the rule, at any rate; and the law of analogy takes effect only +where _that_ cannot be decisively ascertained. + + +_The Latin Word 'Felix.'_--The Romans appear to me to have had no term +for _happy_, which argues that they had not the idea. _Felix_ is tainted +with the idea of success, and is thus palpably referred to life as a +competition, which for Romans every distinguished life was. In fact, +apart from his city the Roman was nothing. Too poor to have a villa or +any mode of retirement, it is clear that the very idea of Roman life +supposes for the vast majority a necessity of thick crowded intercourse, +without the possibility of solitude. I, for my peculiar constitution of +mind, to whom solitude has in all periods of life been more of a +necessity almost than air, view with special horror the life of a Roman +or Athenian. All the morning he had to attend a factious hustings or a +court--assemblies deliberative or judicial. Here only he was somebody, +and yet, however, somebody through others. Combining with one leader and +many underlings like himself, he also became a power; but in himself and +for himself, after all, he was consciously nothing. When Cicero speaks +of his _nunquam minus Solus quam cum solus_, he is announcing what he +feels to be, and knows will be, accepted as a very extraordinary fact. +For even _in rure_ it is evident that friends made it a duty of +friendship to seek out and relieve their rusticating friends. + + +_On the Distinction between 'Rhetorica utens' and 'Rhetorica +docens'._--It was a perplexity, familiar to the experience of the +Schoolmen, that oftentimes one does not know whether to understand by +the term _logic_ the act and process of reasoning involved and latent in +any series of connected propositions, or this same act and process +formally abstracting itself as an art and system of reasoning. For +instance, if you should happen to say, 'Dr. Isaac Watts, the English +Nonconformist, was a good man, and a clever man; but alas! for his +logic, what can his best friend say for it? The most charitable opinion +must pronounce it at the best so, so'--in such a case, what is it that +you would be understood to speak of? Would it be the general quality of +the Doctor's reasoning, the style and character of his philosophical +method, or would it be the particular little book known as 'The Doctor: +his _Logic_,' price 5s., bound in calf, and which you might be very shy +of touching with a pair of tongs, for fear of dimming their steel +polish, so long as your wife's eye was upon your motions? The same +ambiguity affects many other cases. For instance, if you heard a man +say, 'The _rhetoric_ of Cicero is not fitted to challenge much +interest,' you might naturally understand it of the particular style and +rhetorical colouring--which was taxed with being florid; nay, Rhodian; +nay, even Asiatic--that characterizes that great orator's compositions; +or, again, the context might so restrain the word as to _force_ it into +meaning the particular system or theory of rhetoric addressed to +Herennius, a system which (being traditionally ascribed to Cicero) is +usually printed amongst his works. Here, and in scores of similar cases, +lies often a trap for the understanding; but the Schoolmen evaded this +trap by distinguishing between 'Rhetorica _utens_,' and 'Rhetorica +_docens_,' between the rhetoric that laid down or delivered didactically +the elements of oratorical persuasion as an art to be learned, and +rhetoric, on the other hand, as a creative energy that _wielded_ these +elements by the mouth of Pericles in the year 440 B. C., or by the mouth +of Demosthenes, 340 B. C.; between rhetoric the scholastic art and +rhetoric the heaven-born _power;_ between the rhetoric of Aristotle that +illuminated the solitary student, and the rhetoric of Demosthenes that +ran along in rolling thunders to the footstool of Artaxerxes' throne. +Oh, these dear spindle-shanked Schoolmen! they were people, respected +reader, not to be sneezed at. What signifies having spindle-shanks? + + +_Synonyms._--A representative and a delegate, according to Burke, are +identical; but there is the same difference as between a person who on +his own results of judgment manages the interests of X, and a person +merely reporting the voice of X. Probably there never was a case which +so sharply illustrated the liability of goodish practical understanding +to miss, to fail in seeing, an object lying right before the eyes; and +that is more wonderful in cases where the object is not one of +multitude, but exists almost in a state of insulation. At the coroner's +inquest on a young woman who died from tight-lacing, acting, it was +said, in combination with a very full meal of animal food, to throw the +heart out of position, Mr. Wakely pronounced English or British people +all distorted in the spine, whereas _Continental_ people were all right. +Continental! How unlimited an idea! Why, it meant nothing; it defines +nothing, limits nothing, excludes nothing. Who or what is Continental? +Apparently it means anyone out of 240 millions not being one of the 27 +millions in the Britannides. Every man escapes an insane folly who +happens to breathe an air E. (N. E., S. E., N. N. E., S. S. E., etc.) of +the Britannides. Vanity, the inevitable wish to improve, or rather to +avail, one's self of a natural means offered for deepening and marking +out the natural outline of the shape, _i.e._, of the sexual +characteristics, has no effect, dies out, the instant that a family is +one of those who have the privilege of basking anywhere 2,000 miles E. +or 2,000 miles N. and S.! + + +A whistling to a horse: Poppysme (_vide_ Whistling, Lat. Dict.); but +poppysme is a patting, a clapping, on the back, neck, or, doubtless, +wherever the animal is sensible of praise. + + +'Takest away.' This beautiful expression, though exquisitely treated by +position-- + + 'That all evil thoughts and aims + Takest away,' + +is yet originally borrowed by Mr. W. from the Litany: 'O Lamb of God, +that takest away the sins of the world.' + + +In style to explain the true character of note-writing--how compressed +and unrambling and direct it ought to be, and _illustrate_ by the +villainous twaddle of many Shakespearian notes. + + +_Syllogism._--In the _Edin. Advertiser_ for Friday, January 25, 1856, a +passage occurs taken from _Le Nord_ (or _Journal du Nord_), or some +paper whose accurate title I do not know, understood to be Russian in +its leanings, which makes a most absurd and ignorant use of this word. +The Allies are represented as addressing an argument to Russia, +amounting, I think, to this, viz.: that, in order to test her sincerity, +would it not be well for Russia at once to cede such insulated points of +territory as were valuable to Russia or suspicious to the Allies simply +as furnishing means for invasion of Turkey? And this argument is called +a _syllogism_. + + +'_Laid in wait_ for him.'--This false phrase occurs in some article (a +Crimea article, I suppose) in the same _Advertiser_ of January 25. And I +much doubt whether any ordinary ear would reconcile itself to _lay in +wait_ (as a _past_ tense) even when instructed in its propriety. + + +Those Scotticisms are worst which are nonsensical, as _e.g._: + + 'Whenever he died + Fully more.' + + +_Timeous_ and _dubiety_ are bad, simply as not authorized by any but +local usage. A word used only in Provence or amongst the Pyrenees could +not be employed by a classical French writer, except under a _caveat_ +and for a special purpose. + + +Plent_y_, used under the absurd misleading of its terminal 'y' as an +adjective. _Alongst_, remember _of_; able _for_, the worse _of_ liquor, +to call _for, to go the length_ of, as applied to a distance; 'I don't +think _it_,' instead of 'I don't think _so_.' + + +In the _Lady's Newspaper_ for Saturday, May 8, 1852 (No. 280), occurs +the very worst case of exaggerated and incredible mixed silliness and +vulgarity connected with the use of _assist_ for _help_ at the +dinner-table that I have met with. It occurs in the review of a book +entitled 'The Illustrated London Cookery Book,' by Frederick Bishop. Mr. +Bishop, it seems, had 'enjoyed the office of cuisinier at the Palace, +and among some of our first nobility.' He has, by the way, an +introductory 'Philosophy of Cookery.' Two cases occur of this matchless +absurdity: + +1. An ideal carver is described: he, after carving, 'is as cool and +collected as ever, and _assists_ the portions he has carved with as much +grace as he displayed in carving the fowl.' + +2. Further on, when contrasting, not the carvers, but the things _to be_ +carved, coming to '_Neck of Veal_,' he says of the carver: 'Should the +vertebræ have not been jointed by the butcher, you would find yourself +in the position of the ungraceful carver, being compelled to exercise a +degree of strength which should never be suffered to appear, very +possibly, too, _assisting_ gravy in a manner not contemplated by the +person unfortunate enough to receive it.' + + +_Genteel_ is the vulgarest and most plebeian of all known words. +Accordingly (and strange it is that the educated users of this word +should not perceive that fact), aristocratic people--people in the most +undoubted _élite_ of society as to rank or connections--utterly ignore +the word. They are aware of its existence in English dictionaries; they +know that it slumbers in those vast repositories; they even apprehend +your meaning in a vague way when you employ it as an epithet for +assigning the pretensions of an individual or a family. Generally it is +understood to imply that the party so described is in a position to make +morning calls, to leave cards, to be presentable for anything to the +contrary apparent in manners, style of conversation, etc. But these and +other suggestions still leave a vast area unmapped of blank charts in +which the soundings are still doubtful. + +The word 'genteel' is so eminently vulgar apparently for this reason, +that it presents a non-vulgar distinction under a gross and vulgar +conception of that distinction. The true and central notion, on which +the word revolves, is elevating; but, by a false abstraction of its +elements, it is degraded. And yet in parts of this island where the +progress of refinement is torpid, and the field of vision is both narrow +and unchanging in all that regards the _nuances_ of manners, I have +remarked that the word 'genteel' maintains its old advantageous +acceptation; and as a proof of this, eminent and even revolutionary +thinkers born and bred in such provincial twilight, use the word as if +untainted and hardly aware that it is flyblown. + +Among ourselves it is certain that a peculiar style of gossip, of +babble, and of miniature intriguing, invests the atmosphere of little +'townishness,' such as often entangles the more thoughtful and +dignified of the residents in troublesome efforts at passive resistance +or active counter-action. In dealing with this matter, Mr. Wordsworth +instanced Northampton and Nottingham; but a broader difference could +hardly be than between these towns. And just as 'genteel' remains the +vulgarest of all words, so the words 'simple' and 'simplicity,' amongst +all known words, offer the most complex and least simple of ideas. + +Having made this deprecation on behalf of my own criminality in using +such a word as 'genteel,' I go on to say that whilst Northampton was +(and _is_, I believe) of all towns the most genteel, Nottingham for more +than two centuries has been the most insurrectionary and in a scarlet +excess democratic. Nottingham, in fact, has always resembled the +Alexandria of ancient days; whilst Northampton could not be other than +aristocratic as the centre of a county more thickly gemmed by the +ancestral seats of our nobility than any beside in the island. Norwich, +again, though a seat of manufacturing industry, has always been modified +considerably by a literary body of residents. + + +'Mein alter Herr' (von Stein) 'pflegte dann wohl scherzend zu sagen: Ich +müsse von irgend eine Hexe meinen Altem als ein Wechselbalg in's Nest +gelegt seyn; ich gehöre offenbar einem Stamm amerikanischer wilden an, +und habe noch die Hühnerhundnase zum Auswittern des verschiedenen +Blutes.' Arndt, speaking of his power to detect at sight (when seen at a +distance) Russians, English, etc., says that Von Stein replied thus in +his surprise. But I have cited the passage as one which amply +illustrates the suspensive form of sentence in the German always +indicated by a colon (:), thus: 'zu sagen: Ich müsse'--to say that I +must have been (p. 164). + + +The active sense of _fearful_, viz., that which causes and communicates +terror--not that which receives terror--was undoubtedly in Shakespeare's +age, but especially amongst poets, the preponderant sense. Accordingly I +am of opinion that even in neutral cases, such as are open indifferently +to either sense, viz., that which affrights, or that which is itself +affrighted, the bias in Shakespeare's interpretation of the feeling lay +towards the former movement. For instance, in one of his sonnets: + + 'Oh, fearful meditation! where, alas!' + +the true construction I believe to be--not this: Oh, though _deriving_ +terror from the circumstances surrounding thee, _suffering_ terror from +the _entourage_ of considerations pursuing thee; but this: Oh, thought +impressing and creating terror, etc. A 'fearful' agent in Shakespeare's +use is not one that shrinks in alarm from the act, but an agent that +causes others to shrink; not panic-struck, but panic-striking. + + +Miss Edgeworth, let me remark, commits trespasses on language that are +really past excusing. In one place she says that a man 'had a +_contemptible_ opinion' of some other man's understanding. Such a +blunder is not of that class which usage sanctions, and an accuracy not +much short of pedantry would be argued in noticing: it is at once +illiterate and vulgar in the very last degree. I mean that it is common +amongst vulgar people, and them only. It ranks, for instance, with the +common formula of '_I_ am agreeable, if you prefer it.' + + +Style is the disentangling of thoughts or ideas reciprocally involved in +each other. + + +4.--THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS. + +Religion under any of its aspects, revealing or consoling--religion in +connection with any of its affinities, ethics or metaphysics, when +_self_-evoked by a person of earnest nature, not imposed from without by +the necessities of monastic life, not caught as a contagion from the +example of friends that surround you, argues some 'vast volcanic agency' +moving at subterraneous depths below the ordinary working mind of daily +life, and entitled by its own intrinsic grandeur to ennoble the +curiosity (else a petty passion) which may put questions as to its +origin. In any case of religion arising, as a spontaneous birth, in the +midst of alien forces, it is inevitable to ask for its _why_ and its +_whence_. Religion considered as a sentiment of devotion, as a yearning +after some dedication to an immeasurable principle of that noblest +temple among all temples--'the upright heart and pure,' or religion, +again, as the apprehension of some mighty synthesis amongst truths dimly +perceived heretofore amidst separating clouds, but now brought into +strict indissoluble connection, proclaims a revolution so great that it +is otherwise not to be accounted for than as the breaking out of a germ +of the supernatural in man as a seed from a hitherto barren soil. + + +Sin is that secret word, that dark _aporréton_ of the human race, +undiscoverable except by express revelation, which having once been laid +in the great things of God as a germinal principle, has since blossomed +into a vast growth of sublime ideas known only to those nations who have +lived under the moulding of Scriptural truth--and comprehending _all_ +functions of the Infinite operatively familiar to man. Yes, I affirm +that there is no form through which the Infinite reveals itself in a +sense comprehensible by man and adequate to man; that there is no +sublime agency which _compresses_ the human mind from infancy so as to +mingle with the moments of its growth, positively none but has been in +its whole origin--in every part--and exclusively developed out of that +tremendous mystery which lurks under the name of sin. + +Yes, I affirm that even in its dreams every Christian child is invested +by an atmosphere of sublimity unknown to the greatest of Pagan +philosophers: that golden rays reach it by two functions of the +Infinite; and that these, in common with those emanations of the +Infinite that do not settle upon the mind until mature years, are all +projections--derivations or counterpositions--from the obscure idea of +sin; could not have existed under any previous condition; and for a +Pagan mind would not have been intelligible. + + +_Sin._--It is not only that the Infinite arises as part of the entire +system resting on sin, but specifically from sin apart from its +counterforces or reactions, viz., from sin as a thing, and the only +thing originally shadowy and in a terrific sense mysterious. + + +_Stench._--I believe that under Burke's commentary, this idea would +become a high test of the doctrine of the Infinite. He pronounces it +sublime, or sublime in cases of intensity. Now, first of all, the +intense state of everything or anything is but a mode of power, that +idea or element or moment of greatness under a varied form. Here, then, +is nothing _proper_ or separately peculiar to stench: it is not stench +_as_ stench, but stench as a mode or form of sensation, capable +therefore of intensification. It is but a case under what we may suppose +a general Kantian rule--that every sensation runs through all +gradations, from the lowest or most obscure and nascent to the highest. +Secondly, however, pass over to the contemplation of stench _as_ stench: +then I affirm--that as simply expounding the decay, and altering or +spoiling tendency or state of all things--simply as a register of +imperfection, and of one which does not (as ruins to the eye) ever put +on a pleasing transitional aspect, it is merely disagreeable, but also +at the same time mean. For the imperfection is merely transitional and +fleeting, not absolute. First, midst and last, it is or can be grand +when it reverts or comes round upon its mediating point, or point of +reaction. + + +The arrangement of my Infinite must be thus: After having expounded the +idea of holiness which I must show to be now potent, proceed to show +that the Pagan Gods did not realize and did not meet this idea; that +then came the exposure of the Pagan Gods and the conscious presence of a +new force among mankind, which opened up the idea of the Infinite, +through the awakening perception of holiness. + + +I believe that in every mode of existence, which probably is always by +an incarnation, the system of flesh is made to yield the organs that +express the alliance of man with the Infinite. Thus the idea of mystery, +[Greek: aporrêta], finds its organ of expression in the sensualities of +the human race. Again, the crime, whatever it were, and the eternal +pollution is expressed in these same organs. Also, the prolongation of +the race so as to find another system is secured by the same organs. + + +Generally, that is, for a million against a unit, the awful mystery by +which the fearful powers of death, and sorrow, and pain, and sin are +locked into parts of a whole; so as, in fact, to be repetitions, +reaffirmations of each other under a different phase--this is nothing, +does not exist. Death sinks to a mere collective term--a category--a +word of convenience for purposes of arrangement. You depress your hands, +and, behold! the system disappears; you raise them, it reappears. This +is nothing--a cipher, a shadow. Clap your hands like an Arabian girl, +and all comes back. Unstop your ears, and a roar as of St. Lawrence +enters: stop your ears, and it is muffled. To and fro; it is and it is +not--is not and is. Ah, mighty heaven, that such a mockery should cover +the whole vision of life! It is and it is not; and on to the day of your +death you will still have to learn what is the truth. + +The eternal now through the dreadful loom is the overflowing future +poured back into the capacious reservoir of the past. All the active +element lies in that infinitesimal _now_. The future is not except by +relation; the past is not at all, and the present but a sign of a nexus +between the two. + + +God's words require periods, so His counsels. He cannot precipitate +them any more than a man in a state of happiness _can_ commit suicide. +Doubtless it is undeniable that a man may arm his hand with a sword: and +that his flesh will be found penetrable to the sword, happy or not. But +this apparent physical power has no existence, no value for a creature +having a double nature: the moral nature not only indisposes him to use +his power, but really creates a far greater antagonist power. + + +This God--too great to be contemplated steadily by the loftiest of human +eyes; too approachable and condescending to be shunned by the meanest in +affliction: realizing thus in another form that reconcilement of +extremes, which St. Paul observed: far from all created beings, yet also +very near. + + +'A conviction that they needed a Saviour was growing amongst men.' How? +In what sense? Saviour from what? You can't be saved from nothing. There +must be a danger, an evil threatening, before even in fancy you can +think of a deliverer. Now, what evil was there existing to a Pagan? Sin? +Monstrous! No such idea ever dawned upon the Pagan intellect. Death? +Yes; but that was inalienable from his nature. Pain and disease? Yes; +but these were perhaps inalienable also. Mitigated they might be, but it +must be by human science, and the progress of knowledge. Grief? Yes; but +this was inalienable from life. Mitigated it might be, but by superior +philosophy. From what, then, was a Saviour to save? If nothing to save +from, how any Saviour? But here arises as the awful of awfuls to me, the +deep, deep exposure of the insufficient knowledge and sense of what is +peculiar to Christianity. To imagine some sense of impurity, etc., +leading to a wish for a Saviour in a Pagan, is to defraud Christianity +of all its grandeur. If Paganism could develop the want, it is not at +all clear that Paganism did not develop the remedy. Heavens! how +deplorable a blindness! But did not a Pagan lady feel the insufficiency +of earthly things for happiness? No; because any feeling tending in that +direction would be to her, as to all around her, simply a diseased +feeling, whether from dyspepsia or hypochondria, and one, whether +diseased or not, worthless for practical purposes. It would have to be a +Christian lady, if something far beyond, something infinite, were not +connected with it, depending on it. But if this were by you ascribed to +the Pagan lady, then _that_ is in other words to make her a Christian +lady already. + + +_Exhibition of a Roman Dialogue on Sin._--What! says the ignorant and +unreflecting modern Christian. Do you mean to tell me that a Roman, +however buried in worldly objects, would not be startled at hearing of a +Saviour? Now, hearken. + +ROMAN. Saviour! What do you mean? Saviour for what? In good faith, my +friend, you labour under some misconception. I am used to rely on myself +for all the saving that I need. And, generally speaking, if you except +the sea, and those cursed north-east winds, I know of no particular +danger. + +CHRISTIAN. Oh, my friend, you totally mistake the matter. I mean saving +from sin. + +ROMAN. Saving from a fault, that is--well, what sort of a fault? Or, how +should a man, that you say is no longer on earth, save me from any +fault? Is it a book to warn me of faults that He has left? + +CHRISTIAN. Why, yes. Not that He wrote Himself; but He talked, and His +followers have recorded His views. But still you are quite in the dark. +Not faults, but the fountain of all faults, that is what He will save +you from. + +ROMAN. But how? I can understand that by illuminating my judgment in +general He might succeed in making me more prudent. + +CHRISTIAN. 'Judgment,' 'prudent'--these words show how wide by a whole +hemisphere you are of the truth. It is your will that He applies His +correction to. + +ROMAN. 'Will!' why I've none but peaceable and lawful designs, I assure +you. Oh! I begin to see. You think me a partner with those pirates that +we just spoke to. + +CHRISTIAN. Not at all, my friend. I speak not of designs or intentions. +What I mean is, the source of all desires--what I would call your wills, +your whole moral nature. + +ROMAN (_bridling_). Ahem! I hope Roman nature is quite as little in need +of improvement as any other. There are the Cretans; they held up their +heads. Accordingly they had their fire institutions, and that true +institution against bribery and luxury, and all such stuff. They fancied +themselves impregnable. Why, bless you! even Marcus Tullius, that was a +prosing kind of man and rather peevish about such things, could not keep +in the truth. 'Why, Cato, my boy,' says he, 'you talk.' And to hear you, +bribery and luxury would not leave one a stick to fight for. Why, now, +these same Cretans--lord! we took the conceit out of them in +twenty-five minutes. No more time, I assure you, did it cost three of +our cohorts to settle the whole lot of them. + +CHRISTIAN. My friend, you are more and more in the dark. What I mean is +not present in your senses, but a disease. + +ROMAN. Oh, a disease! that's another thing. But where? + +CHRISTIAN. Why, it affects the brain and the heart. + +ROMAN. Well, now, one at a time. Take the brain--we have a disease, and +we treat it with white hellebore. There may be a better way. But answer +me this. If you are generally affected, what right have you to bring, as +you are supposing, a diseased brain to a sound one? We Romans are all +sound--sound as a bell. + +Then Christian goes on to the history of the fall. But the whole would +be self-baffled and construed away from want of sin as the antithesis of +holiness. + + +_Why St. Paul and the Athenians did not come to an Understanding._--So, +again, if you think that St. Paul had a chance with the Athenians. If he +had, it would tax his divine benevolence to see that he forbore to +pursue it. This attempt shows that he was under a misconception. He +fancied a possibility of preaching a pure religion. What followed? He +was, he must have been defeated. That is, practically, else why did he +not persist? But his confutation was the factual confutation of +experience. It was no go. That he found too surely. But why? I am sure +that he never found out. Enough that he felt--that under a strong +instinct he misgave--a deep, deep gulf between him and them, so that +neither could he make a way to their sense, nor they, except +conjecturally, to his. For, just review the case. What was the [Greek: +euangelion], the good tidings, which he announced to man? What burthen +of hope? What revelation of a mystery of hope arising out of a deeper +mystery of despair? He announced a deliverer. Deliverer! from what? +Answer that--from what? Why, from evil, you say. Evil! of what kind? +Why, you retort, did not the Pagans admit that man was lying under evil? +Not at all; nothing of the kind. But you are sure you have heard of such +things? Very likely. And now you are forced back upon your arguments you +remember specially that evil as to its origin was a favourite +speculation of theirs. Evil, in its most comprehensive designation, +whence is it? How came it? Now, mark, even to that extent, viz., the +extent indicated by this problem, the ancients had no conception of evil +corresponding to, no, nor dimly approaching to, a correspondence with +ours. They had no ineffable standard of purity; how, then, any function +of impurity? They had no ineffable doctrine of pain or suffering +answering to a far more realized state of perception, and, therefore, +unimaginably more exquisite; how, then, could they raise a question on +the nature or fountains of such pains? They executed no synthesis, and +could execute none upon the calamities of life; they never said in +ordinary talk that this was a world of sorrow, either apostrophizing a +newborn child, or a world of disappointment, bemoaning a mature victim; +neither as in the anguish of meditative reflection, nor in the prudence +of extenuating apology. The grand _sanctus_ which arises from human +sensibility, Perish empires and the crowns of kings, etc., first arose +in connection with Christianity.[30] Life was a good life; man was a +prosperous being. Hope for men was his natural air; despondency the +element of his own self-created folly. Neither could it be otherwise. +For, besides that, it would be too immeasurable a draught of woe to say +in one breath that this only was the crux or affirmation of man's fate, +and yet that this also was wretched _per se_; not accidentally made +wretched by imprudence, but essentially and irrevocably so by necessity +of its nature. Besides all this, which has a lurking dependency upon +man's calculations of what is safe, he sees that this mode of thinking +would leave him nothing; yet even that extreme consequence would not +check some honest or sincere or desperate minds from uttering their +convictions that life really _was_ this desperate game--much to lose +and nothing in the best case to win. So far there would have been a +dangerous gravitation at all times to the sad conclusion of Paganism. +But, meanwhile, this dangerous gravitation was too dangerous, and +Providence has deeply counteracted it by principles laid down in human +nature. I affirm that where the ideas of man, where the possible +infinities are not developed, then also the exorbitant on the other +field is strongly pulled up. No ideals of evil can take place except +under ideals of happiness that passeth all understanding. No synthesis +can ever be executed, that is, no annumeration of A, B, C into a common +total, viewed as elements tending to a common unity, unless previously +this unity has been preconceived, because the elements are not elements, +viz., original constituents of a representative whole (a series tending +to a summation), unless that which is constituted--that whole--is +previously given in idea. Since A and B and C could not be viewed as +tending to a unity, having no existence except through them, unless +previously that unity had existed for the regulation and eduction of its +component elements. And this unity in the case of misery never could +have been given unless far higher functions than any which could endure +Paganism, or which Paganism could endure. Until the sad element of a +diseased will is introduced, until the affecting notion is developed of +a fountain in man himself welling up the misery for ever, no idea of +misery could arise. Suffering is limited and transitory. What pain is +permanent in man? Even the deepest laceration of the human heart, that +which is inflicted by the loss of those who were the pulses of our +hearts, is soothed (if never wholly healed) by time. One agency of time +would avail for this effect were there no other. The features of the +individual whom we mourn grow dimmer and dimmer as time advances; and, +_pari passu_, the features of places and collateral objects and +associated persons from whom reverberated these afflicting reminiscences +of the lost object. + +I return: Deliverer from what? From suffering or misery. But that was +not acknowledged, nor could have been, we could see no misery as a +hypothesis except in these two modes: First, as a radication in man by +means of something else, some third thing. Secondly, as a synthesis--as +a gathering under a principle which must act prior to the gathering in +order to provoke it. (The synthesis must be rendered possible and +challenged by the _à priori_ unity which otherwise constitutes that +unity.) As a metaphysical possibility evil was recognised through its +unfathomable nature. But this was because such a nature already +presupposed a God's nature, realizing his own ends, stepped in with +effect. For the highest form--the normal or transcendent form--of virtue +to a Pagan, was in the character of citizen. Indeed, the one sole or +affirmative form of virtue lay in this sole function, viz., of public, +of patriotic virtue. Since here only it was possible to introduce an +_additional_ good to the world. All other virtue, as of justice between +individual and individual, did but redress a previous error, sometimes +of the man himself, sometimes of social arrangement, sometimes of +accident. It was a _plus_ which balanced and compensated a pre-existing +_minus_--an action _in regressu_, which came back with prevailing power +upon an action _in progressu_. But to be a patriot was to fulfil a call +of the supererogatory heart--a great nisus of sympathy with the one sole +infinite, the sole practical infinite that man pre-Christian ever could +generate for his contemplation. Now, therefore, it followed that the +idea of virtue here only found its realization. Virtue, in fact, was not +derivatively or consequentially connected with patriotism, it was +_immanent_; not transitively associated by any links whatever, but +immanently intertwisted, indwelling in the idea. Therefore it happened +that a man, however heartsick of this tumid, bladdery delusion, although +to him it was a balloon, by science punctured, lacerated, collapsing, +trailed through ditch and mud under the rough handling and the fearful +realities of life, yet he durst not avow his private feelings. That +would have been even worse than with us: it would have been to proclaim +virtue and vice mere bubbles and chimeras. He who really thinks so even +we reasonably suspect of _practical_ indifference unless when we believe +him to speak as a misanthrope. + +The question suppose to commence as to the divine mission of Christ. And +the feeble understanding is sure to think this will be proved best by +proving the subject of this doubt to have been a miracle-working power. +And of all miracles, to have mastered (not merely escaped or evaded) +death will be in his opinion the greatest. So that if Christ could be +proved to have absolutely conquered death, _i.e._, to have submitted to +death, but only to recoil from his power and overthrow it, to have died +and subsequently to have risen again, will, _à fortiori_, prove Him to +have been sent of God. + +Not so. All and every basis of credibility must be laid in the _moral_ +nature, where the thing to be believed is important, _i.e._, moral. And +I therefore open with this remark absolutely _zermalmende_ to the common +intellect: That from a holy faith you may infer a power of resurrection, +but not from a power of resurrection fifty times repeated can we infer a +holy faith. What in the last result is the thing to be proved? Why, a +holy revelation, not of knowledge, but of things practical; of agenda, +not scienda. It is essential that this holy should also be _new_, +_original_, _revelatum_. Because, else, the divinest things which are +_connata_ and have been common to all men, point to no certain author. +They belong to the dark foundations of our being, and cannot challenge a +trust, faith, or expectation as suspended upon any particular individual +man whatever. + +Here, then, arises the [Greek: prôtontokinon]. Thick darkness sits on +every man's mind as to Christ's revelation. He fancies that it amounts +to this: 'Do what is good. Do your duty. Be good.' And with this vague +notion of the doctrine, natural is it that he should think it as old as +the hills. The first step to a saner view is, to understand--if a man +has sense enough to reach so high--that the subtlest discoveries ever +made by man, all put together, do not make one wave of that Atlantic as +to novelty and originality which lies in the moral scheme of +Christianity. I do not mean in the total scheme of Christianity, +redemption, etc. No, but in the ethics. + +All ethics that ever Greece refined or Rome illustrated, was, and could +be, only the same universal system of social ethics--ethics proper and +exclusive to man and man _inter se_, with no glimpse of any upward +relationship. + +Now Christianity looks upward for the first time. This in the first +place. Secondly, out of that upward look Christianity looks secondarily +down again, and reacts even upon the social ethics in the most +tremendous way. + + +_For my Book on the Relations of Christianity to Man._--S. T. C. cites +Jeremy Taylor, etc., for horrible passages on the gloomy state of the +chances for virtuous Pagans. S. T. C. in a more liberal generation is +shocked; and of course in his readers as in himself secretly, he +professes more liberal ideas. Aye, but how is he entitled to these +ideas? For, on further consideration, it is not Cicero only, or +Epictetus only, that would suffer under this law of Christianity viewed +in its reagency, but also Abraham, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hezekiah. +Because, how could they benefit by a Redeemer not yet revealed--nay, by +a Redeemer not even existing? For it is not the second person in the +Trinity--not He separately and abstractedly--that is the Redeemer, but +that second person incarnated. St. Paul apparently wished to smuggle +this tremendous question into a fraudulent solution, by mixing up +Abraham (with others pre-Christian and Christian) into the long array of +those whose _Faith_ had saved them. But faith in whom? General faith in +God is not the thing, it is faith in Jesus Christ; and we are solemnly +told in many shapes that no other name was given on earth through which +men could be delivered. Indeed, if not, how is the Messiah of such +exclusive and paramount importance to man? The Messiah was as yet (viz., +in Abraham's time) a prophecy--a dim, prophetic outline of one who +_should_ be revealed. But if Abraham and many others could do without +Him, if this was a dispensable idea, how was it in any case, first or +last, indispensable? Besides, recur to the theory of Christianity. Most +undeniably it was this, that neither of the two elements interested in +man could save him; not God; He might have power, but His purity +revolted. Power (or doubtfully so), but no will. Not man--for he, having +the will, had no power. God was too holy; manhood too _un_holy. Man's +gifts, applicable, but insufficient. God's sufficient, but +inapplicable. Then came the compromise. How if man could be engrafted +upon God? Thus only, and by such a synthesis, could the ineffable +qualities of God be so co-ordinated with those of man. + + +Suppose even that a verbal inspiration could have been secured--secured, +observe, against _gradual_ changes in language and against the +reactionary corruption of concurrent versions, which it would be +impossible to guarantee as also enjoying such an inspiration (since, in +that case, _what_ barrier would divide mine or anybody's wilfully false +translations from that pretending to authority? I repeat _what_? None is +conceivable, since what could you have beyond the assurance of the +translator, even which could only guarantee his intentions)--here is a +cause of misinterpretation amounting to ruin, viz., after being read for +centuries as if practically meant for our guidance, such and such a +chapter (_e.g._, Jael and Sisera), long proscribed by the noble as a +record of abominable perfidy, has at length been justified on the ground +that it was never meant for anything else. Thus we might get rid of +David, etc., were it not that for his flexible obedience to the _clerus_ +he has been pronounced the man after God's own heart. + +Is it not dreadful that at the very vestibule of any attempt to execute +the pretended law of God and its sentences to hell we are interrupted by +one case in every three as exceptional? Of the deaths, one in three are +of children under five. Add to these surely _very_ many up to twelve or +thirteen, and _many_ up to eighteen or twenty, then you have a law which +suspends itself for one case in every two. + +_Note in the argument drawn from perishableness of language._ Not only +(which I have noted) is any language, _ergo_ the original, Chaldæan, +Greek, etc., perishable even for those who use it, but also the vast +openings to error which all languages open to translators form a separate +source of error in translators, viz.: + +1. The old one on my list that for them the guidance of inspiration has +ceased, else, if not, you must set up an inspiration separately to +translators, since, if you say--No, not at all, why, which then? + +2. The uncertainty of a foreign language even in a day contemporary with +the original writer, and therefore over and above what arises from lapse +of time and gradual alterations. + + +_On Human Progress._--Oftentimes it strikes us all that this is so +insensible as to elude observation the very nicest. Five years add +nothing, we fancy. Now invert your glass. In 1642 Englishmen are +fighting for great abstract principles. In 1460-83 (_i.e._, 100 + 17 + +42 years before, or 159 years) they are fighting for persons, for rival +candidates. In 1460 they could not have conceived more than an Esquimaux +can entertain a question about the constitution of lyric poetry, or the +differential principles of English and Greek tragedy, the barest +approximation to questions that in 1642 are grounds of furious quarrel, +of bloody quarrel, of extermination. Now then, looking forward, you +would see from year to year little if any growth; but inverting your +glass, looking back from the station of 1642 to 1460, you see a progress +that if subdivided amongst all the 159 years would give to each _x_/0 as +its quota, _i.e._ infinity. In fact, it is like the progression from +nothing to something. It is--creation. + +All the body of the Christian world would fly out in a rage if you +should say that Christianity required of you many things that were easy, +but one thing that was _not_. Yet this is undoubtedly true; it requires +you to _believe_, and even in the case where you know what it is to +believe, and so far are free from perplexity, you have it not in your +own power to ensure (though you can influence greatly) your own power to +believe. But also great doubt for many (and for all that are not +somewhat metaphysical) attends the knowledge of what is believing. + + +As to my mother's fancy that Sir W. Jones had found in the East proofs +of Christianity, having gone out an infidel. + +To do her justice, never once after she had adopted a theory of +Christianity did she inquire or feel anxious about its proof. But to +review the folly of this idea. + +1. That Christianity there where it reigned and was meant to reign +should be insufficient in its proofs; but that in a far distant land, +lurking in some hole or corner, there should be proofs of its truth, +just precisely where these proofs were not wanted. And again, that these +should be reserved for one scholar rambling into a solitary path, where +in a moral sense _nobody_ could follow him (for it _is_ nobody--this or +that oriental scholar). And we are sure that his proof was not of that +order to shine by its own light, else it would have resounded through +England. + +2. That for many hundreds of years Christianity should have been +received, generation after generation should have lived under its vital +action, upon no sufficient argument, and suddenly such an argument +should turn up as a reward to a man in a country not Christian for being +more incredulous than his neighbours; how impossible! + +That fraudulent argument which affects to view the hardships of an +adventurous life and its perils as capable of one sole impression--that +of repulsion--and secondly as the sole circumstances about such +adventures, injures from the moment when it is perceived: not + +1. The writer only; no matter for him, worthless liar, how much he sinks +in the opinion of his readers: but + +2. The Apostles. Now see the injury of falsehood. Suddenly it snaps, and +with a great reaction causes a jar to the whole system, which in +ordinary minds it is never likely to recover. The reason it is not +oftener perceived is that people read such books in a somnolent, +inactive state of mind, one-tenth coming to a subject on which they have +already made up their minds, and open to no fresh impressions, the other +nine-tenths caring not one straw about the matter, as reading it in an +age of irreflectiveness and purely through an act of obedience to their +superiors, else not only does this hypocritical attempt to varnish give +way all at once, and suddenly (with an occasion ever after of doubt, and +causing a reflection to any self-sufficient man, suddenly coming to +perceive that he has been cheated, and with some justification for +jealousy thenceforwards to the maker up of a case), but also it robs the +Apostles of the human grace they really possessed. For if we suppose +them armed against all temptations, snares, seductions, by a +supernatural system of endowments, this is but the case of an +angel--nay, not of an angel, for it is probable that when an angel +incarnated himself, or one of the Pagan deities, who was obliged first +to incarnate himself before he could act amongst men, or so much as be +seen by men, he was bound by all the defects of man, _i.e._, he could +choose only an ideal, so far ideal as to elude the worst effects from +vice, intemperance, etc. The angel who wrestled with Jacob probably did +his best; he was a stout fellow, but so was the patriarch. The very +condition of incarnation, and this because the mere external form +already includes limitations (as of a fish, not to fly; of a man, not to +fly, etc.) probably includes as a _necessity_, not as a choice, the +adoption of all evils connected with the nature assumed. Even the Son of +God, once incarnated, was not exempted from any evil of flesh; He grew, +passed through the peculiar infirmities of every stage up to mature +life; would have grown old, infirm, weak, had He lived longer; was +liable to death, the worst of all human evils, and was not, we may be +sure, exempted from any one fleshly desire with regard to sex, or +enemies, or companions, but because that divine principle, which also +_is in man_, yes, in every man the foulest and basest--this light which +the darkness comprehended not, and which in some is early extinguished, +but in _all_ fights fitfully with the winds and storms of this human +atmosphere, in Him was raised to a lustre unspeakable by His pure and +holy will. + +If the Apostles were more celestially armed in any other sense than as +we are all armed from above by calling forth our better natures, if in +any other sense than as sorrow arms us by purifying our natures, as +sorrowful reflection, as meditation and earnest endeavours to resist our +angry instincts (which, on the contrary, how often do men _obey_ under +the vile pretence of being put by conscience on a painful duty), then, I +say, what were the Apostles to us? Why should we admire them? How can we +make them models of imitation? It is like that case of Anarcharsis the +Scythian. + + +It does certainly incense a Christian to think that stupid Mahommedans +should impute to us such _childish_ idolatries as that of God having a +son and heir--just as though we were barbarous enough to believe that +God was liable to old age--that the time was coming, however distant, +when somebody would say to him, 'Come, Sir,' or 'Come, my Lord, really +you are not what you were. It's time you gave yourself some ease +([Greek: euphêmi], time, indeed, that you resigned the powers to which +you are unequal), and let a younger man take the reins.' None but a +filthy barbarian could carry forward his thoughts so little as not to +see that this son in due time would find himself in the same +predicament. + +Now mark how Christian lands would enforce this doctrine of unity by +horrid coercions. They hang, drown, burn, crucify those who deny it. So +that, be assured you are planting your corner-stone on the most windy of +delusions. You yourselves do not ascribe any merit to Mahommed separate +from that of revealing the unity of God. Consequently, if that is a +shaken craze arising from mere inability on his part, a little, a very +little information would have cut up by the very roots the whole +peculiarity of Islam. For if a wise man could have assembled these +conceited Arabians and told them: Great thieves, you fancy yourselves to +have shot far ahead of the Christians as to the point of unity, and if +you had I would grant that you had made a prodigious advance. But you +are deceiving quarrellers. It is all a word--mere smoke, that blinds +you. The Christian seems to affirm three Gods, and even to aggravate +this wickedness by calling one of them 'a Son,' thus seeming to accept +that monstrous notion that God is liable to old age and decrepitude, so +as to provide wisely against His own dotage. But all this is an error: +these three apparent Gods are but one, and in the most absolute sense +one. + + +The most shockingly searching, influential, and permanent blunder that +ever has affected the mind of man has been the fancy that a religion +includes a creed as to its [Greek: aporrhêta], and a morality; in short, +that it was doctrinal by necessity, enactory, and (which has been the +practical part of the blunder) therefore exclusive, because: + +1. With our notion of a religion as essentially doctrinal, the very +first axiom about it is, that being true itself it makes all others +false. Whereas, the capital distinction of the Pagan was--that given, +supposing to be assumed, 10,000 religions--all must be true +simultaneously, all equally. When a religion includes any distinct +propositions offered to the understanding (that is, I think, resting +upon a principle or tendency to a consequence by way of differencing +from facts which also are for the understanding, but then barely to +contemplate not with a power of reacting on the understanding, for every +principle introduces into the mind that which may become a modification, +a restraint; whereas, a fact restrains nothing in the way of thought +unless it includes a principle), it would rise continually in its +exclusive power according to the number of those propositions. At first +it might exclude all but ten, eight, seven, and so on; finally, as +integrated it would exclude all. + +2. If you ask on what principle a Pagan believed his religion, the +question to him was almost amusing and laughable. I will illustrate the +case. A man meets you who inquires in a hurried, suppose even in an +agitated way, whether you met a tall man, blind of one eye, dressed in +such a coloured dress, etc. Now, does it ever occur to you that the +inquirer is lying? Lying! Wherefore should he lie? Or again, if you say +that your house stands under a hill, that three out of four chimneys +smoke, and that you must indeed try some of the inventions for remedying +this annoyance, would any man in his senses think of speculating on the +possibility that all this should be a romance? Or, to come nearer in the +kind of fact, if a man represented his family fortune as having been +bequeathed by a maiden aunt in the last generation, would any man say +otherwise than that doubtless the man knew his own benefactors and +relatives best? On this same principle, when Christ was mentioned as the +divinity adored by a certain part of the Jews who were by way of +distinction called Christians, why should a Roman object? What motive +could he have for denying the existence or the divine existence of +Christ? Even the idea of dissent or schism, some Jews worshipping, some +protesting, would not much puzzle him. Something like it had occurred in +Pagan lands. Neptune and Athene had contended for Attica. And under the +slight inquiry which he would ever make, or listen to when made by +others, he might wonder at the rancour displayed by the protesting +party, but he would take it for granted that a divinity of some local +section had been unduly pushed into pre-eminence over a more strictly +epichorial divinity. He would go off with this notion, that whereas, the +elder Jews insisted on paying vows, etc., to a God called Jehovah, a +section sought to transfer that allegiance to a divinity called Christ. +If he were further pressed on the subject, he would fancy that very +possibly, as had been thought, found or imagined in the case of Syrian +deities or Egyptian, etc., that perhaps Christ might correspond to +Apollo, as Astarte to Diana, Neptune of Latium to the Poseidôn of +Greece. But if not, that would cause no scruple at all. Thus far it was +by possibility a mere affair of verbal difference. But suppose it +ascertained that in no point of the symbols surrounding the worship of +Christ, or the conception of His person, He could be identified with any +previously-known Pagan God--that would only introduce Him into the +matricula of Gods as a positive novelty. Nor would it have startled a +Roman to hear that in India or any country large enough there should be +a separate Pantheon of many thousand deities, _plus_ some other Pantheon +of divinities corresponding to their own. For Syria--but still more in +one section of Syrian Palestine--this would surprise him _quoad_ the +degree, not _quoad_ the principle. The Jew had a separate or peculiar +God, why not? No nation could exist without Gods: the very separate +existence of a people, trivial as it might be in power and wealth, +argued a tutelary God, but, of course, proportioned to the destinies at +least (and in part to the present size) of the country. Thus far no +difficulties at all. But the morality! Aye, but that would never be +accounted a part of religion. As well confound a science with religion. +Aye, but the [Greek: aporrhêta]. These would be viewed as the rites of +Adonis, or of Ceres; you could not warn him from his preconception that +these concerned only Jews. Where, therefore, lodged the offence? Why +here, as personalities--for such merely were all religions--the God must +be measured by his nation. So some Romans proposed to introduce Christ +into the Roman Pantheon. But what first exploded as a civil offence was +the demand of supremacy and the inconceivable principle set up of +incompatibility. This was mere folly. + + +A much more solemn, significant and prophetic meaning than the common +one may be secured to the famous passage in St. Matthew--'And thou shalt +call His name _Jesus_.' This injunction wears the most impressive +character belonging to heavenly adjuration, when it is thus confided to +the care and custody of a special angel, and in the very hour of +inauguration, and amongst the very birth-throes of Christianity. For in +two separate modes the attention is secretly pointed and solicited to +the grand serpentine artifice, which met and confronted the almost +insurmountable difficulty besetting Christianity on its very threshold: +First, by the record of the early _therapeutic_ miracles, since in that +way only, viz., by a science of healing, which the philosopher equally +with the populace recognised as resting upon inspiration from God, could +the magistrate and civil authority have been steadily propitiated; +secondly, by the very verbal suggestion couched in the name _Jesus_, or +_Healer_. At the most critical of moments an angel reveals himself, for +the purpose of saying '_Thou shalt call His name Jesus_'--and why Jesus? +Because, says the angel, 'He shall heal or cleanse His people from sin +as from a bodily disease.' Thus, in one and the same moment is suggested +prospectively to the early Christian, who is looking forward in search +of some adequate protection against the civil magistrate, and +theoretically and retrospectively is suggested to the Christian of our +own philosophizing days, that admirable resource of what by a shorthand +expression I will call _Hakimism_. The _Hakim_, the _Jesus_, the +_Healer_, comes from God. Mobs must not be tolerated. But neither must +the deep therapeutic inspirations of God be made of none effect, or +narrowed in their applications. And thus in one moment was the panic +from disease armed against the panic from insurgent mobs; the privileged +Hakim was marshalled against the privileged magistrate; and the deep +superstition, which saw, and not unreasonably, a demon raging in a +lawless mob, saw also a demon not less blind or cruel in the pestilence +that walked in darkness. And, as one magnet creates other magnets, so +also the Hakim, once privileged, could secretly privilege others. And +the physical Hakim could by no test or shibboleth be prevented from +silently introducing the spiritual Hakim. And thus, whilst thrones and +councils were tumultuating in panic, behold! suddenly the Christian +soldier was revealed amongst them as an armed man. + + +'_Écrasez l'infâme_,' I also say: and who is he? It would be mere +insanity to suppose that it could be _any_ teacher of moral truths. Even +I, who so much despise Socrates, could not reasonably call him +_l'infâme_. + +But who, then, is _l'infâme_? It is he who, finding in those great ideas +which I have noticed as revelations from God, and which throw open to +the startled heart the heaven of heavens, in the purity, the holiness, +the peace which passeth all understanding, finding no argument of +divinity, then afterwards _does_ find it in the little tricks of +legerdemain, in conjuring, in præstigia. But here, though perhaps roused +a little to see the baseness of relying on these miracles, and also in +the rear a far worse argument against them, he still feels uncomfortable +at such words applied to things which Christ did. Christ could not +make, nor wished to make, that great which was inherently mean; that +relevant, which was originally irrelevant. If He did things in +themselves mean, it was because He suited Himself to mean minds, +incapable of higher views; wretches such as exist amongst us of modern +days by millions, on whom all His Divine words were thrown away, +wretches deaf and blind and besotted, to whom it was said in vain: 'He +that looketh upon a woman,' and what follows, creating by a rod of +divinity in man's heart a far superior ideal of the moral; who heard +with indifference His 'Bless those who persecute you;' yes, listened +unmoved to His 'Suffer little children to come unto Me;' who heard with +anger His 'In heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage;' +who abhorred His great doctrine that the counsels of God were not read +in the events of things[31]; who slighted as trivial that prayer which a +wise man might study with profit for a thousand years; beasts, wretches, +that turned away deaf and blind, even as their sons turn away, from +these arguments of a truth far transcending all that yet had come +amongst men; but whilst trampling with their brutal hoofs upon such +flowers of Paradise, turned in stupid wonderment to some mere +legerdemain or jugglery. + + +_The Truth._--But what tongue can express, what scale can measure, the +awful change in man's relations to the unseen world? Where there had +been a blank not filled by anything, not by any smoke or dusky tarnish +of suspicion, not filled by so much as any shadowy outline or vague +phantom of possibility, _there_ was now seen rising, 'like Teneriffe or +Atlas'--say rather, by symbolizing the greatest of human interests by +the greatest of human visual objects, like the snowy peaks of the +Himalaya, peaks that by men's feelings are referred to the heavens +rather than to the earth; to the beings 'whose dwelling is no thick +flesh,' rather than to men who have in no age succeeded in scaling them; +and who in their steps to those mighty thrones have heard nothing but +dread crashes of sound--again to fade or vanish, the colossal form, +never the mighty idea of 'The Truth.'[32] Where there had been nothing, +a blank, a chasm, there stood in solemn proportions a new object for +man, called The Truth. Why was it called _The_ Truth? How could such an +idea arise? Many persons will be weak enough to fancy that, as [Greek: +hopoêtês] was sometimes an artifice of rhetoric for expressing the +exclusive supremacy of Homer, and as by a pure affectation and movement +of dissimulation a man was called by the title of _The Orator_, his own +favourite Greek or Roman thus affecting for the moment to know of no +other (for all such emphatic and exclusive uses of _the_ imply a +momentary annihilation of the competitors, as though in comparison of +the ideal exemplification these minor and approximating forms had no +existence--or at least, not _quoad hunc locum_--as 'the mountain in +Sicily' would rightly indicate Etna), on the same artificial principle +they may imagine rhetoricians to have denominated (or if not, to have +had it in their power to denominate) some one department of truth which +they wished to favour as _the_ truth. But this conventional denomination +would not avail, and for two reasons: First, that rival modes of truth +(physics against mathematics, rhetoric against music) would contest the +title, and no such denomination would have a basis of any but a sort of +courtesy or vicarious harmonious reality from the very first. Secondly, +that, standing in no relation whatever to God, every mode, form, +division or subdivision of truth merely intellectual would gain nothing +at all by such ostentatious arts. Algebra has been distinguished by +glorious names; so has the fancied knowledge of transmutation applied to +the metals; so, doubtless, has many a visionary speculation of magic; +so, again, has the ridiculous schwermerey of the Rabbis in particular +ages. But those are as transient and even for the moment as partial +titles as the titles of Invincible or Seraphic applied to scholastic +divines. Out of this idea the truth grew, next (suppose _x_) another +_Martyrdom_. + +The difference between all human doctrines and this is as between a +marble statue and a quick thing. The statue may be better, and it may be +of better material; it may be of ivory, of marble, and amongst marbles +known to the ancient sculptors of several different kinds the most +prized; of silver gilt, of hollow gold, of massy gold, and in all +degrees of skill; but still one condition applies to all--whatever the +material, whoever the artist, the statue is inanimate, the breath of +life is not within its nostrils. Motion, spontaneity, action and +antagonist action, the subtle watch-work of the brain, the mighty +laboratory of the heart, vision, sensibility, self-propagated warmth, +pleasure, hope, memory, thought, liberty--not one of these divine gifts +does it possess. It is cold, icy, senseless, dull, inert matter. Let +Phidias have formed the statue, it is no better. Let the purest gold be +its material, it is no worthier than the meanest model in clay to the +valuation of the philosopher. And here, as in so many cases, the great +philosopher meets with the labouring man; both meet with the little +innocent child. All have the same undervaluation of the statue. And if +any man values it preposterously, it will be neither a great +philosopher, nor a labouring man with horny fists, nor a little innocent +and natural child. It will be some crazy simpleton, who dignifies +himself as a man of taste, as _elegans formarum spectator_, as one +having a judicious eye for the distinctions of form. But now, suddenly, +let one of the meanest of these statues begin to stir and shiver with +the mystery of life, let it be announced that something 'quick' is in +the form, let the creeping of life, the suffusion of sensibility, the +awful sense of responsibility and accountability ripen themselves, what +a shock--what a panic! What an interest--how profound--would diffuse +itself in every channel. Such is the ethics of God as contrasted with +the ethics of Greek philosophers. The only great thing ever done by +Greece or by Greek philosophers was the ethics. Yet, after all, these +were but integrations of the natural ethics implanted in each man's +heart. Integrations they were, but rearrangements--redevelopments from +some common source. + + +It is remarkable that the Scriptures, valuing clearness and fencing +against misunderstandings above all things, never suspend--there is no +[Greek: epochê] in the scriptural style of the early books. And, +therefore, when I first came to a text, 'If when,' I was thunderstruck, +and I found that this belongs to the more cultivated age of Hebrew +literature. + + +'_And the swine because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud, +it is unclean unto you_' (Deut. xiv. 8). Now the obvious meaning is, +_primâ facie_, that the ground of its uncleanness was its dividing the +hoof. Whereas, so far from this, to divide the hoof is a ground of +cleanness. It is a fact, a _sine quâ non_--that is, a negative condition +of cleanness; but not, therefore, taken singly the affirmative or +efficient cause of cleanness. It must in addition to this chew the +cud--it must ruminate. Which, again, was but a _sine quâ non_--that is, +a negative condition, indispensable, indeed; whose absence could not be +tolerated in any case, but whose presence did not therefore, and as a +matter of course, avail anything. For the reverse case occurred in the +camel, hare, and rabbit. They _do_ chew the cud, the absence of which +habit caused the swine to be rejected, but then they 'divide not the +hoof.' Accordingly they were equally rejected as food with the swine. + + +We see the great Jewish lawgiver looking forward to cases which actually +occurred nearly five hundred years after, as demanding a king, and again +looking still farther to cases eight hundred and a thousand years +after--their disobedience and rebellion to God. Now, many will think +that it must have been an easy thing for any people, when swerving from +their law, and especially in that one great fundamental article of +idolatry as the Jews so continually did, and so naturally when the case +is examined, to always have an easy retreat: the plagues and curses +denounced would begin to unfold themselves, and then what more easy than +to relinquish the idolatrous rites or customs, resuming with their old +rituals to God their old privileges? But this was doubly impossible. +First, because men utterly misconceive the matter when they suppose that +with direct consecutive succession the judgment would succeed the +trespass. Large tracts of time would intervene. Else such direct +clockwork as sin and punishment, repentance and relief, would dishonour +God not less than they would trivialize the people. God they would +offend by defeating all His purposes; the people they would render vile +by ripening into mechanic dissimulation. The wrath of God slept often +for a long season; He saw as one who saw not. And by the time that His +large councils had overtaken them, and His judgments were fast coming up +with the offenders, they had so hardened themselves in error that a +whole growth of false desires had sprung up, and of false beliefs, blind +maxims, bad habits, bad connections, and proverbs, which found out a +reconciliation of that irreconcilable truth with the foulest pollutions. +The victims of temptation had become slow even to suspect their own +condition. And, if some more enlightened did so, the road of existence +was no longer easy. Error had woven chains about them. They were +enmeshed. And it is but a faint emblem of their situation to say, that +as well may a man commence a habit of intoxication for the purpose of +having five years' pleasure, and then halting in his career, as the Jews +may contaminate themselves tentatively with idolatrous connections under +the delusion that it would always be time enough for untreading their +steps when these connections had begun to produce evil. For they could +not recover the station from which they swerved. They that had now +realized the _casus foederis_, the case in which they had covenanted +themselves to desist from idolatry, were no longer the men who had made +that covenant. They had changed profoundly and imperceptibly. So that +the very vision of truth was overcast with carnal doubts; the truth +itself had retired to a vast distance and shone but feebly for them, and +the very will was palsied in its motions of recovery. + +In such a state, suppose it confirmed and now threatening towards a +total alienation from the truth once delivered, what could avail to save +them? Nothing but affliction in the heaviest form. Vain it was now to +hope for a cheaper restoration, since the very first lightening of their +judicial punishment would seem to them a reason for relapsing, by +seeming to argue that there had been two principles. It was but a false +alarm, they would say, after all. Affliction, therefore, was past all +substitution or remedy. Yet even this case, this prostration to the +ground, had been met for a thousand years by God's servants. + + +If I have shown that quickening spirit which, diffusing itself through +all thoughts, schemata, possible principles, motives of sensibility, and +forms of taste, has differenced the pre-Christian man from the +post-Christian; if I have detected that secret word which God subtly +introduced into this world, kept in a state of incubation for two +millennia, then with the flames and visible agency of a volcanic +explosion forced into infinite disruption, caused to kindle into a +general fire--that word by which sadness is spread over the face of +things, but also infinite grandeur--then may I rightly lay this as one +chapter of my Emendation of Human Knowledge. + + +The same thing precisely takes place in literature as in spiritual +things. When a man is entangled and suffocated in business, all relating +to that which shrinks up to a point--and observe, I do not mean that +being conceived as a tent above his head it contracts, but that, viewed +as a body at a distance, it shrinks up to a point, and really vanishes +as a real thing--when this happens, having no subjective existence at +all, but purely and intensely objective, he misconceives it just in the +same way as a poor ignorant man misconceives learning or knowledge; +fancying, _e.g._, like Heylius senior, that he ought to know the road +out of the wood in which they were then entangled. + + +It is probable that Adam meant only the unity of man as to his nature, +which also is meant by making all men of one blood. Similarly +Boeckh--[Greek: en genei]--which does not mean that Gods _and_ men are +the same, but that of each the separate race has unity in itself. So the +first man, Adam, will mean the earliest race of men, perhaps spread +through thousands of years. + + +It is a violent case of prejudice, this ordinary appeal of Bossuet, +'Qu'ont gagné les philosophes avec leurs discours pompeux?' (p. 290). +Now how _should_ that case have been tried thoroughly before the +printing of books? Yet it may be said the Gospel _was_ so tried. True, +but without having the power of fully gratifying itself through the +whole range of its capability. That was for a later time, hence a new +proof of its reality. + + +_An Analogy._--1. I have somewhere read that a wicked set of Jews, +probably, when rebuked for wickedness, replied, 'What! are we not the +peculiar people of God? Strange, then, if we may not have a privilege +more than others to do wrong!' The wretches fancied that to be the +people of God--the chosen people--implied a license to do wrong, and had +a man told them, No, it was just the other way; they were to be better +than others, absolutely, they would have trembled with wrath. + +2. Precisely the same idea, I am sure, lurks in many minds as to +repentance. It is odious to think of, this making God the abettor and +encourager of evil; but I am sure it is so, viz., that, because God has +said He will have mercy on the penitent, they fancy that, as the chief +consequence from that doctrine, they may commit sins without anxiety; +though others, not under the Christian privilege, would be called to +account for the same sin, penitent or not penitent. But they--such is +their thought--are encouraged to sin by the assurance that repentance +will always be open to them, and this they may pursue at leisure. + +Now, if a man should say: 'But, my friends, this means _real +penitence_;' they would reply, 'Oh, but we mean _real penitence_.' +'Well, if you do, you must know that that is not always possible.' 'Not +possible!' Then make them understand that; they will roar with wrath, +and protest against it as no privilege at all. + + +The literal interpretation of the Mosaic Cosmogony is the very +expression of a barbarian mind and people, relying so far on magic as to +make all natural process of generation or production impossible, relying +so far on natural processes as to make the fiat of supreme power +evidently inapplicable. It is exactly the Minerva of the Pagans draggled +in her skirts. + + +_Idolatry._--It is not only a mere blind crotchet of Isaiah's +(Jeremiah's?) to ridicule idols--utterly wide of any real imperfection, +but also it misses all that really might be bad. The true evil is not to +kindle the idea of Apollo by an image or likeness, but to worship +Apollo, _i.e._, a god to be in some sense false--belonging to a system +connected with evil. That may be bad; but there can be no separate evil +in reanimating the idea of this Apollo by a picture. + + +I have observed many times, but never could understand in any rational +sense, the habit of finding a confirmation of the Bible in mere +archæologic facts occasionally brought to light and tallying with the +Biblical records. As in the Pharaonic and Egyptian usages, and lately in +the case of Nimrod, a great collateral confirmation of Ezekiel has been +fancied. But how? Supposing Ezekiel to have recited accurately the +dimensions of Nineveh, how should _that_ make him a true prophet? Or +supposing him a false one, what motive should that furnish for +mismeasuring Nineveh? The Gospels appear to have been written long after +the events, and when controversies or variations had arisen about them, +they have apparently been modified and shaped to meet those disputes. + + +_The sun stands still._ I am persuaded that this means no such +incredible miracle as is ordinarily imagined. The interpretation arises +from misconceiving an Oriental expression, and a forcible as well as +natural one. Of all people the Jews could least mistake the nature of +the sun and moon, as though by possibility they could stand in a +relation to a particular valley: that the sun could have stood still in +Gibeon, and the moon in Ajalon. Since they viewed sun and moon as two +great lights, adequated and corresponding to day and night, that alone +shows that they did not mean any objective solstice of the hour, for +else why in Ajalon? Naturally it would be a phenomenon chiefly made +known to the central sanctity of that God whose miraculous interposition +had caused so unknown an arrest of ordinary nature; Jerusalem was not +then known, it was Jebus, a city of Jebusites; and the fact which +subsequently created its sanctity did not occur till more than four +centuries afterwards (viz., on the threshing-floor of Araunah). But +Shiloh existed, and Horeb, and Sinai, and the graves of the Patriarchs. +And all those places would have expounded the reference of the miracle, +would have traced it to the very source of its origin; so as to show not +then only, not to the contemporaries only, but (which would be much more +important) to after generations, who might suspect some mistake in their +ancestors as explaining their meaning, or in themselves as understanding +it. What it really means, I am persuaded, is merely to express that the +day was, of all historical days, the most important. What! do people +never reflect on the [Greek: to] positive of their reading? If they +_did_, they would remember that the very idea of a great cardinal event, +as of the foundation of the Olympiads, was as an arrest, a pausing, of +time; causing you to hang and linger on that time. And the grandeur of +this Jewish Waterloo in which God established possessions for His people +and executed an earthly day of judgment on the ancient polluters +(through perhaps a thousand years) of the sacred land (already sacred as +the abode and burying-place of His first servants under a covenant) was +expressed by saying that the day lingered, arrested itself by a burthen +of glorious revolution so mighty as this great day of overthrow. For +remember this: Would not God have changed Pharaoh's heart, so +intractable, by such a miracle, had it been at all open to His eternal +laws? Whereas, if you say, Aye, but on that account why grant even so +much distinction to the day as your ancestor does? answer, it was the +_final-cause_ day. + + +The English Church pretends to give away the Bible without note or +comment, or--which, in fact, is the meaning--any impulse or bias to the +reader's mind. The monstrous conceit of the Protestant Churches, viz., +the right of private judgment (which is, in effect, like the right to +talk nonsense, or the right to criticise Sir John Herschel's books +without mathematics), is thus slavishly honoured. Yet all is deception. +Already in the translation at many hundred points she has laid a +restraining bias on the reader, already by the division of verses, +already by the running abstracts over the Prophets, she has done this. + + +Can the power adequated to a generation of minds, or to a succession of +many generations, find its comprehension in an individual? Can the might +which overflows the heaven of heavens be confined within a local +residence like that which twice reared itself by its foundations, and +three times by its battlements, above the threshing-floor of +Araunah?[33] Of that mystery, of that local circumscription--in what +sense it was effected, in what sense not effected, we know nothing. But +this by mere human meditation, this profound difficulty we may humanly +understand and measure, viz., the all but impossibility of reaching the +man who stands removed to an extent of fifteen centuries. But here comes +in the unspiritual mind which thinks only of facts--yet mark me so far, +Rome by an augury of wicked gods stretched to a period of 1,200 years. +Yet how open to doubt in one sense! Not, I am sure, in any sense +understood by man, but I doubt not in the ominous sense intended. +Changed in all things essential, she was yet a mighty sceptered potentate +for the world until her dependency on Attila's good-will and +forbearance. 444 after Christ added to 752 B. C. complete the period. +But period for what? For whom? For a great idea that could not be lost. +The conception could not perish if the execution perished. But, next +think of the temptation to _mythus_. And, finally, of God's plan +unrealized, His conceptions unanswered. We should remember that by the +confusion introduced into the economy of internal Divine operations +there is a twofold difficulty placed between the prayer and the +attainment of the prayer. 1st, the deflection, slight though it may seem +to the man, from the state of perfect simplicity and of natural desire; +2ndly, the deflection of the object desired from the parallelism with +the purposes _now_ became necessary to God in order to remedy +_abnormous_ shifting of the centre by man. And again, in the question of +the language of Scripture, I see the same illustration. Sir William +Jones, in a fit of luxurious pleasure-giving, like Gibbons' foolish +fit[34] as to the Archbishop of Carthagena, praises the language of +Scripture as unattainable. I say, No. This is hypocrisy. It is no +dishonour if we say of God that, in the sense meant by Sir William +Jones, it is not possible for Him to speak better than powerful writers +can speak. They have the same language as their instrument, and as +impossible would it be for Apollonius or Sir William Jones to perform a +simple process of addition better than an ordinary keeper of a shop. In +the schemata, because in the original ideas, God says indeed what man +cannot, for these are peculiar to God; but who before myself has shown +what they were? As to mere language, however, and its management, we +have the same identically. And when a language labours under an +infirmity, as all do, not God Himself could surmount it! He is +compromised, coerced, by the elements of language; but what of that? It +is an element of man's creating. And just as in descending on man by His +answers God is defeated or distorted many times by the foul atmosphere +in which man has thrown himself, so in descending upon the mind (unless +by dreams, or some language that he may have kept pure), God is thwarted +and controlled by the imperfections of human language. And, apart from +the ideas, I myself could imitate the Scriptural language--I know its +secret, its principle of movement which lies chiefly in high +abstractions--far better than is done in most parts of the Apocrypha. + +The power lies in the spirit--the animating principle; and verily such a +power seems to exist. And the fact derived from the holiness, the +restraints even upon the Almighty's power through His own holiness, +goodness, and wisdom, are so vast that, instead of the unlimited power +which hypocritical glorifiers ascribe to Him by way of lip-honour, in +reaching man _ex-abundantibus_ in so transcendent a way that mere excess +of means would have perplexed a human choice, on the contrary, I am +persuaded that besides the gulf of 1,500 years so as to hold on, so as +to hold hard, and to effect the translation of His will unaltered, +uncorrupted, through the violent assaults of idolatries all round, and +the perverse, headstrong weakness of a naturally unbelieving people,[35] +down to the time of Christ from the time of Moses--there was the labour +hardly to be effected; and why? I have always been astonished at men +treating such a case as a simple _original_ problem as to God. But far +otherwise. It was a problem secondary to a change effected by man. His +rays, His sun, still descended as ever; but when they came near to the +foul atmosphere of man, no ray could pierce unstained, unrefracted, or +even untwisted. It was distorted so as to make it hardly within the +limits of human capacity (observe, the difficulty was in the human power +to receive, to sustain, to comprehend--not in the Divine power to +radiate, to receive what was directed to it). Often I have reflected on +the tremendous gulf of separation placed between man, by his own act, +and all the Divine blessings which could visit him. (This is illustrated +by prayer; for, while we think it odd that so many prayers of good men +for legitimate objects of prayer should seem to be unanswered, we +nevertheless act as to our prayers in a kind of unconscious hypocrisy, +as though to our sense they had been answered in some ineffable way, and +all the while our conduct, to speak strictly, lies outside all this, and +remains wholly uninfluenced by it). + +These ideas of God have life only by their own inherent power: yet what +risk that Jews should lapse into supposing themselves separately a +favoured people? By this very error they committed the rebellion against +which they had been warned--in believing that they only were concerned +in receiving a supernatural aid of redemption: thus silently +substituting their own merits for the Divine purposes. All which did in +fact happen. But their errors were overruled, else how could the human +race be concerned in their offences, errors, or ministries? The Jews +forgot what we moderns forget, that they were no separate objects of +favour with God, but only a means of favour. + +What occasion to 'argal-bargal' about why God did not sooner accomplish +the scheme of Christianity? For besides that, 1st, possibly the scheme +in its expansion upon earth required a corresponding expansion +elsewhere; 2ndly, it is evident even to our human sense that none but +the most childish eudamonist, whose notion of happiness is that of lazy +luxury, would think of cramming men, bidding them open their mouths, and +at once drugging them with a sensual opium (as all blessing must be +without previous and commensurate elevation to the level of that +blessing); 3rdly, the physical nature of the evil to be undone was such +as would not have _been_ (_objectively_ would not have been, but still +less could it _subjectively_ have been) for the conception of man that +dreadful mystery which it really is, had the awful introversion been +measured back by fewer steps; 4thly, and finally, it seems at first +sight shocking to say of God that He cannot do this and this, but it is +not so. Without adverting to the dark necessities that compass our +chaotic sense when we ascend by continual abstraction to the _absolute_, +without entangling ourselves vainly in those wildernesses that no +created intellect can range or measure--even one sole attribute of God, +His holiness, makes it as impossible for Him to proceed except by +certain steps as it would be impossible for a man, though a free agent, +and apparently master, as he feels and thinks, of his own life, to cut +his throat while in a state of pleasurable health both of mind and +body. + + +5.--Political, etc. + +Sir Robert Walpole, as to patriots, was like a man who has originally, +from his nursery up, been thoroughly imbued with the terror of ghosts, +which by education and example afterwards he has been encouraged to +deny. Half he does disbelieve, and, under encouraging circumstances, he +does disbelieve it stoutly. But at every fresh plausible alarm his early +faith intrudes with bitter hatred against a class of appearances that, +after all, he is upon system pledged to hold false. Nothing can be more +ludicrous than his outcry, and his lashing of his own tail to excite his +courage and his wrath and his denial--than his challenge of the lurking +patriots in what he conceives the matter of frauds on the revenue. He +assaults them as if he saw them standing in a row behind the door, and +yet he pummels them for being mere men of the shades--horrible +mockeries. Had there been any truth in their existence, surely, so +strongly as they muster by their own report, some one or other of this +fact should have given me warning--should have exposed the frauds. But +no, all are silent as the grave. But here Sir Robert Walpole is as much +wrong as if, doubting the value or power of Methodist preachers, he +should make it the test of their useful existence that, as often as a +highwayman, a footpad, started out of the wayside, from the other side +should start a Methodist preacher to reason with him and to convert +him. + + +Are the Whigs less aristocratic than the Tories? Not at all. In tendency +by principle they are the same. The real difference is not in the creed, +in the groundwork, but in certain points of practice and method. + + +'He took his stand upon the truth'--said by me of Sir Robert Peel--might +seem to argue a lower use of '_the_ truth,' but in fact it is as happens +to the article _the_ itself: you say _the_ guard, speaking of a coach; +_the_ key, speaking of a trunk or watch, _i.e._, _the_ as by usage +appropriated to every coach, watch, trunk. So here the truth, namely, of +the particular perplexity. + + +The Sepoy mutiny will be best understood if you suppose the Roman +emperors, from Romulus to Augustus, from the Alban Fathers down to the +Ostrogoths--the whole line of a thousand years crowded into two. + + +Trunkmakers may be great men: they clearly have the upper hand of +authors whom all the world admits to be great men. For the trunkmaker is +the _principal_ in the concern--he makes the trunk, whereas the author, +quite a secondary artist, furnishes only the linings. + + * * * * * + +_Case of Casuistry._--Wraxall justly notices that errors like Prince +Rupert's from excess of courage, however ruinous, are never resented by +a country. _Ergo_ the inference that prudence would be, always if in +Byng's or Lord St. German's cases, in a matter of doubt held to be bold +fighting; and yet in morals is that an allowable position? + + +6.--Personal Confessions, etc. + +Avaunt, ye hypocrites! who make a whining pretence, according to a fixed +rule, of verbally uttering thanks to God for every chastisement, and who +say this is good for you. So do not I, being upright, and God seeing my +heart, who also sees that I murmur not; but if it were not good in the +end, yet I submit. He is not offended that with upright sincerity I give +no thanks for it. And I say that, unless a man perceives the particular +way in which it has been good for him, he cannot sincerely, truly, or so +as not to mock God with his lips, give thanks simply on an _à priori_ +principle, though, of course, he may submit in humbleness. + + +I do not believe that the faith of any man in the apparent fact that he +will never again see such a person (_i.e._, by being removed by death) +is real. I believe that the degree of faith in this respect is regulated +by an original setting or fixing of our nature quite unconscious to +ourselves. So, again, I believe that hope is never utterly withdrawn, +despair is never absolute. And again, I believe that, at the lowest +nadir, the resource of dying as a means of escape and translation to new +chances and openings is lodged in every man far down below the +sunlights of consciousness. He feels that his death is not final; were +it otherwise he could not rush at the escape so lightly. Indeed, were +his fate fixed immutably, I feel that it would not have been left +possible for him to commit suicide. + + +_Justice._--You say in the usual spirit of vanity, Y or X has the same +degree of the spirit of justice as V. This is easily said, but the test +is, what will he _do_ for it? Suppose a man to propose rewards +exclusively to those who assisted at a fire, then X and Y, suppose, have +equally seen that many did _not_ assist, even refused to do so. But X +perhaps will shrink from exposing them; V will encounter any hatred for +truth and justice by exposing the undeserving. + + +It is a foolish thing to say 'Hard words break no bones.' How impossible +to call up from the depths of forgotten times all the unjust or shocking +insinuations, all the scornful refusals to understand one aright, etc. +But surely an injury is nothing to them; for that may be measured, made +sensible, and cannot be forgotten, whereas the other case is like the +dispute, 'Is he wrong as a _poet_?' compared with this, 'Is he wrong as +a _geometrician_?' There need be no anger with the latter dispute; it is +capable of decision. + + +Then, again, a heart so lacerated is required by Christianity to forgive +the lacerator. Hard it is to do, and imperfectly it is ever done, except +through the unbuckling of human nature under higher inspirations +_working together with time_. + + +Instead of being any compliment it is the most profound insult, the +idea one can write something rapidly. It is no homage to the writer; it +is villainous insensibility to the written. + + +Two subjects of stories occur to me. 1. For my Arabian tales, founded on +the story of the Minyas Treasure-House at Orchomenus. 2. Another of an +abbess, who was such by dispensation, but had been married; her +accomplished son succeeds in carrying off a nun. She labours for the +discovery and punishment of the unknown criminal, till she learns who he +is; then parting from him for ever in the early dawn, she, sacrificing +to a love that for her was to produce only hatred and the total +destruction of the total hopes of her ageing life. Splendide Mendax! and +the more angel she. + + +I find the double effect as the reason of my now reading again with +profit every book, however often read in earlier times, that by and +through my greater knowledge and the more numerous questions growing out +of that knowledge, I have deeper interest, and by and through this +deeper interest I have a value put upon those questions, and I have +other questions supervening through the interest alone. The interest is +incarnated in the wider knowledge; the knowledge is incarnated in the +interest, or at least the curiosity and questions. + + +Upon trying to imprint upon my memory that at such a period the Argives +ceased to be called Pelasgi, and were henceforward called Danai, I felt +how impracticable (and doubtless in their degree injurious, for though +an infinitesimal injury only as regards any single act doubtless, yet, +_per se_, by tendency doubtless all blank efforts of the memory +unsupported by the understanding are bad), must be any violent efforts +of the memory not falling in with a previous preparedness. + + +_Music._--I am satisfied that music involves a far greater mystery than +we are aware of. It is that universal language which binds together all +creatures, and binds them by a profounder part of their nature than +anything merely intellectual ever could. + + +It is remarkable (as proving to me the delibility of caste) that the +Sudras of Central India, during its vast confusions under the Mahrattas +have endeavoured to pass themselves for descendants of the Kshatriyas +(or warrior caste) by assuming the sacred thread, also assumed by the +Rajpoots, and also by some of the Sikhs. + + +I never see a vast crowd of faces--at theatres, races, reviews--but one +thing makes them sublime to me: the fact that all these people have to +die. Strange it is that this multitude of people, so many of them +intellectually, but also (which is worse) morally, blind, are without +forethought or sense of the realities of life. + + +Though I love fun, eternal jesting, buffoonery, punning absolutely kills +me. Such things derive all their value from being made to intervene well +with other things. + + +This is curious: + + Shame, pain, and poverty shall I endure, + When ropes or opium can my ease procure? + +This offends nobody, not till you say, 'I'll buy a rope.' But now: + + When money's gone, and I no debts can pay, + _Self-murder_ is an honourable way-- + +though the same essentially, this shocks all men. + + +I have in the course of my misfortunes fasted for thirty years: a +dreadful fate, if it had been to come. But, being past, it is lawful to +regard it with satisfaction, as having, like all fasting and +mortification, sharpened to an excruciating degree my intellectual +faculties. Hence my love and even furor now for mathematics, from which +in my youth I fled. + + +The _Arrow Ketch_, six guns, is recorded in the _Edinburgh Advertiser_ +for June 14th, 1844, as having returned home (to Portsmouth) on +Thursday, June 7th, 'after six years and upwards in commission,' most of +it surveying the Falkland Islands; 'has lost only two men during this +long service, and those from natural causes;' 'never lost a spar, and +has ploughed the ocean for upwards of 100,000 miles.' + + +Anecdotes from _Edinburgh Advertiser_, for June and May. The dog of a +boy that died paralytic from grief. Little child run over by railway +waggon and horse, clapping its hands when the shadow passed away, +leaving it unhurt. Little girl of six committing suicide from fear of a +stepmother's wrath. + + +To note the dire reactions (?) of evils: young thieves growing to old +ones, no sewers, damp, famine-engendering, desolating and wasting +plagues or typhus fever, want of granaries or mendacious violence +destroying food, civil feuds coming round in internecine wars, and +general desolations, and, as in Persia, eight millions occupying the +homesteads of three hundred millions. Here, if anywhere, is seen the +almighty reactions through which the cycle of human life, oscillating, +moves. + + +In the speech of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (reported on June 14th, +1844), it is recited that boys 'left to stroll about the streets and +closes,' acquire habits so fixed, if not of vice, at least of idleness, +that in consequence of their not being trained to some kind of +discipline in their early years, the habit of vagabondizing acquires +such power that it is uncontrollable. And how apt and forcible was that +quotation in the place assigned it: 'If thou forbear to deliver them +that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou +sayest, _Behold, we knew it not_, doth not He that pondereth the heart, +consider it?'--consider it, regard it, make account of it. + + +_Manners._--The making game of a servant before company--a thing +impossible to well-bred people. Now observe how this is illustrative of +H---- Street. + + +I confess myself wholly at a loss to comprehend the objections of the +Westminster reviewer and even of my friend Dr. Nichol, to my commentary +on the strange appearance in Orion. The reviewer says that this +appearance (on which he seems to find my language incomprehensible) had +been dispersed by Lord Rosse's telescope. True, or at least so I hear. +But for all this, it was originally created by that telescope. It was +in the interval between the first report and the subsequent reports +from Lord Rosse's telescope that I made my commentary. But in the case +of contradiction between two reports, more accurate report I have not. +As regards the reviewer, there had been no time for this, because the +book, which he reviews, is a simple reprint in America, which he knows I +had had no opportunity of revising. But Dr. Nichol perplexes me. That a +new stage of progress had altered the appearances, as doubtless further +stages will alter them, concerns me nothing, though referring to a +coming republication; for both alike apparently misunderstood the case +as though it required a _real_ phenomenon for its basis. To understand +the matter as it really is, I beg to state this case. Wordsworth in at +least four different places (one being in the fourth book of 'The +Excursion,' three others in Sonnets) describes most impressive +appearances amongst the clouds: a monster, for instance, with a +bell-hanging air, a dragon agape to swallow a golden spear, and various +others of affecting beauty. Would it have been any just rebuke to +Wordsworth if some friend had written to him: 'I regret most sincerely +to say that the dragon and the golden spear had all vanished before nine +o'clock'? So, again, of Hawthorne's face on a rock. The very beauty of +such appearances is in part their evanescence. + + +To be or _not_ to be. 'Not to be, by G----' said Garrick. This is to be +cited in relation to Pope's-- + + 'Man never is, but always to be blessed.' + + +_Political Economy._--Which of these two courses shall I take? 1. Shall +I revise, extend, condense my logic of Political Economy, embodying +every doctrine (and numbering them) which I have amended or +re-positioned, and introduce them thus in a letter to the +Politico-Economical Society: 'Gentlemen, certain ideas fundamental to +Political Economy I presented in a book in the endeavour to effect a +certain purpose. These were too much intermingled with less elementary +ideas in consequence of my defective self-command from a dreadful +nervous idea, and thus by interweaving they were overlapped and lost. +But I am not disposed to submit to that wrong. I affirm steadily that +the foundations of Political Economy are rotten and crazy. I defy, and +taking up my stand as a scholar of Aristotle, I defy all men to gainsay +the following exposures of folly, one or any of them. And when I show +the darkness all round the very base of the hill, all readers may judge +how great is that darkness.' Or, 2. Shall I introduce them as a chapter +in my Logic? + + +7.--PAGAN LITERATURE. + +We must never forget, that it is not _impar_ merely, but also _dispar_. +And such is its value in this light, that I protest five hundred kings' +ransoms, nay, any sum conceivable as a common contribution from all +nations would not be too much for the infinite treasure of the Greek +tragic drama alone. Is it superior to our own? No, nor (so far as +capable of collation) not by many degrees approaching to it. And were +the case, therefore, one merely of degrees, there would be no room for +the pleasure I express. But it shows us the ultimatum of the human mind +mutilated and castrated of its infinities, and (what is worse) of its +moral infinities. + +You must imagine not only everything which there is dreadful in fact, +but everything which there is mysterious to the imagination in the +pariah condition, before you can approach the Heracleidæ. Yet, even with +this pariah, how poorly do most men conceive it as nothing more than a +civil, a police, an economic affair! + + +Valckenaer, an admirable Greek scholar, was not a man of fine +understanding; nor, to say the truth, was Porson. Indeed, it is +remarkable how mean, vulgar, and uncapacious has been the range of +intellect in many first-rate Grecians; though, on the other hand, the +reader would deeply deceive himself if he should imagine that Greek is +an attainment other than difficult, laborious, and requiring exemplary +talents. Greek taken singly is, to use an indispensable Latin word, +_instar_, the knowledge of all other languages. But men of the highest +talents have often beggarly understandings. Hence, in the case of +Valckenaer, we must derive the contradictions in his diatribe. He +practises this intolerable artifice; he calls himself [Greek: +philenripideios]; bespeaks an unfair confidence from the reader; he +takes credit for being once disposed to favour and indulge Euripides. In +this way he accredits to the careless reader all the false charges or +baseless concessions which he makes on any question between Euripides +and his rivals. Such men as Valckenaer it is who are biased and +inflected beforehand, without perceiving it, by all the commonplaces of +criticism. These, it is true, do not arise out of mere shadows. Usually +they have a foundation in some fact or modification. What they fail in +is, in the just interpretation of these truths, and in the reading of +their higher relations. 'The Correggiosity of Correggio' was precisely +meant for Valckenaer. The Sophocleity of Sophocles he is keen to +recognise, and the superiority of Sophocles as an artist is undeniable; +nor is it an advantage difficult to detect. On the other hand, to be +more Homeric than Homer is no praise for a tragic poet. It is far more +just, pertinent praise, it is a ground of far more interesting praise, +that Euripides is granted by his undervalues to be the most _tragic_ +([Greek: tragichotatos]) of tragic poets. After that he can afford to +let Sophocles be '[Greek: Homerichôtos], who, after all, is not '[Greek: +Homerichôtutos], so long as Æschylus survives. But even so far we are +valuing Euripides as a poet. In another character, as a philosopher, as +a large capacious thinker, as a master of pensive and sorrow-tainted +wisdom, as a large reviewer of human life, he is as much beyond all +rivalship from his scenic brethren as he is below one of them as a +scenic artist. + +Is the Nile ancient? So is Homer. Is the Nile remote and hiding its head +in fable? So is Homer. Is the Nile the diffusive benefactor of the +world? So is Homer.[36] + +_The Æneid._--It is not any supposed excellence that has embalmed this +poem; but the enshrining of the differential Roman principle (the grand +aspiring character of resolution), all referred to the central principle +of the aggrandizement of Rome. + +The sublime of wrath is nowhere exhibited so well as in Juvenal. Yet in +Juvenal pretty glimpses of rural rest-- + + '... infans cum collusore catello.'[37] + +That is pretty! There is another which comes to my mind and suggests his +rising up and laying aside, etc., and shows it to be an _occasional_ +act, and, _ergo_, his garden is but a relaxation, amusement. + +Glances which the haughty eyes of Rome threw sometimes gently and +relentingly aside on man or woman, children or the flowers. + +Herodotus is as sceptical as Plutarch is credulous. How often is _now_ +and _at this time_ applied to the fictitious present of the author, +whilst a man arguing generally beforehand would say that surely a man +could always distinguish between _now_ and _then_. + + + + +8.--HISTORICAL, ETC. + + +_Growth of the House of Commons._--The House of Commons was the power of +the purse, and what gave its emphasis to that power? Simply the growing +necessity of standing forces, and the growing increase of war, so that +now out of twenty millions, fifteen are applied to army and navy. + +One great evil, as in practice it had begun to show itself, pressed with +equal injustice on the party who suffered from it (viz., the nation), +and the party who seemed to reap its benefit. This was the fact that as +yet no separation had taken place between the royal peculiar revenue, +and that of the nation. The advance of the nation was now (1603, 1st of +James I.) approaching to the point which made the evil oppression, and +yet had not absolutely reached the point at which it could be undeniably +perceived. Much contest and debate divided the stage of incipient evil +from the stage of confessed grievance. In spending £100,000 upon a +single fête, James I. might reasonably allege that he misapplied, at any +rate, his own funds. Wise or not, the act concerned his own private +household. Yet, on the other hand, in the case of money _really_ public, +the confusion of the two expenditures invited and veiled the transfer +of much from national objects that could wait, and were, at any rate, +hidden from effectual scrutiny to the private objects which tempted the +king's profusion. When Mr. Macaulay speaks so often of England sinking +under this or that Stuart to a third-rate power, he is anachronizing. +There was no scale of powers. Want of roads and intercommunication +forbade it. And hence until the Thirty Years' War there was no general +war. Austria, as by fiction the Roman Empire, and always standing +awfully near to North Italy, had a natural relation and gravitation +towards Rome. France, by vainglory and the old literary pretensions of +Anjou, had also a balancing claim upon Italy. Milanese formed indeed (as +Flanders afterwards) the rendezvous for the two powers. Otherwise, only +Austria and Spain (and Spain not till joined to Austria) and France--as +great powers that touched each other in many points--had ever formed a +warlike trio. No quadrille had existed until the great civil war for +life and death between Popery and Protestantism. It was another great +evil that the functions towards which, by inevitable instincts and +tendency of progress, the House of Commons was continually +travelling,--not, I repeat, through any encroaching spirit as the Court +and that House of Commons itself partially fancied,--were not yet +developed: false laws of men, _i.e._, laws framed under theories +misunderstood of rights and constitutional powers, having as much +distorted the true natural play of the organic manifestation and +tendency towards a whole, as ever a dress too tight, or a flower-pot too +narrow, impeded the development of child or plant. Queen Elizabeth, +therefore, always viewed the House of Commons as a disturber of the +public peace, as a mutineer and insurrectionist, when any special +accident threw it upon its natural function; she spoke of State +affairs, and especially of foreign affairs, as beyond their +'_capacity_,' which expression, however, must in charity be interpreted +philosophically as meaning the range of comprehension consistent with +their _total_ means of instruction and preparation, including, +therefore, secret information, knowledge of disposable home resources as +known to the official depositaries of State secrets, etc., and not, as +the modern reader will understand it, simply and exclusively the +intellectual power of appreciation. Since, with all her disposition to +exalt the qualities of princely persons, she could not be so absurdly +haughty as to claim for princes and the counsellors whom interest or +birth had suggested to them a precedency in pure natural endowments. + +Charles was a sincere believer but not an earnest believer of the Roman +Catholic faith. James was both sincere and preternaturally earnest. + + +_The Reformation._--This seems to show two things: 1st, that a deep +searching and 'sagacious-from-afar' spirit of morality can mould itself +under the prompting of Christianity, such as could not have grown up +under Paganism. For it was the abominations in point of morality (_en +fait de moralité?_)--indulgences, the confessional, absolution, the +prevalence of a mere ritual--the usurpation of forms--these it was which +Rome treated violently; and if she draw in her horns for the present, +still upon any occasion offering, upon the cloud of peril passing away, +clearly she would renew her conduct. It was a tendency violently and +inevitably belonging to the Roman polity combined with the Roman +interest, unless, perhaps, as permanently controlled by a +counter-force. 2ndly, the synthesis of this curative force is by +apposition of parts separately hardly conscious of the danger or even of +their own act. For we cannot suppose the vast body of opposition put +forward was so under direct conscious appreciation of the evil and by an +adequate counter-action--doubtless it was by sympathy with others having +better information. These last burned more vividly as the evil was +fiercer. That more vivid sympathy drew increase of supporters. + + +_Memorandum._--In my historical sketches not to forget the period of +woe, _anterior_ to the Siege of Jerusalem, which Josephus describes as +occurring in all the Grecian cities, but which is so unaccountably +overlooked by historians. + +The rule is to speak like the foolish, and think like the wise, and +therefore I agree to call our worthy old mother 'little'--our 'little +island'--as that seems to be the prevailing notion; otherwise I myself +consider Great Britain rather a tall island. A man is not called short +because some few of his countrymen happen to be a trifle taller; and +really I know but of two islands, among tens of thousands counted up by +gazetteers on our planet, that are taller; and I fancy, with such +figures as theirs, they are neither of them likely to think of any +rivalship with our dear old mother. What island, for instance, would +choose to be such a great fat beast as Borneo, as broad as she is long, +with no apology for a waist? Talk of lacing too tight, indeed! I'm sure +Borneo does not injure herself in that way. Now our mother, though she's +old, and has gone through a world of trouble in her time, is as jimp +about the waist as a young lass of seventeen. Look at her on any map of +Europe, and she's quite a picture. It's an old remark that the general +outline of the dear creature exactly resembles a lady sitting. She turns +her back upon the Continent, no doubt, and that's what makes those +foreigneering rascals talk so much of her pride. But she _must_ turn her +back upon somebody, and who is it that should have the benefit of her +countenance, if not those people in the far West that are come of her +own blood? They say she's 'tetyy' also. Well, then, if she is, you let +her alone, good people of the Continent. She'll not meddle with you if +you don't meddle with her. She's kind enough, and, as to her person, I +do maintain that she's quite tall enough, rather thin, it's true, but, +on the whole, a bonny, elegant, dear old fighting mamma. + + +_Mora Alexandrina._--Note on Middleton's affected sneer. A villa of +Cicero's, where probably the usual sound heard would be the groans of +tormented slaves, had been changed for the cells of Christian monks. Now +mark: what the hound Middleton means is, how shocking to literary +sensibilities that where an elegant master of Latinity had lived, there +should succeed dull, lazy monks, writing (if they wrote at all) in a +barbarous style, and dreaming away their lives in torpor. Now permit me +to pause a little. This is one of those sneers which Paley[38] and +Bishop Butler[39] think so unanswerable, that we must necessarily lie +down and let the sneer ride rough-shod over us all. Let us see, and for +this reason, reader, do not grudge a little delay, especially as you may +'skip' it. + +Dr. Conyers ought to have remembered, in the first place, that the villa +could not long remain in the hands of Cicero. Another owner would +succeed, and then the chances would be that the sounds oftenest +ascending in the hour of sunset or in the cool of the dawn would be the +shrieks of slaves under torture. By their own poor miserable fare +contrasted with the splendour reeking around them, these slaves had a +motive, such as our tenderly-treated (often pampered) servants can never +know the strength of, for breaking the seal of any wine cask. From the +anecdote told of his own mother by the wretched Quintus Cicero, the foul +brother of Marcus, it appears that generally there was some +encouragement to do this, on the chance of 'working down' on the master +that the violated seal had been amongst the casks legitimately opened. +For it seems that old Mrs. Cicero's housewifely plan was to seal up all +alike, empty and not empty. Consequently with her no such excuse could +avail. Which proves that often it _did_ avail, since her stratagem is +mentioned as a very notable artifice. What follows? Why, that the slave +was doubly tempted: 1st, by the luxury he witnessed; 2ndly, by the +impunity on which he might calculate. Often he escaped by sheer weight +of metal in lying. Like Chaucer's miller, he swore, when charged with +stealing flour, that it was not so. But this very prospect and +likelihood of escape was often the very snare for tempting to excesses +too flagrant or where secret marks had been fixed. Besides, many other +openings there were, according to the individual circumstances, but this +was a standing one, for tempting the poor unprincipled slave into +trespass that irritated either the master or the mistress. And then came +those periodical lacerations and ascending groans which Seneca mentions +as the best means of telling what o'clock it was in various households, +since the punishments were going on just at that hour. + +After, when the gracious revolution of Christianity had taught us, and +by a memento so solemn and imperishable, no longer to pursue our human +wrath, that hour of vesper sanctity had come, which, by the tendency of +the Christian law and according to the degree in which it is observed, +is for us a type and a symbol and a hieroglyphic of wrath extinguished, +of self-conquest, of charity in heaven and on earth. + +Now, the monks, it is supposable, might be commonplace drones. Often, +however, they would be far other, transmitters by their copying toils of +those very Ciceronian works which, but for them, would have perished. +And pausing duly here, what sense, what propriety would there be in +calling on the reader to notice with a shock the profanation of +classical ground in such an example as this: 'Mark the strange +revolutions of ages; there, where once the divine Plato's Academus +stood, now rises a huge printing-house chiefly occupied for the last two +years in reprinting Plato's works.' Why, really Plato himself would look +graciously on that revolution, Master Conyers. But next, the dullest of +these monks would hear the Gloria in Excelsis. + + +Oh, how pitiful it is to hear B---- alleging against Mahomet that he had +done no public miracles. What? Would it, then, alter your opinion of +Mahomet if he _had_ done miracles? What a proof, how full, how perfect! +That Christianity, in spirit, in power, in simplicity, and in truth, had +no more hold over B---- than it had over any Pagan Pontiff in Rome, is +clear to me from that. So, then, the argument against Mahomet is not +that he wants utterly the meekness--wants? wants? No, that he utterly +hates the humility, the love that is stronger than the grave, the purity +that cannot be imagined, the holiness as an ideal for man that cannot be +approached, the peace that passeth all understanding, that power which +out of a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand grows for ever and +ever until it will absorb the world and all that it inherit, that first +of all created the terror of death and the wormy grave; but that first +and last she might triumph over time--not these, it seems by B----, are +the arguments against Mahomet, but that he did not play legerdemain +tricks, that he did not turn a cow into a horse! + +In which position B---- is precisely on a level with those Arab Sheikhs, +or perhaps Mamelukes, whom Napoleon so foolishly endeavoured to surprise +by Chinese tricks: 'Aye, all this is very well, but can you make one to +be in Cairo and in Damascus at the same moment?' demanded the poor +brutalized wretches. And so also for B---- it is nothing. Oh, blind of +heart not to perceive that the defect was entirely owing to the age. +Mahomet came to a most sceptical region. There was no semblance or +shadow among the Arabs of that childish credulity which forms the +atmosphere for miracle. On the contrary, they were a hard, fierce +people, and in that sense barbarous; but otherwise they were sceptical, +as is most evident from all that they accomplished, which followed the +foundation of Islamism. Here lies the delusion upon that point. The +Arabs were evidently like all the surrounding nations. They were also +much distinguished among all Oriental peoples for courage. This fact has +been put on record in (1) the East Indies, where all the Arab troops +have proved themselves by far more formidable than twelve times the +number of effeminate Bengalese and Mahrattas, etc. (2) At Aden, where as +rude fighters without the science of war they have been most ugly +customers. (3) In Algeria, where the French, with all advantage of +discipline, science, artillery, have found it a most trying and +exhausting war. Well, as they are now, so they were before Mahomet, and +just then they were ripe for conquest. But they wanted a _combining_ +motive and a _justifying_ motive. Mahomet supplied both these. Says he, +'All nations are idolaters; go and thrust them into the mill that they +may be transformed to our likeness.' + +Consequently, the great idea of the truth, of a truth transcending all +available rights on the other side, was foreign to Mahometanism, and any +glimmering of this that may seem to be found in it was borrowed, was +filched from Christianity. + + +9.--LITERARY. + +The three greatest powers which we know of in moulding human feelings +are, first, Christianity; secondly, the actions of men emblazoned by +history; and, in the third place, poetry. If the first were represented +to the imagination by the atmospheric air investing our planet, which we +take to be the most awful laboratory of powers--mysterious, unseen, and +absolutely infinite--the second might be represented by the winds, and +the third by lightning. Napoleon and Lord Byron have done more mischief +to the moral feelings, to the truth of all moral estimates, to the +grandeur and magnanimity of man, in this present generation, than all +other causes acting together. But how? Simply by throwing human feelings +into false combinations. Both of them linked the mean to the grand, the +base to the noble, in a way which often proves fatally inextricable to +the poor infirm mind of the ordinary spectator. Here is Napoleon, simply +because he wields a vast national machinery, throwing a magic of +celerity and power into a particular action which absolutely overpowers +the _genus attonitorum_, so that they are reconciled by the dazzle of a +splendour not at all _in_ Napoleon, to a baseness which really _is_ in +Napoleon. The man that never praised an enemy is shown to this vile mob +by the light thrown off from the radiant power of France as the greatest +of men; he is confounded with his supporting element, even as the +Jupiter Olympus of Phidias, that never spared a woman in his lust, +seemed the holiest of deities when his rottenness was concealed by ivory +and gold, and his libidinous head was lighted up by sunbeams from above. +Here is Lord Byron connecting, in the portrait of some poor melodramatic +hero possibly, some noble quality of courage or perseverance with scorn +the most puerile and senseless. Prone enough is poor degraded human +nature to find something grand in scorn; but, after this arbitrary +combination of Lord Byron's, never again does the poor man think of +scorn but it suggests to him moral greatness, nor think of greatness but +it suggests scorn as its indispensable condition. + + +Wordsworth is always recording phenomena as they are enjoyed; Coleridge +as they reconcile themselves with opposing or conflicting phenomena. + + +W. W.'s social philosophy is surely shallow. It is true the man who has +a shallow philosophy under the guidance of Christianity has a profound +philosophy. But this apart, such truths as 'He who made the creature +will allow for his frailties,' etc., are commonplace. + + * * * * * + +_Invention as a Characteristic of Poets._--I happened this evening +(Saturday, August 3rd, '44) to be saying of W. W. to myself: 'No poet is +so free from all cases like this, viz., where all the feelings and +spontaneous thoughts which they have accumulated coming to an end, and +yet the case seeming to require more to finish it, or bring it round, +like a peal of church bells, they are forced to invent, and form +descants on raptures never really felt. Suddenly this suggested that +invention, therefore, so far from being a differential quality of +poetry, was, in fact, the polar opposite, spontaneousness being the true +quality. + + +_Tragedy._--I believe it is a very useful thing to let young persons +cultivate their kind feelings by repeated indulgences. Thus my children +often asked when anything was to be paid or given to any person, that +they might have the satisfaction of giving it. So I see clearly that +young boys or girls allowed to carry abroad their infant brothers and +sisters, when the little creature feels and manifests a real dependence +upon them in every act and movement, which _matre præsente_ they would +not have done, which again seen and felt calls out every latent goodness +of the elder child's heart. So again (here I have clipped out the case). +However, feeding rabbits, but above all the action upon women's hearts +in the enormous expansion given by the relation to their own children, +develops a feeling of tenderness that afterwards sets the model for the +world, and would die away, or freeze, or degenerate, if it were +generally balked. Now just such an action has tragedy, and if the +sympathy with calamities caused to noble natures by ignobler, or by dark +fates, were never opened or moved or called out, it would slumber +inertly, it would rust, and become far less ready to respond upon any +call being made. Such sensibilities are not consciously known to the +possessor until developed. + + +_Punctuation._--Suppose an ordinary case where the involution of clauses +went three deep, and that each was equally marked off by commas, now I +say that so far from aiding the logic it would require an immense effort +to distribute the relations of logic. But the very purpose and use of +points is to aid the logic. If indeed you could see the points at all in +this relation + + strophe antistrophe + 1 2 3 3 2 1 + ----, ----, ----, apodosis ----, ----, ----, + +then indeed all would be clear, but the six commas will and must be +viewed by every reader unversed in the logical mechanism of sentences as +merely a succession of ictuses, so many minute-guns having no internal +system of correspondence, but merely repeating and reiterating each +other, exactly as in men, guns, horses, timbrels, baggage-waggons, +standards. + + +_Sheridan's Disputatiousness._--I never heard of any case in the whole +course of my life where disputatiousness was the author of any benefit +to man or beast, excepting always one, in which it became a storm anchor +for poor Sheridan, saving him from sudden shipwreck. This may be found +in Mr. Moore's life, somewhere about the date of 1790, and in chapter +xiii. The book is thirty-seven miles off, which is too far to send for +water, or for scandal, or even for 'extract,' though I'm 'fond of +extract.' Therefore, in default of Mr. Moore's version, I give my own. +The situation was this: Sheridan had been cruising from breakfast to +dinner amongst Jews, Christians, and players (men, women, and +Herveys),[40] and constantly in the same hackney coach, so that the +freight at last settled like the sand-heap of an hour-glass into a +frightful record of costly moments. _Pereunt et imputantur_, say some +impertinent time-pieces, in speaking of the hours. They perish and are +debited to our account. Yes, and what made it worse, the creditor was an +inexorable old Jarvie, who, though himself a creditor, had never heard +the idea of credit. A guinea might be owing, and Sheridan, seldom +remembering his purse, had but a shilling, which even in a court of +Irish law seemed too small a compromise to offer. Black looked the +horizon, stormy the offing, and night was coming on, whilst the port of +consignment was now within thirty minutes' sail. Suddenly a sight of joy +was described. Driving before the wind, on bare poles, was a well-known +friend of Sheridan's, Richardson, famed for various talent, but also for +an invincible headlong necessity of disputing. To pull the check-string, +to take his friend on board, and to rush into fierce polemic +conversation was the work of a moment for Sheridan. He well understood +with this familiar friend how to bring on a hot dispute. In three +minutes it raged, yard-arm to yard-arm. Both grew warm. Sheridan grew +purple with rage. Violently interrupting Richardson, he said: 'And these +are your real sentiments?' Richardson with solemnity and artificial +restraint replied: 'Most solemnly they are.' 'And you stand to them, and +will maintain them?' 'I will,' said Richardson, with menacing solemnity +and even mournfulness. 'I will to my dying day.' 'Then,' said Sheridan +furiously, 'I'm hanged if I'll stay another minute with a man capable of +such abominable opinions!' Bang went the door, out he bounced, and +Richardson, keeping his seat, pursued him with triumphant explosions. +'Ah, wretch! what? you can't bear the truth. You're obliged to hate the +truth. That is why you cut and run before it. Huzza! Mr. Sheridan, M. +P. for Stafford, runs like a hare for fear that he should hear the +truth.' Precisely so, the truth it was that he ran from. The truth at +this particular moment was too painful to his heart. Sheridan had fled; +the awful truth amounted to eighteen shillings. + +Yes, virtuous Richardson, you were right; truth it was that he fled +from; truth had just then become too painful to his infirm mind, +although it was useless to tell him so, as by this time he was out of +hearing. 'Yes,' said Richardson meditatively to himself, 'the truth has +at last become insupportable to this unhappy man.' Right, it _had_ so. +And in one minute more it became insupportable even to the virtuous +Richardson, when the coachman revealed the odious extent of the truth, +viz., that the fare now amounted to two-and-twenty shillings. + +As I hate everything that the people love, and above all the odious +levity with which they adopt every groundless anecdote, especially where +it happens to be calumnious, I beg not to be supposed a believer in the +common stories current about Sheridan's carelessness of pecuniary +obligations. So far from 'never paying,' which is what public slander +has not ceased to report of him, he was (in Mr. Moore's language) +'_always_ paying;' and for once that he paid too little, a thousand +times he paid a great deal too much. Had, indeed, all his excesses of +payment been gathered into one fund, that fund would have covered his +deficits ten times over. It is, however, true that, whilst he was +continually paying the hundred-pound demands against him, with all their +Jewish accumulations of interest, he was continually unfurnished with +money for his 'menus plaisirs' and trifling personal expenses. + +By strong natural tendency of disposition, Sheridan was a man of +peculiarly sensitive honour, and the irregularities into which he fell, +more conspicuously after the destruction of Drury Lane by fire, pained +nobody so much as himself. It is the sense of this fact, and the belief +that Sheridan was never a defaulter through habits of self-indulgence, +which call out in _my_ mind a reaction of indignation at the stories +current against him. + + +_Bookbinding and Book-Lettering._--Literature is a mean thing enough in +the ordinary way of pursuing it as what the Germans call a +_Brodstudium_; but in its higher relations it is so noble that it is +able to ennoble other things, supposing them in any degree ministerial +to itself. The paper-maker, ergo the rag-maker, ergo the linen +cloth-maker, is the true and original creator of the modern press, as +the Archbishop of Dublin long ago demonstrated. For the art of printing +had never halted for want of the typographic secret; _that_ was always +known, known and practised hundreds of years before the Christian era. +It halted for want of a material cheap enough and plentiful enough to +make types other than a most costly substitute for hand-copying. Do you +hear _that_, gentlemen blockheads, that seldom hear anything but +yourselves? Next after the paper-maker, who furnished the _sine quâ +non_, takes rank, not the engraver or illustrator (our modern novelist +cannot swim without this caricaturing villain as one of his bladders; +all higher forms of literature laugh at him), but the binder; for he, by +raising books into ornamental furniture, has given even to +non-intellectual people by myriads a motive for encouraging literature +and an interest in its extension. + +Any specimen of Mr. Ferrar's binding I never saw, but by those who +_have_, it is said to have been magnificent. He and his family were +once, if not twice, visited by Charles I., and they presented to that +prince a most sumptuous Bible of their own binding; which Bible, a lady +once told me, was in that collection gradually formed by George III. at +Buckingham House, and finally presented to the nation by his son. I +should fear it must be in ruins as a specimen of the Little Gidding +workmanship. The man who goes to bed in his coffin dressed in a jewelled +robe and a diamond-hilted sword, is very liable to a visit from the +resurrection-man, who usually disarms and undresses him. The Bible that +has its binding inlaid with gold, sowed with Oriental pearl, and made +horrent with rubies, suggests to many a most unscriptural mode of +searching into its treasures, and too like the Miltonic Mammon's mode of +perusing the gorgeous floors of heaven. Besides that, if the Bible +escaped the Parliamentary War, the true _art_ of the Ferrar family would +be better displayed in a case of less cost and luxury. Certainly, in no +one art was the stupidity of Europe more atrociously recorded than in +this particular art practised by the Ferrars. Boundless was the field +for improvement. And in particular, I had myself drawn from this art, as +practised of old, one striking memorial of that remarkable genius for +stupidity, which in all ages alike seems to haunt man as by an +inspiration, unless he is roused out of it by panic. It is this. Look at +the lettering--that is, the labels lettered with the titles of books--in +all libraries that are not of recent date. No man would believe that the +very earliest attempt to impress a mark of ownership upon some bucket of +the Argonauts, or the rudest scrawl of Polyphemus in forging a tarry +brand upon some sheep which he had stolen, could be _so_ bad, _so_ +staggering and illegible, as are these literary inscriptions. How much +better to have had a thin tablet or veneering of marble or iron adjusted +to the back of the book. A stone-cutter in a rural churchyard once told +me that he charged a penny _per_ letter. That may be cheap for a +gravestone, but it seems rather high for a book. _Plato_ would cost you +fivepence, _Aristotle_ would be shocking; and in decency you must put +him into Latin, which would add twopence more to every volume. On a +library like that of Dresden or the Vatican, it would raise a national +debt to letter the books. + + +_Cause of the Novel's Decline._--No man, it may be safely laid down as a +general rule, can obtain a strong hold over the popular mind without +more or less of real power. A reality there must be. The artifice, the +trickery, cannot arise in this first stage, as by any substitution of a +shadow for a reality. If the mass of readers _feel_ a power, and +acknowledge a power, in that case power there must be. It was the just +remark of Dr. Johnson that men do not deceive themselves in their +amusements. And amusement it is that the great public seek in +literature. The meaner and the more sensual the demands of a man are, so +much the less possible it becomes to cheat him. Seeking for warmth, he +cannot be wrong when he says that he has found it. Asking for _alcohol_, +he will never be cheated with water. His feelings in such a case, his +impressions, instantaneously justify themselves; that is, they bear +witness past all doubting to the certainty of what they report. So far +there is no opening to mistake. The error, the opening to the spurious +on the largest scale, arises first upon the _quality_ of the power. +Strength varies upon an endless scale, not merely by its own gradations, +but by the modes and the degrees in which it combines with other +qualities. And there are many combinations, cases of constant +recurrence, in which some natural vigour, but of no remarkable order, +enters into alliance with animal propensities; where a portentous +success will indicate no corresponding power in the artist, but only an +unusual insensibility to decency and the opinion of thoughtful persons. + +Novels are the one sole class of books that ever interest the public, +that reach its heart, or even catch its eye. And the reason why novels +are becoming much more licentious, and much grosser in the arts by which +they court public favour, lies undoubtedly in the quality of that new +reading public which the extension of education has added to the old +one. An education miserably shallow, whilst unavailing for any purpose +of real elevation, lets in upon the theatre of what is called by +courtesy literature a vast additional audience that once would have been +excluded altogether. This audience, changed in no respect from its +former condition of intellect and manners and taste, bringing only the +single qualification of ability to read, is now strong enough in numbers +to impress a new character upon literature in so far as literature has a +motive for applying itself to _their_ wants. The consequences are +showing themselves, and _will_ show themselves more broadly. It is +difficult with proper delicacy to seek illustrations amongst our own +living writers. Illustrations were all too easily found did we care to +enter on the task. + +It is true that, during the currency of any year, whilst the quantity +is liable to indeterminate augmentation, ballads will be rather looking +down in the market. But that is a shadow which settles upon every +earthly good thing. No Greek book, for instance, amongst the many that +have perished, would so much rejoice many of us by its resurrection as +the comedies of Menander. Yet, if a correspondent should write word from +Pompeii that twenty-five thousand separate dramas of Menander had been +found in good preservation, adding in a postscript that forty thousand +more had been impounded within the last two hours, and that there was +every prospect of bagging two hundred thousand more before morning, we +should probably petition Government to receive the importing vessels +with chain-shot. Not even Milton or Shakespeare could make head against +such a Lopez de Vega principle of ruinous superfluity. Allowing for this +one case of preternatural excess, assuming only that degree of +limitation which any absolute past must almost always create up to that +point, we say that there is no conceivable composition, or class of +compositions, which will not be welcomed into literature provided, as to +matter, that it shall embody some natural strain of feeling, and +provided, as to manner, that it illustrate the characteristic style of a +known generation. + +It might suffice for our present purpose to have once firmly +distinguished between the two modes of literature. But it may be as well +to point out a few corollaries from this distinction, which will serve +at the same time to explain and to confirm it. For instance, first of +all, it has been abundantly insisted on in our modern times, that the +value of every literature lies in its characteristic part; a truth +certainly, but a truth upon which the German chanticleer would not have +crowed and flapped his wings so exultingly, had he perceived the +original and indispensable schism between the literature of knowledge +and the literature of power, because in this latter only can anything +characteristic of a man or of a nation be embodied. The science of no +man can be characteristic, no man can geometrize or chemically analyze +after a manner peculiar to himself. He may be the first to open a new +road, and in that meaning it may be called _his_ road; but _his_ it +cannot be by any such peculiarities as will found an _incommunicable_ +excellence. In literature proper, viz., the literature of power, this is +otherwise. There may doubtless have been many imitative poets, wearing +little or nothing of a natural individuality; but of no poet, that ever +_led_ his own class, can it have been possible that he should have been +otherwise than strongly differenced by inimitable features and by traits +not transferable. Consequently the [Greek: to] characteristic, of which +in German cloudland so noisy a proclamation is made as of some +transcendental discovery, is a mere inference from the very idea of a +literature. For we repeat that in blank knowledge a separate peculiarity +marking the individual is not conceivable, whereas in a true literature +reflecting human nature, not as it represents, but as it wills, not as a +passive minor, but as a self-moving power, it is not possible to avoid +the characteristic except only in the degree by which the inspiring +nature happens to be feeble. The exorbitations that differentiate them +may be of narrow compass, but only where the motive power was originally +weak. And agreeably to this remark it may be asserted that in all +literature properly so-called genius, is always manifested, and talent +generally; but in the literature of knowledge it may be doubted very +seriously whether there is any opening for more than talent. Genius may +be defined in the severest manner as _that which is generally +characteristic_; but a thousand times we repeat that one man's mode of +knowing an object cannot differ from another man's. It _cannot_ be +characteristic, and its geniality cannot be externally manifested. To +have said, therefore, of the poetry surviving from ancient Latium, from +Castile, from England, that this is nationally characteristic, and +knowable apart by inalienable differences, is saying no more than +follows out of the very definition by which any and every literature +proper is limited and guarded as a mode of power. + +Secondly, even in the exceptions and hesitations upon applying the +rigour of this distinction, we may read the natural recognition (however +latent or unconscious) of the rule itself. No man would think, for +example, of placing a treatise on surveying, on mensuration, on +geological stratifications, in any collection of his national +literature. He would be lunatic to do so. A Birmingham or Glasgow +Directory has an equal title to take its station in the national +literature. But he will hesitate on the same question arising with +regard to a history. Where upon examination the history turns out to be +a mere chronicle, or register of events chronologically arranged, with +no principle of combination pervading it, nor colouring from peculiar +views of policy, nor sympathy with the noble and impassioned in human +action, the decision will be universal and peremptory to cashier it from +the literature. Yet this case, being one of degree, ranges through a +large and doubtful gamut. A history like that of Froissart, or of +Herodotus, where the subjective from the writer blends so powerfully +with the gross objective, where the moral picturesque is so predominant, +together with freshness of sensation which belongs to 'blissful +infancy' in human life, or to a stage of society in correspondence to +it, cannot suffer a demur of jealousy as to its privilege of entering +the select fold of literature. But such advantages are of limited +distribution. And, to say the truth, in its own nature neither history +nor biography, unless treated with peculiar grace, and architecturally +moulded, has any high pretension to rank as an organic limb of +literature. The very noblest history, in much of its substance, is but +by a special indulgence within the privilege of that classification. +Biography stands on the same footing. Of the many memorials dedicated to +the life of Milton, how few are entitled to take their station in the +literature! And why? Not merely that they are disqualified by their +defective execution, but often that they necessarily record what has +become common property. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[29] Between the forms _modal_, _modish_, and _modern_, the difference +is of that slight order which is constantly occurring between the +Elizabethan age and our own. _Ish_, _ous_, _ful_, _some_, are +continually interchanging; thus, _pitiful_ for _piteous_, _quarrelous_ +for _quarrelsome_. + +[30] I deny that there is or could have been one truant fluttering +murmur of the heart against the reality of glory. And partly for these +reasons: 1st, That, _hoc abstracto_, defrauding man of this, you leave +him miserably bare--bare of everything. So that really and sincerely the +very wisest men may be seen clinging convulsively, and clutching with +their dying hands the belief that glory, that posthumous fame (which for +profound ends of providence has been endowed with a subtle power of +fraud such as no man can thoroughly look through; for those who, like +myself, despise it most completely, cannot by any art bring forward a +_rationale_, a theory of its hollowness that will give plenary +satisfaction except to those who are already satisfied). Thus Cicero, +feeling that if this were nothing, then had all his life been a +skirmish, one continued skirmish for shadows and nonentities; a feeling +of blank desolation, too startling--too humiliating to be faced. But +(2ndly), the unsearchable hypocrisy of man, that hypocrisy which even to +himself is but dimly descried, that latent hypocrisy which always does, +and most profitably, possess every avenue of every man's thoughts, hence +a man who should openly have avowed a doctrine that glory was a bubble, +besides that, instead of being prompted to this on a principle which so +far raised him above other men, must have been prompted by a principle +that sank him to the level of the brutes, viz., acquiescing in total +ventrine improvidence, imprescience, and selfish ease (if ease, a Pagan +must have it _cum dignitate_), but above all he must have made +proclamation that in his opinion all disinterested virtue was a chimera, +since all the quadrifarious virtue of the scholastic ethics was founded +either on personal self-sufficiency, on justice, moderation, etc., etc., +or on direct personal and exclusive self-interest as regarded health and +the elements of pleasure. + +[31] The tower of Siloam. + +[32] Every definition is a syllogism. Now, because the minor proposition +is constantly false, this does not affect the case; each man is right to +fill up the minor with his own view, and essentially they do not +disagree with each other. + +A (the subject of def.)is _x_. The Truth is the sum of Christianity. + +But C is _x_. But my Baptist view is the sum of Christianity. + +_Ergo_ C is A. _Ergo_ my Baptist view is the Truth. + + +[33] It seems that Herod made changes so vast--certainly in the +surmounting works, and _also_ probably in one place as to the +foundations, that it could not be called the same Temple with that of +the Captivity, except under an abuse of ideas as to matter and form, of +which all nations have furnished illustrations, from the ship _Argo_ to +that of old Drake, from Sir John Cutler's stockings to the Highlander's +(or Irishman's) musket. + +[34] Just as if a man spending his life to show the folly of Methodism +should burst into maudlin tears at sight of John Wesley, and say, 'Oh, +if all men, my dear brothers, were but Methodists!' + +[35] How so? If the Jews were naturally infidels, why did God select +them? But, first, they might have, and they certainly had, other +balancing qualities; secondly, in the sense here meant, all men are +infidels; and we ourselves, by the very nature of one object which I +will indicate, are pretty generally infidels in the same sense as they. +Look at our evidences; look at the sort of means by which we often +attempt to gain proselytes among the heathen and at home. Fouler +infidelities there are not. Special pleading, working for a verdict, +etc., etc. + +[36] [This idea is expanded and followed out in detail in the opening of +'Homer and the Homeridæ;' but this is evidently the note from which that +grew, and is here given alike on account of its compactness and +felicity.--ED.] + +[37] Satire ix., lines 60, 61. + +[38] Who can answer a sneer? + +[39] Butler--'unanswerable ridicule.' + +[40] Said of members of the Bristol family. + + + + +_XXV. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIATIONS._ + + +1.--THE RHAPSODOI. + +The following on the 'Rhapsodoi' is a variation on that which appeared +in 'Homer and the Homeridæ,' with some quite additional and new thoughts +on the subject. + + +About these people, who they were, what relation they bore to Homer, and +why they were called 'Rhapsodoi,' we have seen debated in Germany +through the last half century with as much rabid ferocity as was ever +applied to the books of a fraudulent bankrupt. Such is the natural +impertinence of man. If he suspects any secret, or any base attempt to +hide and conceal things from himself, he is miserable until he finds out +the mystery, and especially where all the parties to it have been +defunct for 2,500 years. Great indignation seems reasonably to have been +felt by all German scholars that any man should presume to have called +himself a _rhapsodos_ at any period of Grecian history without sending +down a sealed letter to posterity stating all the reasons which induced +him to take so unaccountable a step. No possible solution, given to any +conceivable question bearing upon the 'Rhapsodoi,' seems by any tendency +to affect any question outstanding about Homer. And we do not therefore +understand the propriety of intermingling this dispute with the general +Homeric litigation. However, to comply with the practice of Germany, we +shall throw away a few sentences upon this, as a pure _ad libitum_ +digression. + +The courteous reader, whom we beg also to suppose the most ignorant of +readers, by way of thus founding a necessity and a case of philosophic +reasonableness for the circumstantiality of our own explanations, will +be pleased to understand that by ancient traditionary usage the word +_rhapsodia_ is the designation technically applied to the several books +or cantos of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' So the word _fytte_ has gained a +technical appropriation to our narrative poetry when it takes the ballad +form. Now, the Greek word _rhapsody_ is derived from a tense of the verb +_rhapto_, to sew as with a needle, to connect, and _ode_, a song, chant, +or course of singing. If, therefore, you conceive of a _rhapsodia_, not +as the _opera_, but as the _opus_ of a singer, not as the form, but as +the result of his official ministration, viz., as that section of a +narrative poem which forms an intelligible whole in itself, whilst in a +subordinate relation it is one part of a larger whole--this idea +represents accurately enough the use of the word _rhapsodia_ in the +latter periods of Greek literature. Suppose the word _canto_ to be taken +in its literal etymological sense, it would indicate a metrical +composition meant to be sung or chanted. But what constitutes the +complexity of the idea in the word _rhapsodia_ is that both its separate +elements, the poetry and the musical delivery, are equally essential; +neither is a casual, neither a subordinate, element. + +Now, the 'Rhapsodoi,' as may be supposed, are the personal correlates of +the _rhapsodia._ This being the poem adapted to chanting, those were the +chanters. And the only important question which we can imagine to arise +is, How far in any given age we may presume the functions of the +poetical composer and the musical deliverer to have been united. We +cannot perceive that any possible relation between a rhapsody considered +as a section of a poem and the whole of that poem, or any possible +relation which this same rhapsody considered as a thing to be sung or +accompanied instrumentally could bear to the naked-speaking rehearsal of +the same poem or to the original text of that poem, ever can affect the +main question of Homer's integrity. The 'Rhapsodoi' come to be mentioned +at all simply as being one link in the transmission of the Homeric +poems. They are found existing before Pisistratus, they are found +existing after Pisistratus. And they declined exactly as the art of +reading became general. We can approximate pretty closely to the time +when the 'Rhapsodoi' ceased; but at what time they began we defy any man +to say. Plato (Rep. x.) represents them as going back into the days of +Homer; nay, according to Plato, Homer himself was a _rhapsodos_, and +itinerated in that character. So was Hesiod. And two remarkable lines, +ascribed to Hesiod by one of the Scholiasts upon Pindar, if we could be +sure that they were genuine, settle that question: + + [Greek: En Delo tote prôton ego xai Homeros aoidoi + Melpomen, en nearois úmnois rapsantes aoidê.] + +'Then, first of all,' says Hesiod, 'did I and Homer chant as bards in +Delos, laying the nexus of our poetic composition in proæmial hymns.' We +understand him to mean this: There were many singers and harpers who +sang or accompanied the words of others; perhaps ancient words--at all +events, not their own. Naturally he was anxious to have it understood +that he and Homer had higher pretensions. They killed their own mutton. +They composed the words as well as sang them. Where both functions were +so often united in one man's person, it became difficult to distinguish +them. Our own word _bard_ or _minstrel_ stood in the same ambiguity. You +could not tell in many cases whether the word pointed to the man's +poetic or musical faculty. Anticipating that doubt, Hesiod says that +they sang as original poets. For it is a remark of Suidas, which he +deduces laboriously, that poetry, being uniformly sung in the elder +Greece, acquired the name of [Greek: aoidê]. This term became +technically appropriated to the poetry, or substance of whatever was +sung, in contradistinction to the musical accompaniment. And the poet +was called [Greek: aoidos] So far Hesiod twice over secures the dignity +of their office from misinterpretation. And there, by the word [Greek: +raphantes] he indicates the sort of poetry which they cultivated, viz., +that which was expanded into long heroic narratives, and naturally +connected itself both internally amongst its own parts, and externally +with other poems of the same class. Thus, having separated Homer and +himself from the mere musicians, next he separates them even as poets +from those who simply composed hymns to the Gods. These heroic legends +were known to require much more elaborate study and art. Yet, because a +critical reviewer might take occasion to tax his piety in thus composing +human legends in neglect of the Gods, Hesiod, forestalling him, replies: +'You're out there, my friend; we were both pious, and we put our piety +into hymns addressed to the Gods, which, with cabinetmakers' skill, we +used also as interludes of transition from one legend to another.' For +it is noticed frequently and especially by a Scholiast on Aristophanes +(Pac. 826), that generally speaking the _proæmia_ to the different parts +of narrative-poems were entirely detached, [Greek: kai ouden pros to +pragma dêlon], and explain nothing at all that concerns the business. + + +2.--Mrs. Evans and the 'Gazette.' + +In his autobiographic sketch, 'Introduction to the World of Strife,' he +tells of his brother's enterprise in establishing the _Gazette_, which +was to record their doings, and also of Mrs. Evans's place on the +_Gazette_. The following is evidently a passage which was prepared for +that part of the article, but was from some cause or other omitted: + + +I suppose no creature ever led such a life as I led on the _Gazette_; +sometimes running up, like Wallenstein, to the giddiest pinnacles of +honour, then down again without notice or warning to the dust; +cashiered--rendered incapable of ever serving H. M. again; nay, actually +drummed out of the army, my uniform stripped off, and the 'rogue's +march' played after me. And all for what? I protest, to this hour, I +have no guess. If any person knows, that person is not myself; and the +reader is quite as well able to furnish guesses to me as I to him--to +enlighten _me_ upon the subject as I _him_. + +Mrs. Evans was a very important person in the play; I don't suppose that +things could have gone on without _her_. For, as there was no writer in +the _Gazette_ but my brother, so there was no reader of it except Mrs. +Evans. And here came in a shocking annoyance to me that, as often as +any necessity occurred (which was every third day) for restoring me to +my rank, since my brother would not have it supposed that he could be +weak enough to initiate such an indulgence, the _Gazette_ threw the +_onus_ of this amiable weakness, and consequently of my gratitude, upon +Mrs. Evans, affirming that the major-general had received a pardon and +an amnesty for all his past atrocities at the request of 'a +distinguished lady,' who was obscurely indicated in a parenthesis as +'the truly honourable Mrs. Evans.' To listen to the _Gazette_ one would +have supposed that this woman, who so cordially detested me, spent her +whole time in going down on her knees and making earnest supplications +to the throne on my behalf. But what signified the representations of +the _Gazette_ if I knew them to be false? Aye, but I did not know that +they were false. It is true that my obligations to her were quite +aerial, and might, as the reader will think, have been supported without +any preternatural effort. But exactly these aerial burdens, whether of +gratitude or of honour, most oppressed me as being least tangible and +incapable of pecuniary or other satisfaction. No sinking fund could meet +them. And even the dull unimaginative woman herself, eternally held up +to admiration as my resolute benefactress, got the habit (I am sure) of +looking upon me as under nameless obligations to her. This raised my +wrath. It was not that to my feelings the obligations were really a mere +figment of pretence. On the contrary, according to my pains endured, +they towered up to the clouds. But I felt that nobody had any right to +load me with favours that I had never asked for, and without leave even +asked from me; and the more real were the favours, the deeper the wrong +done to me. I sought, therefore, for some means of retaliation. And it +is odd that it was not till thirty years after that I perceived one. It +then struck me that the eternal intercession might have been equally +odious to her. To find herself prostrate for ever, weeping like Niobe, +and, if the _Gazette_ was to be believed, refusing to raise herself from +the mud or the flinty pavement till I had been forgiven, and reinstated +in my rank--ah, how loathsome that must have been to her! Ah, how +loathsome the whole cycle of favours were to me, considering from whom +they came! Then we had effectually plagued each other. And it was not +without loud laughter, as of malice unexpectedly triumphant, that I +found one night thirty years after, on regretting my powerlessness of +vengeance, that, in fact, I had amply triumphed thirty years before. So, +undaunted Mrs. Evans, if you live anywhere within call, listen to the +assurance that all accounts are squared between us, and that we balanced +our mutual debts by mutual disgust; and that, if you plagued me +perversely, I plagued you unconsciously. + +And though shot and bullets were forbidden fruit, yet something might be +done with hard wadding. A good deal of classical literature disappeared +in this way, which by one who valued no classics very highly might be +called the way of all flesh. The best of authors, he contended, had +better perish by this warlike consummation than by the inglorious enmity +of bookworms and moths--honeycombed, as most of the books had been which +had gone out to India with our two uncles. Even wadding, however, was +declared to be inadmissible as too dangerous, after wounds had been +inflicted more than once. + + +3.--A LAWSUIT LEGACY. + +De Quincey, in his autobiographic sketch headed 'Laxton,' tells of the +fortune of Miss Watson, who afterwards became Lady Carbery, and also of +the legacy left to her in the form of a lawsuit by her father against +the East India Company; and among his papers we find the following +passage either overlooked or omitted, for some undiscoverable reason, +from that paper, though it has a value in its own way as expressing some +of De Quincey's views on law and equity; and it is sufficiently +characteristic to be included here: + + +In consequence of her long minority, Miss Watson must have succeeded at +once to six thousand a year on completing her twenty-first year; and she +also inherited a Chancery-suit, which sort of property is _now_ (1853) +rather at a discount in public estimation; but let the reader assure +himself that even the Court of Chancery is not quite so black as it is +painted; that the true ground for the delays and ruinous expenses in +ninety-nine out of one hundred instances is not legal chicanery, still +less the wilful circuitousness and wordiness of law processes, but the +great eternal fact that, what through lapse of time, decays of memory, +and loss of documents, and what through interested suppressions of +truth, and the dispersions of witnesses, and causes by the score +beside, the ultimate truth and equity of human disputes is a matter of +prodigious perplexity; neither is there any possibility that the mass of +litigations as to property ever _can_ be made cheap except in proportion +as it is made dismally imperfect. + +No power that ever yet was lodged in senates or in councils _could_ +avail, ever _has_ availed, ever _will_ avail, to intercept the +immeasurable expansion of that law which grows out of social expansion. +Fast as the relations of man multiply, and the modifications of property +extend, must the corresponding adaptations of the law run alongside. The +pretended arrests applied to this heaving volcanic system of forces by +codifications, like those of Justinian or Napoleon, had not lasted for a +year before all had broke loose from its moorings, and was again going +ahead with redoubling impetus. Equally delusive are the prospects held +out that the new system of cheap provincial justice will be a change +unconditionally for the better. Already the complaints against it are +such in bitterness and extent as to show that in very many cases it must +be regarded as a failure; and, where it is not, that it must be regarded +as a compromise: once you had 8 degrees of the advantage X, 4 of Y; now +you have 7 of X, 5 of Y. + + +4.--THE TRUE JUSTIFICATIONS OF WAR. + +The following was evidently intended to appear in the article on _War_: + + +'Most of what has been written on this subject (the cruelty of war), in +connection with the apparently fierce ethics of the Old Testament, is +(with submission to sentimentalists) false and profoundly unphilosophic. +It is of the same feeble character as the flashy modern moralizations +upon War. The true justifications of war lie far below the depths of any +soundings taken upon the charts of effeminate earth-born ethics. And +ethics of God, the Scriptural ethics, search into depths that are older +and less measurable, contemplate interests that are more mysterious and +entangled with perils more awful than merely human philosophy has +resources for appreciating. It is not at all impossible that a crisis +has sometimes arisen for the human race, in which its capital interest +may be said to have ridden at single anchor. Upon the issue of a single +struggle between the powers of light and darkness--upon a motion, a +bias, an impulse given this way or that--all may have been staked. Out +of Judaism came Christianity, and the mere possibility of Christianity. +From elder stages of the Hebrew race, hidden in thick darkness to us, +descended the only pure glimpse allowed to man of God's nature. +Traditionally, but through many generations, and fighting at every +stage with storms or with perils more than ever were revealed to _us_, +this idea of God, this holy seed of truth, like some secret jewel +passing onwards through armies of robbers, made its way downward to an +age in which it became the matrix of Christianity. The solitary acorn +had reached in safety the particular soil in which it was first capable +of expanding into a forest. The narrow, but at the same time austere, +truth of Judaism, furnished the basis which by magic, as it were, burst +suddenly and expanded into a vast superstructure, no longer fitted for +the apprehension of one single unamiable race, but offering shelter and +repose to the whole family of man. These things are most remarkable +about this memorable trans-migration of one faith into another, of an +imperfect into a perfect religion, viz., that the early stage had but a +slight resemblance to the latter, nor could have prefigured it to a +human sagacity more than a larva could prefigure a chrysalis; and, +secondly, that whereas the product, viz., Christianity, never has been +nor will be in any danger of ruin, the germ, viz., the Judaic idea of +God, the great radiation through which the Deity kept open His +communication with man, apparently must more than once have approached +an awful struggle for life. This solitary taper of truth, struggling +across a howling wilderness of darkness, had it been ever totally +extinguished, could probably never have been reillumined. It may seem an +easy thing for a mere human philosophy to recover, and steadily to +maintain a pure Hebrew conception of God; but so far is this from being +true, that we believe it possible to expose in the closest Pagan +approximation to this Hebrew type some adulterous elements such as would +have ensured its relapse into idolatrous impurity.' + + +5.--PHILOSOPHY DEFEATED. + +We have come upon a passage which is omitted from the 'Confessions,' and +as it is, in every way, characteristic, we shall give it: + + +My studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot read to myself with +any pleasure, hardly with a moment's endurance. Yet I read aloud +sometimes for the pleasure of others--because reading is an +accomplishment of mine, and, in the slang use of the word +'accomplishment' as a superficial and ornamental attainment, almost the +only one I possess--and, formerly, if I had any vanity at all connected +with any endowment or attainment of mine, it was with this; for I had +observed that no accomplishment was so rare. Players are the worst +readers of all; ---- reads vilely, and Mrs. ----, who is so celebrated, +can read nothing well but dramatic compositions--Milton she cannot read +sufferably. People in general read poetry without any passion at all, or +else overstep the modesty of nature and read not like scholars. Of late, +if I have felt moved by anything in books, it has been by the grand +lamentations of 'Samson Agonistes,' or the great harmonies of the +Satanic speaker in 'Paradise Regained,' when read aloud by myself. A +young lady sometimes comes and drinks tea with us. At her request and +M----'s I now and then read W----'s poems to them. (W----, by-the-bye, +is the only poet I ever met who could read his own verses. Blank verse +he reads admirably.) + +This, then, has been the extent of my reading for upwards of sixteen +months. It frets me to enter those rooms of my cottage in which the +books stand. In one of them, to which my little boy has access, he has +found out a use for some of them. Somebody has given him a bow and +arrows--God knows who, certainly not I, for I have not energy or +ingenuity to invent a walking-stick--thus equipped for action, he rears +up the largest of the folios that he can lift, places them on a +tottering base, and then shoots until he brings down the enemy. He often +presses me to join him; and sometimes I consent, and we are both engaged +together in these intellectual labours. We build up a pile, having for +its base some slender modern metaphysician, ill able (poor man!) to +sustain such a weight of philosophy. Upon this we place the Dutch +quartos of Descartes and Spinoza; then a third story of Schoolmen in +folio--the Master of Sentences, Suarez, Picus Mirandula, and the +Telemonian bulk of Thomas Aquinas; and when the whole architecture seems +firm and compact, we finish our system of metaphysics by roofing the +whole with Duval's enormous Aristotle. So far there is some +pleasure--building up is something, but what is that to destroying? Thus +thinks, at least, my little companion, who now, with the wrath of the +Pythian Apollo, assumes his bow and arrows; plants himself in the +remotest corner of the room, and prepares his fatal shafts. The +bow-string twangs, flights of arrows are in the air, but the Dutch +impregnability of the Bergen-op-Zooms at the base receives the few which +reach the mark, and they recoil without mischief done. Again the +baffled archer collects his arrows, and again he takes his station. An +arrow issues forth, and takes effect on a weak side of Thomas. Symptoms +of dissolution appear--the cohesion of the system is loosened--the +Schoolmen begin to totter; the Stagyrite trembles; Philosophy rocks to +its centre; and, before it can be seen whether time will do anything to +heal their wounds, another arrow is planted in the schism of their +ontology; the mighty structure heaves--reels--seems in suspense for one +moment, and then, with one choral crash--to the frantic joy of the young +Sagittary--lies subverted on the floor! Kant and Aristotle, Nominalists +and Realists, Doctors Seraphic or Irrefragable, what cares he? All are +at his feet--the Irrefragable has been confuted by his arrows, the +Seraphic has been found mortal, and the greatest philosopher and the +least differ but according to the brief noise they have made. + +For nearly two years I believe that I read no book but one, and I owe it +to the author, Mr. Ricardo, to make grateful record of it. + +And then he proceeds: + +Suddenly, in 1818, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's +book, etc. + + +6.--THE HIGHWAYMAN'S SKELETON. + +In the account which De Quincey gives of the highwayman's skeleton, +which figured in the museum of the distinguished surgeon, Mr. White, in +his chapter in the 'Autobiographic Sketches' headed 'The Manchester +Grammar School,' he was evidently restrained from inserting one passage, +which we have found among his papers, from considerations of delicacy +towards persons who might then still be living. But as he has there +plainly given the names of the leading persons concerned--the famous +Surgeon Cruikshank,[41] there can at this time of day be little risk of +offending or hurting anyone by presenting the passage, which the curious +student of the Autobiography can insert at the proper point, and may +feel that its presence adds to the completeness of the impression, +half-humorous, half-_eerie_, which De Quincey was fain to produce by +that somewhat grim episode. Here is the passage: + + +It was a regular and respectable branch of public industry which was +carried on by the highwaymen of England, and all the parties to it moved +upon decent motives and by considerate methods. In particular, the +robbers themselves, as the leading parties, could not be other than +first-rate men, as regarded courage, animal vigour, and perfect +horsemanship. Starting from any lower standard than this, not only had +they no chance of continued success--their failure was certain as +regarded the contest with the traveller, but also their failure was +equally certain as regarded the competition within their own body. The +candidates for a lucrative section of the road were sure to become +troublesome in proportion as all administration of the business upon +that part of the line was feebly or indiscreetly worked. Hence it arose +that individually the chief highwaymen were sure to command a deep +professional interest amongst the surgeons of the land. Sometimes it +happened that a first-rate robber was arrested and brought to trial, but +from defective evidence escaped. Meanwhile his fine person had been +locally advertised and brought under the notice of the medical body. +This had occurred in a more eminent degree than was usual to the robber +who had owned when living the matchless skeleton possessed by Mr. White. +He had been most extensively surveyed with anatomical eyes by the whole +body of the medical profession in London: their deliberate judgment upon +him was that a more absolutely magnificent figure of a man did not exist +in England than this highwayman, and naturally therefore very high sums +were offered to him as soon as his condemnation was certain. The robber, +whose name I entirely forget, finally closed with the offer of +Cruikshank, who was at that time the most eminent surgeon in London. +Those days, as is well known, were days of great irregularity in all +that concerned the management of prisons and the administration of +criminal justice. Consequently there is no reason for surprise or for +doubt in the statement made by Mr. White, that Cruikshank, whose pupil +Mr. White then was, received some special indulgences from one of the +under-sheriffs beyond what the law would strictly have warranted. The +robber was cut down considerably within the appointed time, was +instantly placed in a chaise-and-four, and was thus brought so +prematurely into the private rooms of Cruikshank, that life was not as +yet entirely extinct. This I heard Mr. White repeatedly assert. He was +himself at that time amongst the pupils of Cruikshank, and three or four +of the most favoured amongst these were present, and to one of them +Cruikshank observed quietly: 'I think the subject is not quite dead; +pray put your knife in (Mr. X. Y.) at this point.' That was done; a +solemn _finis_ was placed to the labours of the robber, and perhaps a +solemn inauguration to the labours of the student. A cast was taken from +the superb figure of the highwayman; he was then dissected, his skeleton +became the property of Cruikshank, and subsequently of Mr. White. We +were all called upon to admire the fine proportions of the man, and of +course in that hollow and unmeaning way which such unlearned expressors +of judgment usually assume, we all obsequiously met the demand levied +upon our admiration. But, for my part, though readily confiding in the +professional judgment of anatomists, I could not but feel that through +my own unassisted judgment I never could have arrived at such a +conclusion. The unlearned eye has gathered no rudimental points to begin +with. Not having what are the normal outlines to which the finest +proportions tend, an eye so untutored cannot of course judge in what +degree the given subject approaches to these. + + +7.--THE RANSOM FOR WATERLOO. + +The following gives a variation on a famous passage in the 'Dream +Fugue,' and it may be interesting to the reader to compare it with that +which the author printed. From these variations it will be seen that De +Quincey often wrote and re-wrote his finest passages, and sometimes, no +doubt, found it hard to choose between the readings: + + +Thus as we ran like torrents; thus as with bridal rapture our flying +equipage swept over the _campo santo_ of the graves; thus as our burning +wheels carried warrior instincts, kindled earthly passions amongst the +trembling dust below us, suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis +to which from afar we were hurrying. In a moment our maddening wheels +were nearing it. + +'Of purple granite in massive piles was this city of the dead, and yet +for one moment it lay like a visionary purple stain on the horizon, so +mighty was the distance. In the second moment this purple city trembled +through many changes, and grew as by fiery pulsations, so mighty was the +pace. In the third moment already with our dreadful gallop we were +entering its suburbs. Systems of sarcophagi rose with crests aerial of +terraces and turrets into the upper glooms, strode forward with haughty +encroachment upon the central aisle, ran back with mighty shadows into +answering recesses. When the sarcophagi wheeled, then did our horses +wheel. Like rivers in horned floods wheeling in pomp of unfathomable +waters round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of +forests, faster than ever light travels through the wilderness of +darkness, we shot the angles, we fled round the curves of the +labyrinthine city. With the storm of our horses' feet, and of our +burning wheels, did we carry earthly passions, kindle warrior instincts +amongst the silent dust around us, dust of our noble fathers that had +slept in God since Creci. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs, +bas-reliefs of battles, bas-reliefs of battlefields, battles from +forgotten ages, battles from yesterday; battlefields that long since +Nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of +flowers; battlefields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. + +And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, already we were abreast of +the last bas-relief; already we were recovering the arrow-like flight of +the central aisle, when coming up it in counterview to ourselves we +beheld the frailest of cars, built as might seem from floral wreaths, +and from the shells of Indian seas. Half concealed were the fawns that +drew it by the floating mists that went before it in pomp. But the mists +hid not the lovely countenance of the infant girl that sate wistful upon +the ear, and hid not the birds of tropic plumage with which she played. +Face to face she rode forward to meet us, and baby laughter in her eyes +saluted the ruin that approached. 'Oh, baby,' I said in anguish, 'must +we that carry tidings of great joy to every people be God's messengers +of ruin to thee?' In horror I rose at the thought. But then also, in +horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured in the bas-relief--a +dying trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of Waterloo he rose to his +feet, and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it in his dying anguish +to his stony lips, sounding once, and yet once again, proclamation that +to _thy_ ears, oh baby, must have spoken from the battlements of death. +Immediately deep shadows fell between us, and shuddering silence. The +choir had ceased to sing; the uproar of our laurelled equipage alarmed +the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into +life. By horror we that were so full of life--we men, and our horses +with their fiery forelegs rising in mid-air to their everlasting +gallop--were petrified to a bas-relief. Oh, glacial pageantry of death, +that from end to end of the gorgeous cathedral for a moment froze every +eye by contagion of panic. Then for the third time the trumpet sounded. +Back with the shattering burst came the infinite rushing of life. The +seals of frost were raised from our stifling hearts. + + +8.--DESIDERIUM. + +Here is another variation on a famous passage in the 'Autobiographic +Sketches,' which will give the reader some further opportunity for +comparison: + + +At six years of age, or thereabouts (I write without any memorial +notes), the glory of this earth for me was extinguished. _It is +finished_--not those words but that sentiment--was the misgiving of my +prophetic heart; thought it was that gnawed like a worm, that did not +and that could not die. 'How, child,' a cynic would have said, if he had +deciphered the secret reading of my sighs--'at six years of age, will +you pretend that life has already exhausted its promises? Have you +communicated with the grandeurs of earth? Have you read Milton? Have you +seen Rome? Have you heard Mozart?' No, I had _not_, nor could in those +years have appreciated any one of them if I had; and, therefore, +undoubtedly the crown jewels of our little planet were still waiting for +me in the rear. Milton and Rome and 'Don Giovanni' were yet to come. But +it mattered not what remained when set over against what had been taken +away. _That_ it was which I sought for ever in my blindness. The love +which had existed between myself and my departed sister, _that_, as +even a child could feel, was not a light that could be rekindled. No +voice on earth could say, 'Come again!' to a flower of Paradise like +that. Love, such as that is given but once to any. Exquisite are the +perceptions of childhood, not less so than those of maturest wisdom, in +what touches the capital interests of the heart. And no arguments, nor +any consolations, could have soothed me into a moment's belief, that a +wound so ghastly as mine admitted of healing or palliation. +Consequently, as I stood more alone in the very midst of a domestic +circle than ever Christian traveller in an African Bilidulgerid amidst +the tents of infidels, or the howls of lions, day and night--in the +darkness and at noon-day--I sate, I stood, I lay, moping like an idiot, +craving for what was impossible, and seeking, groping, snatching, at +that which was irretrievable for ever. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[41] [Born 1746, died 1800.--ED.] + +THE END. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De +Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols), by Thomas De Quincey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THOMAS DE QUINCEY *** + +***** This file should be named 23788-8.txt or 23788-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/7/8/23788/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, Marcia Brooks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at +http://gallica.bnf.fr) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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