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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/25940-8.txt b/25940-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc0d995 --- /dev/null +++ b/25940-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7682 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, +Vol. II (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. II (2 vols) + +Author: Thomas De Quincey + +Editor: Alexander H. Japp + +Release Date: June 30, 2008 [EBook #25940] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliothčque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.) + + + + + + + + + +THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS + +OF + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +_EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MSS., WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES_ + +BY + +ALEXANDER H. JAPP LL.D., F.R.S.E. + +_VOLUME II._ + +LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1893 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONVERSATION AND COLERIDGE + +With Other Essays + +_CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, IMAGINATIVE AND +HUMOROUS_ + +BY + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +LONDON +WILLIAM HEINEMANN +1893 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +All that is needful for me to say by way of Preface is that, as in the +case of the first volume, I have received much aid from Mrs. Baird Smith +and Miss De Quincey, and that Mr. J. R. McIlraith has repeated his +friendly service of reading the proofs. + +ALEXANDER H. JAPP. + +LONDON, +_March 1st, 1893._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +INTRODUCTION 1 + +I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE 7 + +II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE 60 + +III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CĘSAR 91 + +IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY) 95 + +V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY 107 + +VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE 157 + +VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE 169 + +VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT 174 + +IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE 182 + +X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY 189 + +XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH 197 + +XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH 201 + +XIII. WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES 208 + +XIV. PRONUNCIATION 213 + +XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA 221 + +XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY 225 + +XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY 228 + +XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED 238 + +XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS 241 + +XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS 244 + 1. Dinner 244 + 2. Omitted Passages from the Review of Bennett's Ceylon 246 + 3. Gillman's Coleridge 255 + 4. Why Scripture does not Deal with Science ('Pagan Oracles') 257 + 5. Variation on a Famous Passage in 'The Daughter of Lebanon' 260 + + + + +DE QUINCEY'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. + + + + +_INTRODUCTION._ + + +All that needs to be said in the way of introduction to this volume will +best take the form of notes on the articles which it contains. + +I. '_Conversation and S. T. Coleridge._' This article, which was found +in a tolerably complete condition, may be regarded as an attempt to deal +with the subject in a more critical and searching, and at the same time +more sympathetic and inclusive spirit, than is apparent in any former +essay. It keeps clear entirely of the field of personal reminiscence; +and if it glances at matters on which dissent must be entered to the +views of Coleridge, it is still unvaryingly friendly and reverent +towards the subject. It is evidently of a later date than either the +'Reminiscences of Coleridge' in the 'Recollections of the Lakes' series, +or the article on 'Coleridge and Opium-Eating,' and may be accepted as +De Quincey's supplementary and final deliverance on Coleridge. The +beautiful apostrophe to the name of Coleridge, which we have given as a +kind of motto to the essay, was found attached to one of the sheets; +and, in spite of much mutilation and mixing of the pages with those of +other articles, as we originally found them, it was for the most part so +clearly written and carefully punctuated, that there can be no doubt, +when put together, we had it before us very much as De Quincey meant to +publish it had he found a fitting chance to do so. For such an article +as this neither _Tait_ nor _Hogg's Instructor_ afforded exactly the +proper medium, but rather some quarterly review, or magazine such as +_Blackwood_. We have given, in an appended note to this essay, some +corroboration from the poems of Coleridge of the truth of De Quincey's +words about the fatal effect on a nature like that of Coleridge of the +early and very sudden death of his father, his separation from his +mother, and his transference to Christ's Hospital, London. + +II. _Mr. Finlay's_ '_History of Greece_.' This essay is totally +different, alike in the advances De Quincey makes to the subject, the +points taken up, and the general method of treatment, from the essay on +Mr. Finlay's volumes which appears in the Collected Works. It would seem +as though De Quincey, in such a topic as this, found it utterly +impossible to exhaust the points that had suggested themselves to him on +a careful reading of such a work, in the limits of one article; and +that, in this case, as in some others, he elaborated a second article, +probably with a view to finding a place for it in a different magazine +or review. In this, however, he either did not succeed, or, on his own +principle of the opium-eater never really finishing anything, retreated +from the practical work of pushing his wares with editors even after he +had finished them. At all events, we can find no trace of this article, +or any part of it, having ever been published. The Eastern Roman Empire +was a subject on which he might have written, not merely a couple of +review articles, but a volume, as we are sure anyone competent to judge +will, on carefully reading these articles, at once admit. This essay, +too, was found in a very complete condition, when the various pages had +been brought together and arranged. This is true of all save the last +few pages, which existed more in the form of notes, yet are perfectly +clear and intelligible; the leading thoughts being distinctly put, +though not followed out in any detail, or with the illustration which he +could so easily have given them. + +III. '_The Assassination of Cęsar_.' This was clearly meant to be +inserted at the close of the first section of 'The Cęsars,' but was at +the last moment overlooked, though without it the text there, as it +stands in the Collected Works, is, for De Quincey, perhaps too hurried +and business-like. + +IV. The little article on '_Cicero_' is evidently meant as a +supplementary note to the article on that eminent man, as it appears in +the Collected Works. Why De Quincey, when preparing these volumes for +the press, did not work it into his text is puzzling, as it develops +happily some points which he has there dwelt on, and presents in a very +effective and compact style the mingled feelings with which the great +Proconsul quitted his office in Cilicia, and his feelings on arriving at +Rome. + +V. _Memorial Chronology._--This is a continuation of that already +published under the same title in the Collected Works. In a note from +the publishers, preceding the portion already given in the sixteenth +volume of the original edition, and the fourteenth of Professor Masson's +edition, it is said: 'This article was written about twenty years ago +[1850], and is printed here for the first time from the author's _MS_. +It was his intention to have continued the subject, but this was never +done.' From the essay we now present it will be seen that this last +statement is only in a modified sense true--the more that the portion +published in the Messrs. Black's editions is, on the whole, merely +introductory, and De Quincey's peculiar _technica memoria_ is not there +even indicated, which it is, with some degree of clearness, in the +following pages, and these may be regarded as presenting at least the +leading outlines of what the whole series would have been. + +De Quincey's method, after having fixed a definite accepted point of +departure, was to link the memory of events to a period made signal by +identity of figures. Thus, he finds the fall of Assyria, the first of +the Olympiads, and the building of Rome to date from about the year 777 +B.C. That is his starting-point in definite chronology. Then he takes up +the period from 777 to 555; from 555 to 333, and so on. + +De Quincey was writing professedly for ladies only, and not for +scholars; and that his acknowledged leading obstacle was the +semi-mythical wilderness of all early oriental history is insisted on +with emphasis. The way in which he triumphs over this obstacle is +certainly characteristic and ingenious. Though the latter part is +fragmentary, it is suggestive; and from the whole a fair conception may +be formed of what the finished work would have been had De Quincey been +able to complete it, and of the eloquence with which he would have +relieved the mere succession of dates and figures. + +It is clear that in the original form, though the papers were written +for ladies, the phantasy of a definite 'Charlotte' as fair +correspondent had not suggested itself to him; and that he had recourse +to this only in the final rewriting, and would have applied it to the +whole had he been spared to pursue his plan of recast and revision for +the Collected Works, as it was his intention to have done. Mrs. Baird +Smith remembers very clearly her father's many conversations on this +subject and his leading ideas--it was, in fact, a pet scheme of his; and +it is therefore the more to be regretted that his final revision only +embraced a small portion of the matter which he had already written. + +It only needs to be added that, at the time De Quincey wrote, +exploration in Assyria and Egypt, not to speak of discovery in Akkad, +had made but little way compared with what has now been accomplished, +else certain passages in this essay would no doubt have been somewhat +modified. + +VI. The article entitled '_Chrysomania; or the Gold Frenzy at its +Present Stage_', was evidently written after the two articles which +appeared in _Hogg's Instructor_. Not improbably it was felt that the +readers of _Hogg's Instructor_ had already had enough on the Gold Craze, +and this it was deemed better not to publish; but it has an interest as +supplementing much that De Quincey had said in these papers, and is a +happy illustration of his style in dealing with such subjects. Evidently +the editor of _Hogg's Instructor_ was hardly so attracted by these +papers as by others of De Quincey's; for we find that he had excised +some of the notes. + +VII. '_The Defence of the English Peerage_' is printed because, although +it does not pretend to much detail or research, it shows anew De +Quincey's keen interest in the events of English history, and his vivid +appreciation of the peerage as a means of quickening and reviving in +the minds of the people the memorable events with which the earlier +bearers of these ancient titles had been connected. + +VIII. The '_Anti-Papal Movement_' may be taken to attest once more De +Quincey's keen interest in all the topics of the day, political, social, +and ecclesiastical. + +IX. The section on literature more properly will be interesting to many +as exhibiting some new points of contact with Wordsworth and Southey. + +X. The articles on the '_Dispersion of the Jews_,' and on '_Christianity +as the result of a Pre-established Harmony_,' will, we think, be found +interesting by theologians as well as by readers generally, as attesting +not only the keen interest of De Quincey in these and allied subjects, +but also his penetration and keen grasp, and his faculty of felicitous +illustration, by which ever and anon he lights up the driest subjects. + + + + +_I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE._ + + Oh name of Coleridge, that hast mixed so much with the + trepidations of our own agitated life, mixed with the + beatings of our love, our gratitude, our trembling hope; + name destined to move so much of reverential sympathy and so + much of ennobling strife in the generations yet to come, of + our England at home, of our other Englands on the St. + Lawrence, on the Mississippi, on the Indus and Ganges, and + on the pastoral solitudes of Austral climes! + + +What are the great leading vices of conversation as generally +managed?--vices that are banished from the best society by the +legislation of manners, not by any intellectual legislation, but in +other forms of society, and exactly as it approaches to the character of +vulgarism, disturbing all approaches to elegance in conversation, and +disorganizing it as a thing capable of unity or of progress? These vices +are, first, disputation; secondly, garrulity; thirdly, the spirit of +interruption. + +I. I lay it down as a rule, but still reserving their peculiar rights +and exceptions to young Scotchmen for whom daily disputing is a sort of +daily bread, that the man who disputes is a monster, and that he ought +to be expelled from civilized society. Or could not a compromise be +effected for disputatious people, by allowing a private disputing room +in all hotels, as they have private rooms for smoking? I have heard of +two Englishmen, gentlemanly persons, but having a constitutional _furor_ +for boxing, who quieted their fighting instincts in this way. It was +not glory which they desired, but mutual punishment, given and taken +with a hearty goodwill. Yet, as their feelings of refinement revolted +from making themselves into a spectacle of partisanship for the public +to bet on, they retired into a ball-room, and locked the doors, so that +nothing could transpire of the campaigns within except from the +desperate rallies and floorings which were heard, or from the bloody +faces which were seen on their issuing. A limited admission, it was +fancied, might have been allowed to select friends; but the courteous +refusal of both parties was always 'No; the pounding was strictly +confidential.' Now, pray, gentlemen disputers, could you not make your +pounding 'strictly confidential'? My chief reasons for doing so I will +mention: + +1. That disputing is in bad tone; it is vulgar, and essentially the +resource of uncultured people. + +2. It argues want of intellectual power, or, in any case, want of +intellectual development. It is because men find it easier to talk by +disputing than by _not_ disputing that so many people resort to this +coarse expedient for calling the wind into the sails of conversation. To +move along in the key of contradiction is the cheapest of all devices +for purchasing a power that is not your own. You are then carried along +by a towing-line attached to another vessel. There is no free power. +Always your antagonist predetermines the course of your own movement; +and you his. What _he_ says, you unsay. He affirms, you deny. He knits, +you unknit. Always you are servile to _him_; and he to _you_. Yet even +that system of motion in reverse of another motion, of mere antistrophe +or dancing backward what the strophe had danced forward, is better after +all, you say, than standing stock still. For instance, it might have +been tedious enough to hear Mr. Cruger disputing every proposition that +Burke advanced on the Bristol hustings; yet even _that_ some people +would prefer to Cruger's single observation, viz., 'I say _ditto_ to Mr. +Burke.' Every man to his taste: I, for one, should have preferred Mr. +Cruger's _ditto_.[1] But why need we have a _ditto_, a simple _affirmo_, +because we have _not_ an eternal _nego_? The proper spirit of +conversation moves in the general key of assent, but still not therefore +of mere iteration, but still each bar of the music is different. Nature +surely does not repeat herself, yet neither does she maintain the +eternal variety of her laughing beauty by constantly contradicting +herself, and quite as little by monotonously repeating herself. Her +samenesses are differences. + +II. Of the evils of garrulity, which, like the ceaseless droppings +of water, will eat into the toughest rock of patience and +self-satisfaction, I have spoken at considerable length elsewhere. Its +evils are so evident that they hardly call for further illustration. The +garrulous man, paradoxical as it may seem to say it, is a kind of +pickpocket without intending to steal anything--nay, rather he is fain +to please you by placing something in your pocket--though too often it +is like the egg of the cuckoo in the nest of another bird. + +III. Now, as to _Interruption_, what's to be done? It is a question that +I have often considered. For the evil is great, and the remedy occult. I +look upon a man that interrupts another in conversation as a monster +far less excusable than a cannibal; yet cannibals (though, +comparatively with _interrupters_, valuable members of society) are +rare, and, even where they are _not_ rare, they don't practise as +cannibals every day: it is but on sentimental occasions that the +exhibition of cannibalism becomes general. But the monsters who +interrupt men in the middle of a sentence are to be found everywhere; +and they are always practising. Red-letter days or black-letter days, +festival or fast, makes no difference to _them_. This enormous nuisance +I feel the more, because it is one which I never retaliate. Interrupted +in every sentence, I still practise the American Indian's politeness of +never interrupting. What, absolutely _never_? Is there _no_ case in +which I should? If a man's nose, or ear, as sometimes happens in high +latitudes, were suddenly and visibly frost-bitten, so as instantly to +require being rubbed with snow, I conceive it lawful to interrupt that +man in the most pathetic sentence, or even to ruin a whole paragraph of +his prose. You can never indeed give him back the rhetoric which you +have undermined; _that_ is true; but neither could he, in the +alternative case, have given back to himself the nose which you have +saved. + +I contend also, against a great casuist in this matter, that had you +been a friend of Ęschylus, and distinctly observed that absurd old +purblind eagle that mistook (or pretended to mistake) the great poet's +bald head--that head which created the Prometheus and the Agamemnon--for +a white tablet of rock, and had you interrupted the poet in his talk at +the very moment when the bird was dropping a lobster on the sacred +cranium, with the view of unshelling the lobster, but unaware that at +the same time he was unshelling a great poet's brain, you would have +been fully justified. An impertinence it would certainly have been to +interrupt a sentence as undeniable in its Greek as any which that +gentleman can be supposed to have turned out, but still the eagle's +impertinence was greater.[2] That would have been your excuse. Ęschylus, +or my friend the casuist, is not to be listened to in his very learned +arguments _contra_. + +Short of these cases, nothing can justify an interruption; and such +cases surely cannot be common, since how often can we suppose it to +happen that an eagle has a lobster to break just at the moment when a +tragic poet is walking abroad without his hat? What the reader's +experience may have been, of course, is unknown to me; but, for my own +part, I hardly meet with such a case twice in ten years, though I know +an extensive circle of tragic poets, and a reasonable number of bald +heads; eagles certainly not so many--they are but few on my visiting +list; and indeed, if that's their way of going on--cracking literary +skulls without leave asked or warning given--the fewer one knows the +better. If, then, a long life hardly breeds a case in which it is +strictly lawful to interrupt a co-dialogist, what are we to think of +those who move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? +And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. +Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually _on the +fret_ to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are +speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented +before my time, 'non interrumpunt at _interrupturiunt_.' You can't talk +in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a +right to do by _Magna Charta_, it is quite out of the question when a +man is looking in your face all the time with a cruel expression in his +eye amounting to 'Surely, that's enough!' or a pathetic expression which +says, '_Have_ you done?' throwing a dreadful reproach into the _Have_. +In Cumberland, at a farmhouse where I once had lodgings for a week or +two, a huge dog as high as the dining-table used to plant himself in a +position to watch all my motions at dinner. Being alone, and either +reading or thinking, at first I did not observe him; but as soon as I +did, and noticed that he pursued each rising and descent of my fork as +the poet 'with wistful eyes pursues the setting sun,' that unconsciously +he mimicked and rehearsed all the notes and _appoggiaturas_ that make up +the successive bars in the music of eating one's dinner, I was compelled +to rise, and say, 'My good fellow, I can't stand this; will you do me +the favour to accept anything on my plate at this moment? And to-morrow +I'll endeavour to arrange for your being otherwise employed at this hour +than in watching _me_.' It seems a weakness, but I really cannot eat +anything under the oppression of an envious _surveillance_ like that +dog's. A man said to me, 'Oh, what need you care about _him_? He has had +_his_ dinner long ago.' True, at twelve or one o'clock; but at six he +might want another; but, if he thinks so himself, the result is the +same. And that result is what the whole South of Frankistan[3] calls the +_evil eye_. Wanting dinner, when he sees another person in the very act +of dining, the dog (though otherwise an excellent creature) must be +filled with envy; and envy is so contagiously allied to malice, that in +elder English one word expresses both those dark modifications of +hatred. The dog's eye therefore, without any consciousness on his own +part, becomes in such a case _an evil eye_: upon me, at least, it fell +with as painful an effect as any established eye of that class could do +upon the most superstitious Portuguese. + +Now, such exactly is the eye of any man that, without actually +interrupting one, threatens by his impatient manner as often as one +begins to speak. It has a blighting effect upon one's spirits. And the +only resource is to say frankly (as I said to the dog), 'Would you +oblige me, sir, by taking the whole of the talk into your own hands? Do +not for ever threaten to do so, but at once boldly lay an interdict upon +any other person's speaking.' + +To those who suffer from nervous irritability, the man that suspends +over our heads his _threat_ of interruption by constant impatience, is +even a more awful person to face than the actual interrupter. Either of +them is insufferable; and in cases where the tone of prevailing manners +is not vigorous enough to put such people down, or where the individual +monster, being not _couchant_ or _passant_, but (heraldically speaking) +_rampant_, utterly disregards all restraints that are not enforced by a +constable, the question comes back with greater force than ever, which I +stated at the beginning of this article, 'What's to be done?' + +I really cannot imagine. Despair seizes me 'with her icy fangs,' unless +the reader can suggest something; or unless he can improve on a plan of +my own sketching. + +As a talker for effect, as a _bravura_ artist in conversation, no one +has surpassed Coleridge. There is a Spanish proverb, that he who has not +seen Seville, has seen nothing. And I grieve to inform the present +unfortunate generation, born under an evil star, coming, in fact, into +the world a day after the fair, that, not having heard Coleridge, they +have _heard_--pretty much what the strangers to Seville have _seen_, +which (you hear from the Spaniards) amounts to nothing. _Nothing_ is +hardly a thing to be proud of, and yet it has its humble advantages. To +have heard Coleridge was a thing to remember with pride as a trophy, but +with pain as a trophy won by some personal sacrifice. To have heard +Coleridge has now indeed become so great a distinction, that if it were +transferable, and a man could sell it by auction, the biddings for it +would run up as fast as for a genuine autograph of Shakespeare. The +story is current under a thousand forms of the man who piqued himself on +an interview which he had once enjoyed with royalty; and, being asked +what he could repeat to the company of his gracious Majesty's remarks, +being an honest fellow he confessed candidly that the King, happening to +be pressed for time, had confined himself to saying, 'Dog, stand out of +my horse's way'; and many persons that might appear as claimants to the +honour of having conversed with Coleridge could perhaps report little +more of personal communication than a courteous request from the great +man not to interrupt him. Inevitably, however, from this character of +the Coleridgean conversation arose certain consequences, which are too +much overlooked by those who bring it forward as a model or as a +splendid variety in the proper art of conversation. And speaking myself +as personally a witness to the unfavourable impression left by these +consequences, I shall not scruple in this place to report them with +frankness. + +At the same time, having been heretofore publicly misrepresented and +possibly because misunderstood as to the temper in which I spoke of +Coleridge, and as though I had violated some duty of friendship in +uttering a truth not flattering after his death, I wish so far to +explain the terms on which we stood as to prevent any similar +misconstruction. It would be impossible in any case for me to attempt a +Plinian panegyric, or a French _éloge_. Not that I think such forms of +composition false, any more than an advocate's speech, or a political +partisan's: it is understood from the beginning that they are one-sided; +but still true according to the possibilities of truth when caught from +an angular and not a central station. There is even a pleasure as from a +gorgeous display, and a use as from a fulness of unity, in reading a +grand or even pompous laudatory oration upon a man like Leibnitz, or +Newton, which neglects all his errors or blemishes. This abstracting +view I could myself adopt as to a man whom I had learned to know from +books, but not as to one whom I knew also from personal intercourse. His +faults and his greatness are then too much intertwisted. There is still +something unreal in the knowledge of men through books; with which is +compatible a greater flexibility of estimate. But the absolute realities +of life acting upon any mind of deep sincerity do not leave the same +liberty of suppression or concealment. In that case, the reader may +perhaps say, and wherever the relations of the writer to a deceased man +prescribe many restraints of tenderness or delicacy, would it not be +better to forbear speaking at all? Certainly; and I go on therefore to +say that my own relations to Coleridge were not of that nature. I had +the greatest admiration for his intellectual powers, which in one +direction I thought and think absolutely unrivalled on earth; I had also +that sort of love for him which arises naturally as a rebound from +intense admiration, even where there is little of social congeniality. +But, in any stricter sense of the word, _friends_ we were not. For years +we met at intervals in society; never once estranged by any the +slightest shadow of a quarrel or a coolness. But there were reasons, +arising out of original differences in our dispositions and habits, +which would probably have forever prevented us, certainly _did_ prevent +us, from being confidential friends. Yet, if we had been such, even the +more for that reason the sincerity of my nature would oblige me to speak +freely if I spoke at all of anything which I might regard as amongst his +errors. For the perfection of genial homage, one may say, in the +expression of Petronius Arbiter, _Pręcipitandus est liber spiritus_, the +freedom of the human spirit must be thrown headlong through the whole +realities of the subject, without picking or choosing, without garbling +or disguising. It yet remains as a work of the highest interest, to +estimate (but for that to display) Coleridge in his character of great +philosophic thinker, in which character he united perfections that never +_were_ united but in three persons on this earth, in himself, in Plato +(as many suppose), and in Schelling, viz., the utmost expansion and in +some paths the utmost depths of the searching intellect with the utmost +sensibility to the powers and purposes of Art: whilst, as a creator in +Art, he had pretensions which neither Plato nor Schelling could make. +His powers as a Psychologist (not as a Metaphysician) seem to me +absolutely unrivalled on earth. And had his health been better, so as +to have sustained the natural cheerfulness towards which his nature +tended, had his pecuniary embarrassments been even moderately lightened +in their pressure, and had his studies been more systematically directed +to one end--my conviction is that he would have left a greater +philosophic monument of his magnificent mind than Aristotle, or Lord +Bacon, or Leibnitz. + +With these feelings as to the pretensions of Coleridge, I am not likely +to underrate anything which he did. But a thing may be very difficult to +do, very splendid when done, and yet false in its principles, useless in +its results, memorable perhaps by its impression at the time, and yet +painful on the whole to a thoughtful retrospect. In dancing it is but +too common that an intricate _pas seul_, in funambulism that a dangerous +feat of equilibration, in the Grecian art of _desultory_ equitation +(where a single rider governs a plurality of horses by passing from one +to another) that the flying contest with difficulty and peril, may +challenge an anxiety of interest, may bid defiance to the possibility of +inattention, and yet, after all, leave the jaded spectator under a sense +of distressing tension given to his faculties. The sympathy is with the +difficulties attached to the effort and the display, rather than with +any intellectual sense of power and skill genially unfolded under +natural excitements. It would be idle to cite Madame de Staėl's remark +on one of these meteoric exhibitions, viz., that Mr. Coleridge possessed +the art of monologue in perfection, but not that of the dialogue; yet it +comes near to hitting the truth from her point of view. The habit of +monologue which Coleridge favoured lies open to three fatal objections: +1. It is antisocial in a case expressly meant by its final cause for the +triumph of sociality; 2. It refuses all homage to women on an arena +expressly dedicated to their predominance; 3. It is essentially fertile +in _des longueurs_. Could there be imagined a trinity of treasons +against the true tone of social intercourse more appalling to a Parisian +taste? + +In a case such as this, where Coleridge was the performer, I myself +enter less profoundly into the brilliant woman's horror, for the reason +that, having originally a necessity almost morbid for the intellectual +pleasures that depend on solitude, I am constitutionally more careless +about the luxuries of conversation. I see them; like them in the rare +cases where they flourish, but do not require them. Not sympathizing, +therefore, with the lady's horror in its intensity, I yet find my +judgment in harmony with hers. The evils of Coleridgean talk, even +managed by a Coleridge, were there, and they fixed themselves +continually on my observation: + +I. It defeats the very end of social meetings. Without the excitement +from a reasonable number of auditors, and some novelty in the +composition of his audience, Coleridge was hardly able to talk his best. +Now, at the end of some hours, it struck secretly on the good sense of +the company. Was it reasonable to have assembled six, ten, or a dozen +persons for the purpose of hearing a prelection? Would not the time have +been turned to more account, even as regarded the object which they had +substituted for _social_ pleasure, in studying one of Coleridge's +printed works?--since there his words were stationary and not flying, so +that notes might be taken down, and questions proposed by way of letter, +on any impenetrable difficulties; whereas in a stream of oral teaching, +which ran like the stream of destiny, impassive to all attempts at +interruption, difficulties for ever arose to irritate your nervous +system at the moment, and to vex you permanently by the recollection +that they had prompted a dozen questions, every one of which you had +forgotten through the necessity of continuing to run alongside with the +speaker, and through the impossibility of saying, 'Halt, Mr. Coleridge! +Pull up, I beseech you, if it were but for two minutes, that I may try +to fathom that last sentence.' This in all conversation is one great +evil, viz., the substitution of an alien purpose for the natural and +appropriate purpose. Not to be intellectual in a direct shape, but to be +intellectual through sociality, is the legitimate object of a social +meeting. It may be right, medically speaking, that a man should be +shampooed; but it cannot be right that, having asked him to dine, you +should decline dinner and substitute a shampooing. This a man would be +apt to call by the shorter name of a _sham_. + +II. It diminishes the power of the talking performer himself. Seeming to +have more, the man has less. For a man is never thrown upon his mettle, +nor are his true resources made known even to himself, until to some +extent he finds himself resisted (or at least modified) by the reaction +of those around him. That day, says Homer, robs a man of half his value +which sees him made a slave. But to be an autocrat is as perilous as to +be a slave. And supposing Homer to have been introduced to Coleridge +(a supposition which a learned man at my elbow pronounces +intolerable--'It's an anachronism, sir, a base anachronism!' Well, but +one may _suppose_ anything, however base), Homer would have observed to +me, as we came away from the _soirée_, 'In my opinion, our splendid +friend S. T. C. would have been the better for a few kicks on the +shins. That day takes away half of a man's talking value which raises +him into an irresponsible dictator to his company.' + +III. It diminishes a man's power in another way less obvious, but not +less certain. I had often occasion to remark how injurious it was to the +impression of Coleridge's finest displays where the minds of the hearers +had been long detained in a state of passiveness. To understand fully, +to sympathise deeply, it was essential that they should react. Absolute +inertia produced inevitable torpor. I am not supposing any indocility, +or unwillingness to listen. Generally it might be said that merely to +find themselves in that presence argued sufficiently in the hearers a +cheerful dedication of themselves to a dutiful patience. + +The mistake, in short, is to suppose that the particular power of talk +Coleridge had was a _nuance_ or modification of what is meant by +conversational power; whereas it was the direct antithesis: it differed +diametrically. So much as he had of his own peculiar power, so much more +alien and remote was he from colloquial power. This remark should be +introduced by observing that Madame de Staėl's obvious criticism passes +too little unvalued or unsearched either by herself or others. She +fancied it an accidental inclination or a caprice, or a sort of +self-will or discourtesy or inattention. No; it was a faculty in polar +opposition to the true faculty of conversation. + +Coleridge was copious, and not without great right, upon the subject of +Art. It is a subject upon which we personally are very impatient, and +(as Mrs. Quickly expresses it) peevish, as peevish as Rugby in his +prayers.[4] Is this because we know too much about Art? Oh, Lord bless +you, no! We know too little about it by far, and our wish is--to know +more. But _that_ is difficult; so many are the teachers, who by accident +had never any time to learn; so general is the dogmatism; and, worse +than all, so inveterate is the hypocrisy, wherever the graces of liberal +habits and association are supposed to be dependent upon a particular +mode of knowledge. To know nothing of theology or medicine has a sort of +credit about it; so far at least it is clear that you are not +professional, and to that extent the chances are narrowed that you get +your bread out of the public pocket. To be sure, it is still possible +that you may be a stay-maker, or a rat-catcher. But these are +out-of-the-way vocations, and nobody adverts to such narrow +possibilities. Now, on the other hand, to be a connoisseur in painting +or in sculpture, supposing always that you are no practising artist, in +other words, supposing that you know nothing about the subject, implies +that you must live amongst _comme-il-faut_ people who possess pictures +and casts to look at; else how the deuce could you have got your +knowledge--or, by the way, your ignorance, which answers just as well +amongst those who are not peevish. We, however, _are_ so, as we have +said already. And what made us peevish, in spite of strong original +_stamina_ for illimitable indulgence to all predestined bores and +nuisances in the way of conversation, was--not the ignorance, not the +nonsense, not the contradictoriness of opinion--no! but the false, +hypocritical enthusiasm about objects for which in reality they cared +not the fraction of a straw. To hear these bores talk of educating the +people to an acquaintance with what they call 'high art'! Ah, heavens, +mercifully grant that the earth may gape for us before _our_ name is +placed on any such committee! 'High art,' indeed! First of all, most +excellent bores, would you please to educate the people into the high +and mysterious art of boiling potatoes. We, though really owning no +particular duty or moral obligation of boiling potatoes, really _can_ +boil them very decently in any case arising of public necessity for our +services; and if the art should perish amongst men, which seems likely +enough, so long as _we_ live, the public may rely upon it being +restored. But as to women, as to the wives of poor hard-working men, not +one in fifty can boil a potato into a condition that is not ruinous to +the digestion. And we have reason to know that the Chartists, on their +great meditated outbreak, having hired a six-pounder from a pawnbroker, +meant to give the signal for insurrection at dinner-time, because (as +they truly observed) cannon-balls, hard and hot, would then be plentiful +on every table. God sends potatoes, we all know; but _who_ it is that +sends the boilers of potatoes, out of civility to the female sex, we +decline to say. + +Well, but this (you say) is a digression. Why, true; and a digression is +often the cream of an article. However, as you dislike it, let us +_re_gress as fast as possible, and scuttle back from the occult art of +boiling potatoes to the much more familiar one of painting in oil. Did +Coleridge really understand this art? Was he a sciolist, was he a +pretender, or did he really judge of it from a station of +heaven-inspired knowledge? A hypocrite Coleridge never was upon any +subject; he never affected to know when secretly he felt himself +ignorant. And yet, of the topics on which he was wont eloquently to hold +forth, there was none on which he was less satisfactory--none on which +he was more acute, yet none on which he was more prone to excite +contradiction and irritation, if that had been allowed. + +Here, for example, is a passage from one of his lectures on art: + +'It is sufficient that philosophically we understand that in all +imitations two elements must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be +perceived as existing. Those two constituent elements are likeness and +unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations of +art there must be a union of these disparates. The artist may take this +point of view where he pleases, provided that the desired effect be +perceptibly produced, that there be likeness in the difference, +difference in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there +be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is +disgusting, and the more complete the delusion the more loathsome the +effect. Why are such simulations of nature as wax-work figures of men +and women so disagreeable? Because, not finding the motion and the life +all we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance of +detail, which before induced you to be interested, making the distance +from truth more palpable. You set out with a supposed reality, and are +disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst in respect to a +work of genuine imitation you begin with an acknowledged total +difference, and then every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an +approximation to truth.' + +In this exposition there must be some oversight on the part of +Coleridge. He tells us in the beginning that, if there be 'likeness to +nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting.' But +the case of the wax-work, which is meant to illustrate this proposition, +does not at all conform to the conditions; the result is disgusting +certainly, but not from any want of difference to control the sameness, +for, on the contrary, the difference is confessedly too revolting; and +apparently the distinction between the two cases described is simply +this--that in the illegitimate case of the wax-work the likeness comes +first and the unlikeness last, whereas in the other case this order is +reversed. But that distinction will neither account _in fact_ for the +difference of effect; nor, if it _did_, would it account upon any reason +or ground suggested by Coleridge for such a difference. Let us consider +this case of wax-work a little more vigilantly, and then perhaps we may +find out both why it is that some men unaffectedly _are_ disgusted by +wax-work; and secondly, why it is that, if trained on just principles of +reflective taste, all men _would_ be so affected. + +As a matter not altogether without importance, we may note that even the +frailty of the material operates to some extent in disgusting us with +wax-work. A higher temperature of the atmosphere, it strikes us too +forcibly, would dispose the waxen figures to melt; and in colder seasons +the horny fist of a jolly boatswain would 'pun[5] them into shivers' +like so many ship-biscuits. The grandeur of permanence and durability +transfers itself or its expression from the material to the impression +of the artifice which moulds it, and crystallizes itself in the effect. +We see continually very ingenious imitations of objects cut out in paper +filigree; there have been people who showed as much of an artist's eye +in this sort of work, and of an artist's hand, as Miss Linwood of the +last generation in her exquisite needlework; in both cases a trick, a +_tour-de-main_, was raised into the dignity of a fine art; and yet, +because the slightness of the material too emphatically proclaims the +essential perishableness of the result, nobody views such modes of art +with more even of a momentary interest than the morning wreaths of smoke +ascending so beautifully from a cottage chimney, or cares much to +preserve them. The traceries of hoar frost upon the windows of inhabited +rooms are not only beautiful in the highest degree, but have been shown +in several French memoirs to obey laws of transcendental geometry, and +also to obey physical laws of startling intricacy. These lovely forms of +almighty nature wear the grandeur of mystery, of floral beauty, and of +science (immanent science) not always fathomable.[6] They are anything +but capricious. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like _them_; +and yet, simply because the sad hand of mortality is upon them, because +they are dedicated to death, because on genial days they will have +passed into the oblivion of graves before the morning sun has mounted to +his meridian, we do not so much as honour them with a transient stare +from the breakfast-table. Ah, wretches that we are, the horrid +carnalities of tea and toast, or else the horrid bestialities in morning +journals of Chartists and Cobdenites at home, of Red Ruffians abroad, +draw off our attention from the chonchoids and the cycloids pencilled by +the Eternal Geometrician! and these celestial traceries of the dawn, +which neither Da Vinci nor Raphaello was able to have followed as a +mimic, far less as a rival, we regard as a nuisance claiming the +attentions of the window-cleaner; even as the spider's web, that might +absorb an angel into reverie, is honoured amongst the things banned by +the housemaid. But _the_ reason why the wax-work disgusts is that it +seeks to reproduce in literal detail the traits that should be softened +under a general diffusive impression; the likeness to nature is +presented in what is essentially fleeting and subsidiary, and the 'check +of difference' is found also in this very literality, and not in any +effort of the etherealizing imagination, as it is in all true works of +art; so that the case really stands the exact opposite of that which +Coleridge had given in his definition.[7] + +To pass from art to style. How loose and arbitrary Coleridge not +infrequently was in face of the laws on that subject which he had +himself repeatedly laid down! Could it be believed of a man so quick to +feel, so rapid to arrest all phenomena, that in a matter so important as +that of style, he should have nothing loftier to record of his own +merits, services, reformations, or cautions, than that he has always +conscientiously forborne to use the personal genitive _whose_ in +speaking of inanimate things? For example, that he did not say, and +could not have been tempted or tortured into saying, 'The bridge _whose_ +piers could not much longer resist the flood.' Well, as they say in +Scotland, some people are thankful for small mercies. We--that is, you, +the reader, and ourselves--are _persons_; the bridge, you see, is but a +_thing_. We pity it, poor thing, and, as far as it is possible to +entertain such a sentiment for a bridge, we feel respect for it. Few +bridges are thoroughly contemptible; and we make a point, in obedience +to an old-world proverb, always to speak well of the bridge that has +carried us over in safety, which the worst of bridges never yet has +refused to do. But still there _are_ such things as social distinctions; +and we conceive that a man and a 'contributor' (an _ancient_ contributor +to _Blackwood_), must in the herald's college be allowed a permanent +precedency before all bridges whatsoever, without regard to number of +arches, width of span, or any other frivolous pretences. We acknowledge +therefore with gratitude Coleridge's loyalty to his own species in not +listening to any compromise with mere things, that never were nor will +be raised to the peerage of personality, and sternly refusing them the +verbal honours which are sacred to us humans. But what is the principle +of taste upon which Coleridge justifies this rigorous practice? It +is--and we think it a very just principle--that this mechanic mode of +giving life to things inanimate ranks 'amongst those worst mimicries of +poetic diction by which imbecile writers fancy they elevate their +prose.' True; but the same spurious artifices for giving a fantastic +elevation to prose reappear in a thousand other forms, from some of +which neither Coleridge nor his accomplished daughter is absolutely +free. For instance, one of the commonest abuses of pure English amongst +our Scottish brethren, unless where they have been educated out of +Scotland, is to use _aught_ for _anything_, _ere_ for _before_, +_well-nigh_ for _almost_, and scores besides. No home-bred, _i.e._ +Cockney Scotchman, is aware that these are poetic forms, and are as +ludicrously stilted in any ear trained by the daily habits of good +society to the appreciation of pure English--as if, in Spenserian +phrase, he should say, '_What time_ I came home to breakfast,' instead +of '_When_ I came home.' The _'tis_ and _'twas_, which have been +superannuated for a century in England, except in poetic forms, still +linger in Scotland and in Ireland, and these forms also at intervals +look out from Coleridge's prose. Coleridge is also guilty at odd times +(as is Wordsworth) of that most horrible affectation, the _hath_ and +_doth_ for _has_ and _does_. This is really criminal. But amongst all +barbarisms known to man, the very worst--and this also, we are sorry to +say, flourishes as rankly as weeds in Scotch prose, and is to be found +in Coleridge's writings--is the use of the _thereof_, _therein_, +_thereby_, _thereunto_. This monstrous expression of imperfect +civilization, which for one hundred and fifty years has been cashiered +by cultivated Englishmen as _attorneys' English_, and is absolutely +frightful unless in a lease or conveyance, ought (we do not scruple to +say) to be made indictable at common law, not perhaps as a felony, but +certainly as a misdemeanour, punishable by fine and imprisonment. + +In nothing is the characteristic mode of Coleridge's mind to be seen +more strikingly than in his treatment of some branches of dramatic +literature, though to that subject he had devoted the closest study. He +was almost as distinguished, indeed, for the points he missed as for +those he saw. Look at his position as regards some questions concerning +the French drama and its critics, more particularly the views of +Voltaire, though some explanation may be found in the fact, which I have +noticed elsewhere, that Coleridge's acquaintance with the French +language was not such as to enable him to read it with the easy +familiarity which ensures complete pleasure. But something may also be +due to his deep and absorbed religious feeling, which seemed to +incapacitate him from perceiving the points where Voltaire, despite his +scepticism, had planted his feet on firm ground. Coleridge was aware +that Voltaire, in common with every Frenchman until the present +generation, held it as a point of faith that the French drama was +inapproachable in excellence. From Lessing, and chiefly, from his +_Dramaturgie_, Coleridge was also aware, on the other hand, upon what +erroneous grounds that imaginary pre-eminence was built. He knew that it +was a total misconception of the Greek unities (excepting only as +regards the unity of fable, or, as Coleridge otherwise calls it, the +_unity of interest_) which had misled the French. It was a huge blunder. +The case was this: Peculiar embarrassments had arisen to the Athenian +dramatists as to time and place, from the chorus--out of which chorus +had grown the whole drama. The chorus, composed generally of men or +women, could not be moved from Susa to Memphis or from one year to +another, as might the spectator. This was a fetter, but, with the +address of great artists, they had turned their fetters into occasions +of ornament. But, in this act of beautifying their narrow field, they +had done nothing to enlarge it. They had submitted gracefully to what, +for _them_, was a religious necessity. But it was ridiculous that modern +dramatists, under no such necessity (because clogged with no inheritance +of a personal chorus), should voluntarily assume fetters which, having +no ceremonial and hallowed call for a chorus, could have no meaning. So +far Coleridge was kept right by his own sagacity and by his German +guides; but a very trifle of further communication with Voltaire, and +with the writers of whom Voltaire was speaking, would have introduced +him to two facts calculated a little to raise Voltaire in his esteem, +and very much to lower the only French writer (viz., Racine) whom he +ever thought fit to praise. With regard to Voltaire himself he would +have found that, so far from exalting the French poetic literature +_generally_ in proportion to that monstrous pre-eminence which he had +claimed for the French drama, on the contrary, from this very drama, +from the very pre-eminence, he drew an argument for the general +inferiority of the French poetry. The French drama, he argued, was +confessedly exalted amongst the French themselves beyond any other +section of their literature. But why? Why was this? If the drama had +prospered disproportionately under public favour, what caused that +favour? It was, said Voltaire, the social nature of the French, with +their consequent interest in whatever assumed the attire of conversation +or dialogue; and, secondly, it was the peculiar strength of their +language in that one function, which had been nursed and ripened by +this preponderance of social habits. Hence it happened that the drama +obtained at one and the same time a greater _interest_ for the French, +and also (by means of this culture given to conversational forms) most +unhappily for his lordship's critical discernment of flavours, as well +as his Greek literature, happens to be a respectable Joe Miller from the +era of Hierocles, and through _him_ probably it came down from +Pythagoras. Yet still Voltaire was very far indeed from being a +'scribbler.' He had the graceful levity and the graceful gaiety of his +nation in an exalted degree. He had a vast compass of miscellaneous +knowledge; pity that it was so disjointed, _arena sine calce_; pity that +you could never rely on its accuracy; and, as respected his epic poetry, +'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true, that you are rather +disposed to laugh than to cry when Voltaire solemnly proposes to be +sublime. His _Henriade_ originally appeared in London about 1726, when +the poet was visiting this country as a fugitive before the wrath of +Louis the Well-beloved; and naturally in the opening passage he +determined to astonish the weak minds of us islanders by a flourish on +the tight-rope of sublimity. But to his vexation a native Greek (viz., a +Smyrniot), then by accident in London, called upon him immediately after +the publication, and, laying his finger on a line in the exordium (as it +then stood), said, 'Sare, I am one countryman of Homer's. He write de +Iliad; you write de Henriade; but Homer vos never able in all de total +whole of de Iliad to write de verse like dis.' Upon which the Greek +showed him a certain line. + +Voltaire admired the line itself, but in deference to this Greek irony, +supported by the steady advice of his English friends, he finally +altered it. It is possible to fail, however, as an epic poet, and very +excusable for a Frenchman to fail, and yet to succeed in many other +walks of literature. But to Coleridge's piety, to Coleridge's earnest +seeking for light, and to Coleridge's profound sense of the necessity +which connects from below all ultimate philosophy with religion, the +scoffing scepticism of Voltaire would form even a stronger repulsion +than his puerile hostility to Shakespeare. Even here, however, there is +something to be pleaded for Voltaire. Much of his irreligion doubtless +arose from a defective and unimpassioned nature, but part of it was +noble, and rested upon his intolerance of cruelty, of bigotry, and of +priestcraft--but still more of these qualities not germinating +spontaneously, but assumed fraudulently as masques. But very little +Coleridge had troubled himself to investigate Voltaire's views, even +where he was supposing himself to be ranged in opposition to them. + +A word or two about those accusations of plagiarism of which far too +much has been made by more than one critic; we ourselves having, +perhaps, been guilty of too wantonly stirring these waters at one time +of our lives; and in the attempt to make matters more clear, only, it +may be, succeeded in muddying them. Stolberg, Matthison, Schiller, +Frederika Brun, Schelling, and others, whom he has been supposed to have +robbed of trifles, he could not expect to lurk[8] in darkness, and +particularly as he was actively contributing to disperse the darkness +that yet hung over their names in England. But really for such +bagatelles as were concerned in this poetic part of the allegation--even +Bow Street, with the bloodiest Draco of a critical reviewer sitting on +the bench, would not have entertained the charge. Most of us, we +suppose, would be ready enough to run off with a Titian or a Correggio, +provided the coast were clear, and no policemen heaving in sight; but to +be suspected of pocketing a silver spoon, which, after all, would +probably turn out to be made of German silver--faugh!--we not only defy +the fiend and his temptations generally, but we spit in his face for +such an insinuation. With respect to the pretty toy model of Hexameter +and Pentameter from Schiller, we believe the case to have arisen thus: +in talking of metre, and illustrating it (as Coleridge often did at +tea-tables) from Homer, and then from the innumerable wooden and +cast-iron imitations of it among the Germans--he would be very likely to +cite this little ivory bijou from Schiller; upon which the young ladies +would say: 'But, Mr. Coleridge, we do not understand German. Could you +not give us an idea of it in some English version?' Then would he, with +his usual obligingness, write down his mimic English echo of Schiller's +German echo. And of course the young ladies, too happy to possess an +autograph from the 'Ancient Mariner,' and an autograph besides having a +separate interest of its own, would endorse it with the immortal +initials 'S. T. C.,' after which an injunction issuing from the Court of +Chancery would be quite unavailing to arrest its flight through the +journals of the land as the avowed composition of Coleridge. They know +little of Coleridge's habits who suppose that his attention was +disposable for cases of this kind. Alike, whether he were unconsciously +made by the error of a reporter to rob others, or others to rob him, he +would be little likely to hear of the mistake--or, hearing of it by some +rare accident, to take any pains for its correction. It is probable that +such mistakes sometimes arose with others, but sometimes also with +himself from imperfect recollection; and _that_, owing chiefly to his +carelessness about the property at issue, so that it seemed not worth +the requisite effort to vindicate the claim if it happened to be _his_, +or formally to renounce it if it were not. But, however this might be, +his daughter's remark remains true, and is tolerably significant, that +the people whom (through anybody's mistake) he seems to have robbed were +all pretty much in the sunshine of the world's regard; there was no +attempt to benefit by darkness or twilight, and an intentional robber +must have known that the detection was inevitable. + +A second thing to be said in palliation of such plagiarisms, real or +fancied, intentional or not intentional, is this--that at least +Coleridge never insulted or derided those upon whose rights he is +supposed to have meditated an aggression. + +Coleridge has now been dead for more than fifteen years,[9] and he lived +through a painful life of sixty-three years; seventy-eight years it is +since he first drew that troubled air of earth, from which with such +bitter loathing he rose as a phoenix might be supposed to rise, that, +in retribution of some treason to his immortal race, had been compelled +for a secular period to banquet on carrion with ghouls, or on the spoils +of _vivisection_ with vampires. Not with less horror of retrospect than +such a phoenix did Coleridge, when ready to wing his flight from +earth, survey the chambers of suffering through which he had trod his +way from childhood to gray hairs. Perhaps amongst all the populous +nations of the grave not one was ever laid there, through whose bones so +mighty a thrill of shuddering anguish would creep, if by an audible +whisper the sound of earth and the memories of earth could reach his +coffin. Yet why? Was he not himself a child of earth? Yes, and by too +strong a link: _that_ it was which shattered him. For also he was a +child of Paradise, and in the struggle between two natures he could not +support himself erect. That dreadful conflict it was which supplanted +his footing. Had he been gross, fleshly, sensual, being so framed for +voluptuous enjoyment, he would have sunk away silently (as millions +sink) through carnal wrecks into carnal ruin. He would have been +mentioned oftentimes with a sigh of regret as that youthful author who +had enriched the literature of his country with two exquisite poems, +'Love' and the 'Ancient Mariner,' but who for some unknown reason had +not fulfilled his apparent mission on earth. As it was, being most +genial and by his physical impulses most luxurious; yet, on the other +hand, by fiery aspirations of intellect and of spiritual heart being +coerced as if through torments of magical spells into rising heavenwards +for ever, into eternal commerce with the grander regions of his own +nature, he found this strife too much for his daily peace, too imperfect +was the ally which he found in his will; treachery there was in his own +nature, and almost by a necessity he yielded to the dark temptations of +opium. That 'graspless hand,' from which, as already in one of his early +poems (November, 1794) he had complained-- + + 'Drop friendship's priceless pearls as hour-glass sands,' + +was made much _more_ graspless, and in this way the very graces of his +moral nature ministered eventually the heaviest of his curses. Most +unworldly he was, most unmercenary, and (as somebody has remarked) even +to a disease, and, in such a degree as if an organ had been forgotten by +Nature in his composition, disregardful of self. But even in these +qualities lay the baits for his worldly ruin, which subsequently caused +or allowed so much of his misery. Partly from the introversion of his +mind, and its habitual sleep of reverie in relation to all external +interests, partly from his defect in all habits of prudential +forecasting, resting his head always on the pillow of the _present_--he +had been carried rapidly past all openings that offered towards the +creation of a fortune before he even heard of them, and he first awoke +to the knowledge that such openings had ever existed when he looked back +upon them from a distance, and found them already irrecoverable for +ever. + +Such a case as this, as soon as it became known that the case stood +connected with so much power of intellect and so much of various +erudition, was the very ideal case that challenges aid from the public +purse. Mrs. Coleridge has feelingly noticed the philosophic fact. It was +the case of a man lame in the faculties which apply to the architecture +of a fortune, but lame through the very excess in some other faculties +that qualified him for a public teacher, or (which is even more +requisite) for a public stimulator of powers else dormant. + +A perfect romance it is that settles upon three generations of these +Coleridges; a romance of beauty, of intellectual power, of misfortune +suddenly illuminated from heaven, of prosperity suddenly overcast by the +waywardness of the individual. The grandfather of the present +generation, who for us stands forward as the founder of the family, +viz., the Rev. John Coleridge; even _his_ career wins a secret homage of +tears and smiles in right of its marvellous transitions from gloom to +sudden light, in right of its entire simplicity, and of its eccentric +consistency. Already in early youth, swimming against a heady current of +hindrances almost overwhelming, he had by solitary efforts qualified +himself for any higher situation that might offer. But, just as this +training was finished, the chances that it might ever turn to account +suddenly fell down to zero; for precisely then did domestic misfortunes +oblige his father to dismiss him from his house with one solitary +half-crown and his paternal benediction. What became of the half-crown +is not recorded, but the benediction speedily blossomed into fruit. The +youth had sat down by the roadside under the mere oppression of grief +for his blighted prospects. But gradually and by steps the most +unexpected and providential, he was led to pedagogy and through this to +his true destination--that of a clergyman of the English church--a +position which from his learning, his devotion, and even from his very +failings--failings in businesslike foresight and calculation--his +absence of mind, his charitable feelings, and his true docility of +nature, he was fitted to adorn; and, indeed, but for his eccentricities +and his complete freedom from worldly self-seeking, and indifference to +such considerations as are apt to weigh all too little with his fellows +of the cloth, he might have moved as an equal among the most eminent +scholars and thinkers. Beautiful are the alternate phases of a good +parish priest--now sitting at the bedside of a dying neighbour, and +ministering with guidance and consolation to the labouring spirit--now +sitting at midnight under the lamp of his own study, and searching the +holy oracles of inspiration for light inexhaustible. These pictures were +realized in J. Coleridge's life. + +Mr. Wordsworth has done much to place on an elevated pedestal a very +different type of parish priest--Walker of Seathwaite. The contrast +between him and John Coleridge is striking; and not only striking but +apt, from some points of view, to move something of laughter as well as +tears. The strangest thing is that, if some demon of mischief tempts us, +a hurly-burly begins again of laughter and mockery among that ancient +brotherhood of hills, like Handel's chorus in 'l'Allegro' of 'laughter +holding both his sides.' + + 'Old Skiddaw blows + His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds + On Glaramara, "_I say, Walker_" rings; + And Kirkstone "goes it" from his misty head.' + +The Rev. Walker, of Seathwaite, it is recorded, spent most of his time +in the parish church; but doing what? Why, spinning; _always_ spinning +wool on the steps of the altar, and only _sometimes_ lecturing his +younger parishioners in the spelling-book. So passed his life. And, if +you feel disposed to say, '_An innocent life_!' you must immediately add +from Mr. Wordsworth's 'Ruth,' '_An innocent life, but far astray_!' What +time had he for writing sermons? The Rev. John Coleridge wrote an +exegetical work on the Book of Judges; we doubt whether Walker could +have spelt _exegetical_. And supposing the Bishop of Chester, in whose +diocese his parish lay, had suddenly said, 'Walker, _unde derivatur_ +"_exegesis_"?' Walker must have been walked off into the corner, as a +punishment for answering absurdly. But luckily the Bishop's palace +stood ninety and odd miles south of Walker's two spinning-wheels. For, +observe, he had _two_ spinning-wheels, but he hadn't a single Iliad. Mr. +Wordsworth will say that Walker did something besides spinning and +spelling. What was it? Why, he read a little. A _very_ little, I can +assure you. For _when_ did he read? Never but on a Saturday afternoon. +And _what_ did Walker read? Doubtless now it was Hooker, or was it +Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow? No; it was none of these that Walker honoured +by his Saturday studies, but a magazine. Now, we all know what awful +rubbish the magazines of those days carted upon men's premises. It would +have been indictable as a nuisance if a publisher had laid it down +_gratis_ at your door. Had Walker lived in _our_ days, the case would +have been very different. A course of _Blackwood_ would have braced his +constitution; his spinning-wheel would have stopped; his spelling would +have improved into moral philosophy and the best of politics. This very +month, as the public is by this time aware, Walker would have read +something about himself that _must_ have done him good. We might very +truly have put an advertisement into the _Times_ all last month, saying, +'Let Walker look into the next _Blackwood_, and he will hear of +something greatly to his advantage.' But alas! Walker descended to +Hades, and most ingloriously as _we_ contend, before _Blackwood_ had +dawned upon a benighted earth. We differ therefore by an inexpressible +difference from Wordsworth's estimate of this old fellow. And we close +our account of him by citing two little sallies from his only known +literary productions, viz., two letters, one to a friend, and the other +to the Archbishop of York. In the first of these he introduces a child +of his own under the following flourish of rhetoric, viz., as 'a pledge +of conjugal endearment.' We doubt if his correspondent ever read such a +bit of sentiment before. In the other letter, addressed to the +Metropolitan of the province, Walker has the assurance to say that he +trusts the young man, his son (_not_ the aforesaid cub, the pledge of +conjugal endearment) will never disgrace the _paternal_ example, _i.e._, +Walker's example. Pretty strong _that_! And, if exegetically handled, it +must mean that Walker, junr., is to continue spinning and spelling, as +also once a week reading the _Town and Country Magazine_, all the days +of his life. Oh, Walker, you're a very sad fellow! And the only excuse +for you is, that, like most of your brethren in that mountainous nook of +England, so beautiful but so poor, you never saw the academic bowers of +either Oxford or Cambridge. + +Both in prose and verse, much prose and a short allowance of verse, has +Wordsworth celebrated this man, and he has held him aloft like the +saintly Herbert[10] as a shining model of a rural priest. We are glad, +therefore, for Wordsworth's sake, that no judge from the Consistorial +Court ever happened to meet with Walker when trudging over the Furness +Fells to Ulverston with a _long_ cwt. (120 lb. avoirdupois) of wool on +his back, a thing which he did in all weathers. The wool would have been +condemned as a good prize, and we much fear that Walker's gown would +have been stripped over his head; which is a sad catastrophe for a +pattern priest. Mr. John Coleridge came much nearer to Chaucer's model +of a _Parish_ Priest, whilst at the same time he did honour to the +Academic standard of such a priest. He loved his poor parishioners as +children confided to his pastoral care, but he also loved his library. +But, on the other hand, as to Walker, if ever _he_ were seen burning the +midnight oil, it was not in a gentleman's study--it was in a horrid +garret or cock-loft at the top of his house, disturbing the 'conjugal +endearments' of roosting fowl, and on a business the least spiritual +that can be imagined. By ancient usage throughout this sequestered +region, which is the Savoy of England (viz., Cumberland, Westmoreland, +and Furness) all accounts are settled annually at Candlemas, which means +the middle of February. From Christmas, therefore, to this period the +reverend pastor was employed in making out bills, receipts, leases and +releases, charges and discharges, wills and codicils to wills for most +of the hardworking householders amongst his flock. This work paid better +than spinning. By this night work, by the summer work of cutting peats +and mowing grass, by the autumnal work of reaping barley and oats, and +the early winter work of taking up potatoes, the reverend gentleman +could average seven shillings a day besides beer. But meantime our +spiritual friend was poaching on the manors of the following people--of +the chamber counsel, of the attorney, of the professional accountant, of +the printer and compositor, of the notary public, of the scrivener, and +sometimes, we fear, of the sheriff's officer in arranging for special +bail. These very uncanonical services one might have fancied sufficient, +with spinning and spelling, for filling up the temporal cares of any one +man's time. But this restless Proteus masqueraded through a score of +other characters--as seedsman, harvester, hedger and ditcher, etc. We +have no doubt that he would have taken a job of paving; he would have +contracted for darning old Christopher's silk stockings, or for a mile +of sewerage; or he would have contracted to dispose by night of the +sewage (which the careful reader must not confound with the sewerage, +that being the ship and the sewage the freight). But all this coarse +labour makes a man's hands horny, and, what is worse, the starvation, +or, at least, impoverishment, of his intellect makes his mind horny; +and, what is worst of all in a clergyman, who is stationed as a watchman +on a church-steeple expressly to warn all others against the +all-besetting danger of worldliness, such an incessant preoccupation of +the heart by coarse and petty cares makes the spiritual apprehensiveness +and every organ of spiritual sensibility more horny than the hoofs of a +rhinoceros. + +Kindliness of heart, no doubt, remained to the last with Mr. Walker, +_that_ being secured by the universal spirit of brotherly and social +feeling amongst the dalesmen of the lake district. He was even liberal +and generous, if we may rely upon the few instances reported by W. W. +His life of heroic money-getting had not, it seems, made his heart +narrow in that particular direction, though it must not be forgotten +that the calls upon him were rare and trivial. But however _that_ may +have been, the heart of stone had usurped upon the heart of flesh in all +that regarded the spiritualities of his office. He was conscientious, we +dare say, in what related to the _sacramentum militaire_ (as construed +by himself) of his pastoral soldiership. He would, perhaps, have died +for the doctrines of his church, and we do not like him the worse for +having been something of a bigot, being ourselves the most malignant of +Tories (thank Heaven for all its mercies!). But what tenderness or +pathetic breathings of spirituality _could_ that man have, who had no +time beyond a few stray quarters of an hour for thinking of his own +supreme relations to heaven, or to his flock on behalf of heaven? How +could that man cherish or deepen the motions of religious truth within +himself, whose thoughts were habitually turned to the wool market? +Ninety and odd years he lived on earth labouring like a bargeman or a +miner. Assuredly he was not one of the _fainéans_. And within a narrow +pastoral circle he left behind him a fragrant memory that will, perhaps, +wear as long as most reputations in literature. Nay, he even acquired by +acclamation a sort of title, viz., the posthumous surname of the +_wonderful_; pointing, however, we fear, much less to anything in +himself than to the unaccountable amount of money which he left behind +him--unaccountable by comparison with any modes of industry which he +practised, all of which were indomitably persevering, but all humble in +their results. Finally, he has had the honour (which, much we fear, men +far more interesting in the same situation, but in a less homely way, +never _would_ have had) of a record from the pen of Wordsworth. We and +others have always remarked it as one of the austere Roman features in +the mind of Wordsworth, that of all poets he has the least sympathy, +effeminate or not effeminate, with romantic disinterestedness. He cannot +bear to hear of a man working by choice for nothing, which certainly +_is_ an infirmity, where at all it arises from want of energy or of just +self-appreciation, but still an amiable one, and in certain directions a +sublime one. Walker had no such infirmity. He laboured in those fields +which ensure instant payment. Verily he _had_ his reward: ten per cent., +at least, beyond all other men, without needing to think of reversions, +either above or below. The unearthly was suffocated in _him_ by the +earthly. Let us leave him, and return to a better man, viz., to the Rev. +John Coleridge, author of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case--a man equal +in simplicity o£ habits and in humility, but better in the sight of God, +because he laboured in the culture of his higher and not his lower +faculties. + +Mr. John Coleridge married a second time; and we are perplexed to say +_when_. The difficulty is this: he had by his second wife ten children. +Now, as _the_ Coleridge, the youngest of the flock, was born in 1772, +the space between that year and 1760 seems barely adequate to such a +succession of births. Yet, on the other hand, _before_ 1760 he could not +probably have seen his second wife, unless, indeed, on some casual trip +to Devonshire. Her name was Anne Bowden; and she was of a respectable +family, that had been long stationary in Devonshire, but of a yeomanly +rank; and people of that rank a century back did not often make visits +as far as Southampton. The question is not certainly of any great +importance; and we notice it only to make a parade of our chronologic +acumen. Devilish sly is Josy Bagstock! It is sufficient that her last +child was her illustrious child; and, if S. T. C.'s theory has any +foundation, we must suppose him illustrious _because_ he was the last. +For he imagines that in any long series of children the last will, +according to all experience, have the leonine share of intellect. But +this contradicts our own personal observation; and, besides, it seems to +be unsound upon an _ą priori_ ground, viz., that to be the first child +carries a meaning with it: _that_ place in the series has a real +physiologic value; and we have known families in which, from generation +to generation, the first-born child had physical advantages denied to +all that followed. But to be the last child must very often be the +result of accident, and has in reality no meaning in any sense known to +nature. The sixth child, let us suppose, is a blockhead. And soon after +the birth of this sixth child, his father, being drunk, breaks his neck. +That accident cannot react upon this child to invest him with the +privileges of absolute juniority. Being a blockhead, he will remain a +blockhead. Yet he is the youngest; but, then, nature is no party to his +being such, and probably she is no party (by means of any physical +change in the parents) once in a thousand births to a case of absolute +and predeterminate juniority. + +Whether with or without the intention of nature, S. T. C. was fated to +be the last of his family. He was the tenth child of the second flock, +and possibly there might have been an eleventh or even a twentieth, but +for the following termination of his father's career, which we give in +the words of his son. 'Towards the latter end of September, 1781, my +father went to Plymouth with my brother Francis, who was to go out as' +(a) 'midshipman under Admiral Graves--a friend of my father's. He +settled Frank as he wished, and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He +arrived at Exeter about six o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there +by the friendly family of the Harts; but he refused, and, to avoid their +entreaties, he told them that he had never been superstitious, but that +the night before he had had a dream, which had made a deep impression on +him. He dreamed that Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly +painted, and had touched him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and +all his family, _I_ excepted, were up. He told my mother his dream; but +he was in good health and high spirits; and there was a bowl of punch +made, and my father gave a long and particular account of his travels, +and that he had placed Frank under a religious captain, and so forth. At +length he went to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after +he had lain down, he complained of a pain to which he was subject. My +mother got him some peppermint water, which he took; and after a pause +he said, "I am much better now, my dear!" and lay down again. In a +minute my mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to him; but he +did not answer, and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me, +and I said, "Papa is dead!" I did not know of my father's return, but I +knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his death, I cannot +tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout in the heart; +probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite without guile, +simple, generous; and, taking some Scripture texts in their literal +sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and evil of this +world.' + +This was the account of his father's sudden death in 1781, written by S. +T. Coleridge in 1797. 'Thirty years afterwards' (but after 1781 or after +1797?), says Mr. H. N. Coleridge, 'S. T. C. breathed a wish for such a +death, "if," he added, "like him I were an Israelite without guile!" and +then added, "The image of my father, my revered, kind, learned, +simple-hearted father, is a religion to me."' + +In his ninth year, therefore, thus early and thus suddenly, Coleridge +lost his father; and in the result, though his mother lived for many a +year after, he became essentially an orphan, being thrown upon the +struggles of this world, and for ever torn from his family, except as a +visitor when equally he and they had changed. Yet such is the world, and +so inevitably does it grow thorns amongst its earliest roses, that even +that dawn of life when he had basked in the smiles of two living +parents, was troubled for _him_ by a dark shadow that followed his steps +or ran before him, obscuring his light upon every path. This was Francis +Coleridge, one year older, that same boy whom his father had in his last +journey upon earth accompanied to Plymouth. + +We shall misconceive the character of Francis if we suppose him to have +been a boy of bad nature. He turned out a gallant young man, and +perished at twenty-one from over exertion in Mysore, during the first +war with Tippoo Sahib. How he came to be transferred from the naval to +the land service, is a romantic story, for which, as it has no relation +to _the_ Coleridge, we cannot find room. + +In that particular relation, viz., to _the_ Coleridge, Francis may seem +at first to have been unamiable, and especially since the little Samuel +was so entirely at the mercy of his superior hardiness and strength; +but, in fact, his violence arose chiefly from the contempt natural to a +bold adventurous nature for a nursery pet, and a contempt irritated by a +counter admiration which he could not always refuse. 'Frank,' says S. T. +C., looking back to these childish days, 'had a violent love of beating +me; but, whenever _that_ was superseded by any humour or circumstances, +he was always very fond of me, and used to regard me with a strange +mixture of admiration and contempt. Strange it was not; for he hated +books, and loved climbing, fighting, playing, robbing orchards, to +distraction.' + +In the latter part of 1778, when S. T. C. was six years old, and +recently admitted to King's School at Ottery, he and his brother George +(that brother to whom his early poems were afterwards dedicated) caught +a putrid fever at the same time. But on this occasion Frank displayed +his courageous kindness; for, in contempt of orders to the contrary, and +in contempt of the danger, he stole up to the bedside of little Samuel +and read Pope's 'Homer' to him. This made it evident that Frank's +partiality for thumping S. T. C. did really arise very much out of a +lurking love for him; since George, though a most amiable boy, and ill +of the same fever in another room, was left to get well in the usual +way, by medicine and slops, without any thumping certainly, but also +without any extra consolations from either Iliad or Odyssey. But what +ministered perpetual fuel to the thumping-mania of Francis Coleridge was +a furor of jealousy--strangely enough not felt by him, but felt _for_ +him by his old privileged nurse. She could not inspire her own passions +into Francis, but she could point his scorn to the infirmities of his +rival. Francis had once reigned paramount in the vicarage as universal +pet. But he had been dethroned by Samuel, who now reigned in his stead. +Samuel felt no triumph at that revolution; Francis no anger. But the +nurse suffered the pangs of a baffled stepmother, and looked with +novercal eyes of hatred and disgust upon little Sam that had stolen away +the hearts of men and women from one that in _her_ eyes was a thousand +times his superior. In that last point nurse was not so entirely wrong, +but that nine-tenths of the world (and therefore, we fear, of our +dearly-beloved readers) would have gone along with her, on which account +it is that we have forborne to call her 'wicked old nurse.' Francis +Coleridge, her own peculiar darling, was memorable for his beauty. All +the brothers were handsome--'remarkably handsome,' says S. T. C., 'but +_they_,' he adds, 'were as inferior to Francis as _I_ am to _them_.'[11] + +Reading this and other descriptions of Frank Coleridge's beauty (in our +Indian army he was known as the _handsome Coleridge_), we are disposed +to cry out with Juliet, + + 'Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! + Dove-feathered raven!' + +when we find how very nearly his thoughtless violence had hurried poor +S. T. C. into an early death. The story is told circumstantially by +Coleridge himself in one of the letters to Mr. Poole; nor is there any +scene more picturesque than this hasty sketch in Brookes's 'Fool of +Quality.' We must premise that S. T. C. had asked his mother for a +particular indulgence requiring some dexterity to accomplish. The +difficulty, however, through _her_ cautious manipulations, had just been +surmounted, when Samuel left the room for a single instant, and found +upon his return that the beautiful Francis had confounded all Mama's +labours, and had defeated his own enjoyment. What followed is thus told +by Samuel nearly twenty years after: 'I returned, saw the exploit, and +flew at Frank. He pretended to have been seriously hurt by my blow, +flung himself upon the ground, and there lay with outstretched limbs.' +This is good comedy: the pugnacious Frank affecting to be an Abel, +killed by a blow from Cain such as doubtless would not have 'made a dint +in a pound of butter.' But wait a little. Samuel was a true penitent as +ever was turned off for fratricide at Newgate. 'I,' says the unhappy +murderer, 'hung over him mourning and in great fright;' but the murdered +Frank by accident came to life again. 'He leaped up, and with a hoarse +laugh gave me a severe blow in the face.' This was too much. To have +your grief flapped back in your face like a wet sheet is bad, but also +and at the same time to have your claret uncorked is unendurable. The +'Ancient Mariner,' then about seven years old, could not stand this. +'With _his_ cross-bow'--no, stop! what are we saying? Nothing better +than a kitchen knife was at hand--and 'this,' says Samuel, 'I seized, +and was running at him, when my mother came in and took me by the arm. I +expected a whipping, and, struggling from her, I ran away to a little +hill or slope, at the bottom of which the Otter flows, about a mile from +Ottery. There I stayed, my rage died away; but my obstinacy vanquished +my fears, and taking out a shilling book, which had at the end morning +and evening prayers, I very devoutly repeated them, thinking at the same +time with a gloomy inward satisfaction how miserable my mother must be. +I distinctly remember my feelings when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the +bridge at about a furlong's distance, and how I watched the calves in +the fields beyond the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was +towards the end of October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the +cold in my sleep, and dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, +and actually pulled over me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground +near me. In my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill till within +three yards of the river, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the +bottom. I awoke several times, and, finding myself wet and cold and +stiff, closed my eyes again that I might forget it. + +'In the meantime my mother waited about half an hour, expecting my +return when the _sulks_ had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into +the churchyard and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the +boys were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain. My mother was +almost distracted, and at ten o'clock at night I was cried by the crier +in Ottery and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No +one went to bed; indeed, I believe half the town were up all the night. +To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was +broad awake, and attempted to get up and walk, but I could not move. I +saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance and cried, but so faintly +that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might +have lain and died, for I was now almost given over, the ponds, and even +the river (near which I was lying), having been dragged. But +providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night, +resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me +crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when +we met my father and Sir Stafford's servants. I remember, and never +shall forget, my father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in the +servant's arms--so calm, and the tears stealing down his face, for I was +the child of his old age. My mother, as you may suppose, was outrageous +with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out, "_I hope you'll +whip him, Mrs. Coleridge_." This woman still lives at Ottery, and +neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the antipathy +which I feel towards her whenever I see her.' So says Samuel. We +ourselves have not yet seen this young lady, and now in 1849, +considering that it is about eighty years from the date of her +wickedness, it seems unlikely that we shall. But _our_ antipathy we +declare to be also, alas! quite unconquerable by the latest supplements +to the Transcendental philosophy that we have yet received from +Deutschland. Whip the Ancient Mariner, indeed! A likely thing _that_: +and at the very moment when he was coming off such a hard night's duty, +and supporting a character which a classical Roman has pronounced to be +a spectacle for Olympus--viz., that of '_Puer bonus cum malā-fortunā +compositus_' (a virtuous boy matched in duel with adversity)! The sequel +of the adventure is thus reported: 'I was put to bed, and recovered in a +day or so. But I was certainly injured; for I was weakly and subject to +ague for many years after.' Yes; and to a worse thing than ague, as not +so certainly to be cured, viz., rheumatism. More than twenty years after +this cold night's rest, _ą la belle étoile_, we can vouch that Coleridge +found himself obliged to return suddenly from a tour amongst the +Scottish Highlands solely in consequence of that painful rheumatic +affection, which was perhaps traceable to this childish misadventure. +Alas! Francis the beautiful scamp, that caused the misadventure, and +probably the bad young lady that prescribed whipping as the orthodox +medicine for curing it, and the poor Ancient Mariner himself--that had +to fight his way through such enemies at the price of ague, rheumatism, +and tears uncounted--are all asleep at present, but in graves how widely +divided! One near London; one near Seringapatam; and the young lady, we +suppose, in Ottery churchyard, but her offence, though beyond the power +of Philosophy to pardon, is not remembered, we trust, in her epitaph! + +We are sorry that S. T. C. having been so much of a darling with his +father, and considering that he looked back to the brief connection +between them as solemnized by its pathetic termination, had not reported +some parts of their graver intercourse. One such fragment he does +report; it is an elementary lesson upon astronomy, which his father gave +him in the course of a walk upon a starry night. This is in keeping with +the grandeur and responsibility of the paternal relation. But really, in +the only other example (which immediately occurs) of Papa's attempt to +bias the filial intellect, we recognise nothing but what is mystical; +and involuntarily we think of him in the modern slang character of +'governor,' rather than as a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' It seems +that one Saturday, about the time when the Rev. Walker in Furness must +have been sitting down to his _exegesis_ of hard sayings in the _Town +and Country Magazine_, the Rev. Coleridge thought fit to reward S. T. C. +for the most singular act of virtue that we have ever heard imputed to +man or boy--to 'saint, to savage, or to sage'--viz., the act of eating +beans and bacon to a large amount. The stress must be laid on the word +_large_; because simply to masticate beans and bacon, we do not +recollect to have been regarded with special esteem by the learned +vicar; it was the liberal consumption of them that entitled Samuel to +reward. That reward was one penny, so that in degree of merit, after +all, the service may not have ranked high. But what perplexes us is the +_kind_ of merit. Did it bear some mystical or symbolic sense? Was it +held to argue a spirit of general rebellion against Philosophy, that S. +T. C. should so early in life, by one and the same act, proclaim +mutinous disposition towards two of the most memorable amongst earth's +philosophers--Moses and Pythagoras; of whom the latter had set his face +against beans, laying it down for his opinion that to eat beans and to +cut one's father's throat were acts of about equal atrocity; whilst the +other, who tolerated the beans, had expressly forbidden the bacon? We +are really embarrassed; finding the mere fact recorded with no further +declaration of the rev. governor's reasons, than that such an +'attachment' (an _attachment_ to beans and bacon!) 'ought to be +encouraged'; but upon what principle we no more understand than we do +the principle of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case. + +The letters in which these early memorabilia of Coleridge's life are +reported did not proceed beyond the fifth. We regret this greatly, for +they would have become instructively interesting as they came more and +more upon the higher ground of his London experience in a mighty world +of seven hundred boys--insulated in a sort of monastic but troubled +seclusion amongst the billowy world of London; a seclusion that in +itself was a wilderness to a home-sick child, but yet looking verdant as +an oasis amongst that other wilderness of the illimitable metropolis. + +It is good to be mamma's darling; but not, reader, if you are to leave +mamma's arms for a vast public school in childhood. It is good to be the +darling of a kind, pious, and learned father--but not if that father is +to be torn away from you for ever by a death without a moment's warning, +whilst as yet you yourself are but nine years old, and he has not +bestowed a thought on your future establishment in life. Upon poor S. T. +C. the Benjamin of his family, descended first a golden dawn within the +Paradise of his father's and his mother's smiles--descended secondly and +suddenly an overcasting hurricane of separation from both father and +mother for ever. How dreadful, if audibly declared, this sentence to a +poor nerve-shattered child: Behold! thou art commanded, before thy first +decennium is completed, to see father and mother no more, and to throw +thyself into the wilderness of London. Yet _that_ was the destiny of +Coleridge. At nine years old he was precipitated into the stormy arena +of Christ's Hospital. Amongst seven hundred boys he was to fight his way +to distinction; and with no other advantages of favour or tenderness +than would have belonged to the son of a footman. Sublime are these +democratic institutions rising upon the bosom of aristocratic England. +Great is the people amongst whom the foundations of kings _can_ assume +this popular character. But yet amidst the grandeur of a national +triumph is heard, at intervals, the moaning of individuals; and from +many a grave in London rises from time to time, in arches of sorrow +audible to God, the lamentation of many a child seeking to throw itself +round for comfort into some distant grave of the provinces, where rest +the ear and the heart of its mother. + +Concerning this chapter of Coleridge's childhood, we have therefore at +present no vestige of any record beyond the exquisite sketches of his +schoolfellow, Charles Lamb. The five letters, however, though going over +so narrow a space, go far enough to throw a pathetic light upon +Coleridge's frailties of temperament. They indicate the sort of nervous +agitation arising from contradictory impulses, from love too tender, and +scorn too fretful, by which already in childish days the inner peace had +been broken up, and the nervous system shattered. This revelation, +though so unpretending and simple in manner, of the drama substantially +so fearful, that was constantly proceeding in a quiet and religious +parsonage--the bare possibility that sufferings so durable in their +effects should be sweeping with their eternal storms a heart so +capacious and so passively unresisting--are calculated to startle and to +oppress us with the sense of a fate long prepared, vested in the very +seeds of constitution and character; temperament and the effects of +early experience combining to thwart all the morning promise of +greatness and splendour; the flower unfolding its silken leaves only to +suffer canker and blight; and to hang withering on the stalk, with only +enough of grace and colour left to tell pathetically to all that looked +upon it what it might have been. + + +EDITOR'S NOTE TO THIS ESSAY. + +Certainly this idea of De Quincey about the misfortune to Coleridge of +the early loss of his father, separation from his mother, and removal +from Devon to London, is fully borne out by the more personal utterances +to be found in Coleridge's poems. Looking through them with this idea in +view, we are surprised at the deposit left in them by this conscious +experience on Coleridge's part. Not to dwell at all on what might be +very legitimately regarded as _indirect_ expressions of the sentiment, +we shall present here, in order to add emphasis to De Quincey's +position, some of the extracts which have most impressed us. From the +poem in the Early Poems 'To an Infant,' are these lines: + + 'Man's breathing miniature! thou mak'st me sigh-- + A babe art thou--and such a thing am I, + To anger rapid and as soon appeased, + For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased, + Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow, + Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow.' + +Still more emphatic is this passage from the poem, 'Frost at Midnight': + + 'My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart + With tender gladness thus to look at thee, + And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, + And in far other scenes! For I was reared + In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, + And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. + But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze + By lakes and sandy shores beneath the crags + Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, + Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores + And mountain crags; so shalt thou see and hear + The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible + Of that eternal language, which thy God + Utters, who from eternity doth teach + Himself in all and all things in Himself. + Great Universal Teacher! he shall mould + Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.' + +In another place, when speaking of the love of mother for child and that +of child for mother, awakened into life by the very impress of that love +in voice and touch, he concludes with the line: + + 'Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?' + +And, most significant of all, is that Dedication in 1803 of his Early +Poems to his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge of Ottery St. Mary, when +he writes, after having dwelt on the bliss this brother had enjoyed in +never having been really removed from the place of his early nurture: + + 'To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed + A different fortune, and more different mind-- + Me, from the spot where first I sprang to light + Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed + Its first domestic loves; and hence, through life + Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while + Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills, + But like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, + If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze + Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once + Dropped the collected shower: and some most false, + False and fair-foliaged as the manchineel, + Have tempted me to slumber in their shade + E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps + Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, + That I woke poisoned! But (all praise to Him + Who gives us all things) more have yielded me + Permanent shelter: and beside one friend, + Beneath the impervious covert of one oak + I've raised a lowly shed and know the name + Of husband and of father; not unhearing + Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, + Which from my childhood to maturer years + Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, + Bright with no fading colours! + Yet, at times, + My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life + Still most a stranger, most with naked heart, + At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then + When I remember thee, my earliest friend! + Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth; + Did'st trace my wanderings with a father's eye; + And, boding evil yet still hoping good, + Rebuked each fault and over all my woes + Sorrowed in silence!' + +And certainly all this only gains emphasis from the entry we have in the +'Table Talk' under date August 16, 1832, and under the heading, +'Christ's Hospital, Bowyer': + +'The discipline of Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan; all +domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Bowyer saying to +me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays. +"Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! +the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is +your first cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no +more crying!"' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Really now I can't say that. No; I couldn't have stood Cruger's +arguments. 'Ditto to Mr. Burke' is certainly not a very brilliant +observation, but still it's supportable, whereas I must have found the +pains of contradiction insupportable. + +[2] This sublimest of all Greek poets did really die, as some +biographers allege, by so extraordinary and, as one may say, so +insulting a mistake on the part of an eagle. + +[3] _Frankistan._--There is no word, but perhaps Frankistan might come +nearest to such a word, for expressing the territory of Christendom +taken jointly with that of those Mahometan nations which have for a long +period been connected with Christians in their hostilities, whether of +arms or of policy. The Arabs and the Moors belong to these nations, for +the circle of their political system has always been made up in part by +a segment from Christendom, their relations of war being still more +involved with such a segment. + +[4] 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act I., Sc. 4. Mrs. Quickly: '... An +honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house +withal; and I warrant you no tell-tale, nor no breed-hate; his worst +fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; +but nobody but has his fault--but let that pass.'--ED. + +[5] '_Pun them into shivers_': Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. 1. We +refer specially to the jolly boatswain, having already noticed the fact, +that sailors as a class, from retaining more of the simplicity and quick +susceptibility belonging to childhood, are unusually fond of waxen +exhibitions. Too much worldly experience indisposes men to the +playfulness and to the _toyfulness_ (if we may invent that word) of +childhood, not less through the ungenial churlishness which it gradually +deposits, than through the expansion of understanding which it promotes. + +[6] '_Science not always fathomable._' Several distinguished Frenchmen +have pursued a course of investigations into these fenestral phenomena, +which one might call the _Fata Morgana of Frost_; and, amongst these +investigators, some--not content with watching, observing, +recording--have experimented on these floral prolusions of nature by +arranging beforehand the circumstances and conditions into which and +under which the Frost Fairy should be allowed to play. But what was the +result? Did they catch the Fairy? Did they chase her into her secret +cells and workshops? Did they throw over the freedom of her motions a +harness of net-work of coercion as the Pagans over their pitiful +Proteus? So far from it, that the more they studied the less they +understood; and all the traps which they laid for the Fairy, did but +multiply her evasions. + +[7] The passage occurs at p. 354, vol. ii. of the _Lectures_; and we now +find, on looking to the place, that the illustration is drawn from 'a +dell of lazy Sicily.' The same remark has virtually been anticipated at +p. 181 of the same volume in the rule about 'converting mere +abstractions into persons.' + +[8] It is true that Mr. De Quincey _did_ make the mistake of supposing +Coleridge to have 'calculated on' a remark which Mrs. Coleridge justly +characterises as a blind one. It _was_ blind as compared with the fact +resulting from grounds not then known; else it was _not_ blind as a +reasonable inference under the same circumstances. + +[9] If for the words 'more than fifteen years' we say sixteen or +seventeen, as Coleridge died in 1834, this article would be written in +1850 or 1851.--ED. + +[10] 'The Saintly Herbert,' the brother, oddly enough, of the brilliant +but infidel Lord Herbert of Cherbury; which lord was a versatile man of +talent, but not a man of genius like the humble rustic--his unpretending +brother. + +[11] In saying this, Coleridge unduly disparaged his own personal +advantages. In youth, and before sorrow and the labour of thought had +changed him, he must have been of very engaging appearance. The _godlike +forehead_, which afterwards was ascribed to him, could not have been +wanting at any age. That exquisite passage in Wordsworth's description +of him, + + 'And a pale face, that seem'd undoubtedly + As if a blooming face it ought to be,' + +had its justification in those early days. If to be blooming was the +natural tendency and right of his face, blooming it then was, as we have +been assured by different women of education and taste, who saw him at +twenty-four in Bristol and Clifton. Two of these were friends of Hannah +More, and had seen all the world. They could judge: that is, they could +judge in conformity to the highest standards of taste; and both said, +with some enthusiasm, that he was a most attractive young man; one +adding, with a smile at the old pastoral name, 'Oh, yes, he was a +perfect Strephon.' Light he was in those days and agile as a feathered +Mercury; whereas he afterwards grew heavy and at times bloated; and at +that gay period of life his animal spirits ran up _naturally_ to the +highest point on the scale; whereas in later life, when most +tempestuous, they seemed most artificial. That this, which was the +ardent testimony of females, was also the true one, might have been +gathered from the appearance of his children. Berkeley died an infant, +and him only we never saw. The sole daughter of Coleridge, as she +inherited so much of her father's intellectual power, inherited also the +diviner part of his features. The upper part of her face, at seventeen, +when last we saw her, seemed to us angelic, and pathetically angelic; +for the whole countenance was suffused by a pensive nun-like beauty too +charming and too affecting ever to be forgotten. Derwent, the youngest +son, we have not seen since boyhood, but at that period he had a +handsome cast of features, and (from all we can gather) the +representative cast of the Coleridge family. But Hartley, the eldest +son, how shall we describe _him_? He was most intellectual and he was +most eccentric, and his features expressed all that in perfection. +Southey, in his domestic playfulness, used to call him the _Knave of +Spades_; and he certainly _had_ a resemblance to that well-known young +gentleman. But really we do not know that it would have been at all +better to resemble the knave of hearts. And it must be remembered that +the knave of spades may have a brother very like himself, and yet a +hundred times handsomer. There _are_ such things as handsome likenesses +of very plain people. Some folks pronounced Hartley Coleridge too +Jewish. But to be a Jew is to be an Arab. And our own feeling was, when +we met Hartley at times in solitary or desolate places of Westmoreland +and Cumberland, that here was a son of Ishmael walking in the wilderness +of Edom. The coruscating _nimbus_ of his curling and profuse black hair, +black as erebus, strengthened the Saracen impression of his features and +complexion. He wanted only a turban on his head, and a spear in his +right hand, to be perfect as a Bedouin. But it affected us as all things +are affecting which record great changes, to hear that for a long time +before his death this black hair had become white as the hair of +infancy. Much sorrow and much thought had been the worms that gnawed the +roots of that raven hair; that, in Wordsworth's fine way of expressing +the very same fact as to Mary Queen of Scots: + + 'Kill'd the bloom before its time, + And blanch'd, without the owner's crime, + The most resplendent hair.' + +Ah, wrecks of once blooming nurseries, that from generation to +generation, from John Coleridge the apostolic to S. T. C. the sunbright, +and from S. T. C. the sunbright to Hartley the starry, lie scattered +upon every shore! + + + + +_II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE._ + + +In attempting to appraise Mr. Finlay's work comprehensively, there is +this difficulty. It comes before us in two characters; first, as a +philosophic speculation upon history, to be valued against others +speculating on other histories; secondly, as a guide, practical +altogether and not speculative, to students who are navigating that +great trackless ocean the _Eastern_ Roman history. Now under either +shape, this work traverses so much ground, that by mere multiplicity of +details it denies to us the opportunity of reporting on its merits with +that simplicity of judgment which would have been available in a case of +severer unity. So many separate situations of history, so many critical +continuations of political circumstances, sweep across the field of Mr. +Finlay's telescope whilst sweeping the heavens of four centuries, that +it is naturally impossible to effect any comprehensive abstractions, as +to principles, from cases individual by their nature and separated by +their period not less than by their relations in respect to things and +persons. The mere necessity of the plan in such a work ensures a certain +amount of dissent on the part of every reader; he that most frequently +goes along with the author in his commentary, will repeatedly find +himself diverging from it in one point or demurring to its inferences in +another. Such, in fact, is the eternal disadvantage for an author upon +a subject which recalls the remark of Juvenal: + + 'Vester porro labor fecundior, historiarum + Scriptores: petit hic plus temporis, atque olei plus: + Sic _ingens rerum numerus_ jubet, atque operum lex.' + +It is this _ingens rerum numerus_ that constitutes at once the +attraction of these volumes, and the difficulty of dealing with them in +any adequate or satisfactory manner. + +Indeed, the vistas opened up by Mr. Finlay are infinite; in _that_ sense +it is that he ascribes inexhaustibility to the trackless savannahs of +history. These vast hunting-grounds for the imaginative understanding +are in fact but charts and surveyors' outlines meagre and arid for the +timid or uninspired student. To a grander intellect these historical +delineations are not maps but pictures: they compose a forest +wilderness, veined and threaded by sylvan lawns, 'dark with horrid +shades,' like Milton's haunted desert in the 'Paradise Regained,' at +many a point looking back to the towers of vanishing Jerusalem, and like +Milton's desert, crossed dimly at uncertain intervals by forms doubtful +and (considering the character of such awful deserts) suspicious. + +Perhaps the reader, being rather 'dense,' does not understand, but we +understand ourselves, which is the root of the matter. Let us try again: +these historical delineations are not lifeless facts, bearing no sense +or moral value, but living realities organized into the unity of some +great constructive idea. + +Perhaps we are obscure; and possibly (though it is treason in a writer +to hint such a thing, as tending to produce hatred or disaffection +towards his liege lord who is and must be his reader), yet, perhaps, +even the reader--that great character--may be 'dense.' 'Dense' is the +word used by young ladies to indicate a slight shade--a _soupēon_--of +stupidity; and by the way it stands in close relationship of sound to +_Duns_, the schoolman, who (it is well known) shared with King Solomon +the glory of furnishing a designation for men weak in the upper +quarters. But, reader, whether the fault be in you or in ourselves, +certain it is that the truth which we wish to communicate is not +trivial; it is the noblest and most creative of truths, if only we are +not a Duns Scholasticus for explanation, nor you (most excellent +reader!) altogether a Solomon for apprehension. Therefore, again lend us +your ears. + +It is not, it has not been, perhaps it never will be, understood--how +vast a thing is combination. We remember that Euler, and some other +profound Prussians, such as Lambert, etc., tax this word _combination_ +with a fault: for, say they, it indicates that composition of things +which proceeds two by two (viz., com-_bina_); whereas three by three, +ten by ten, fifty by fifty, is combination. It is so. But, once for all, +language is so difficult a structure, being like a mail-coach and four +horses required to turn round Lackington's counter[12]--required in one +syllable to do what oftentimes would require a sentence--that it must +use the artifices of a short-hand. The word _bini-ę-a_ is here but an +exponential or representative word: it stands for any number, for +_number_ in short generally as opposed to unity. And the secret truth +which some years ago we suggested, but which doubtless perished as +pearls to swine, is, that com_bina_tion, or com_terna_tion, or +com_quaterna_tion, or com_dena_tion, possesses a mysterious virtue quite +unobserved by men. All knowledge is probably within its keeping. What we +mean is, that where A is not capable simply of revealing a truth +(_i.e._, by way of direct inference), very possible it is that A viewed +by the light of B (_i.e._, in some mode of combination with B) shall be +capable; but again, if A + B cannot unlock the case, these in +combination with C shall do so. And if not A + B + C, then, perhaps, +shall A + B + C combined with D; and so on _ad infinitum_; or in other +words that pairs, or binaries, ternaries, quaternaries, and in that mode +of progression will furnish keys intricate enough to meet and to +decipher the wards of any lock in nature. + +Now, in studying history, the difficulty is about the delicacy of the +lock, and the mode of applying the key. We doubt not that many readers +will view all this as false refinement. But hardly, if they had much +considered the real experimental cases in history. For instance, suppose +the condition of a people known as respects (1) civilization, as +respects (2) relation to the sovereign, (3) the prevailing mode of its +industry, (4) its special circumstances as to taxation, (5) its physical +conformation and temperament, (6) its local circumstances as to +neighbours warlike or not warlike, (7) the quality and depth of its +religion, (8) the framework of its jurisprudence, (9) the machinery by +which these laws are made to act, (10) the proportion of its towns to +its rural labour, and the particular action of its police; these and +many other items, elements, or secondary features of a people being +known, it yet remains unknown which of these leads, which is inert, and +of those which are not inert in what order they arrange their action. +The _principium movendi_, the central force which organizes and assigns +its place in the system to all the other forces, these are quite +undetermined by any mere arithmetical recitation of the agencies +concerned. Often these primary principles can be deduced only +tentatively, or by a regress to the steps, historically speaking, +through which they have arisen. Sometimes, for instance, the population, +as to its principle of expansion, and as to its rate, together with the +particular influence socially of the female sex, exercises the most +prodigious influence on the fortunes of a nation, and its movement +backwards or forwards. Sometimes again as in Greece (from the oriental +seclusion of women) these causes limit their own action, until they +become little more than names. + +In such a case it is essential that the leading outlines at least should +be definite; that the coast line and the capes and bays should be +well-marked and clear, whatever may become of the inland waters, and the +separate heights in a continuous chain of mountains. + +But we are not always sure that we understand Mr. Finlay, even in the +particular use which he makes of the words 'Greece' and 'Grecian.' +Sometimes he means beyond a doubt the people of Hellas and the Ęgean +islands, as _opposed_ to the mixed population of Constantinople. +Sometimes he means the Grecian element as opposed to the Roman element +_in_ the composition of this mixed Byzantine population. In this case +the Greek does not mean (as in the former case) the non-Byzantine, but +the Byzantine. Sometimes he means by preference that vast and most +diffusive race which throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, the Euxine and +the Euphrates, represented the Gręco-Macedonian blood from the time of +Alexander downwards. But why should we limit the case to an origin from +this great Alexandrian ęra? Then doubtless (330 B.C.) it received a +prodigious expansion. But already, in the time of Herodotus (450 B.C.), +this Grecian race had begun to sow itself broadcast over Asia and +Africa. The region called _Cyrenaica_ (viz., the first region which you +would traverse in passing from the banks of the Nile and the Pyramids to +Carthage and to Mount Atlas, _i.e._, Tunis, Algiers, Fez and Morocco, or +what we now call the Barbary States) had been occupied by Grecians +nearly seven hundred years before Christ. In the time of Croesus (say +560 B.C.) it is clear that Grecians were swarming over Lydia and the +whole accessible part of Asia Minor. In the time of Cyrus the younger +(say 404 B.C.) his Grecian allies found their fiercest opponents in +Grecian soldiers of Artaxerxes. In the time of Alexander, just a +septuagint of years from the epoch of this unfortunate Cyrus, the most +considerable troops of Darius were Greeks. The truth is, that, though +Greece was at no time very populous, the prosperity of so many little +republics led to as ample a redundancy of Grecian population as was +compatible with Grecian habits of life; for, deceive not yourself, the +_harem_, what we are accustomed to think of as a Mahometan institution, +existed more or less perfectly in Greece by seventeen centuries at least +antecedently to Mahometanism. Already before Homer, before Troy, before +the Argonauts, woman was an abject, dependent chattel in Greece, and +living in nun-like seclusion. There is so much of _intellectual_ +resemblance between Greece and Rome, shown in the two literatures, the +two religions, and the structure of the two languages, that we are apt +to overlook radical repulsion between their _moral_ systems. But such a +repulsion did exist, and the results of its existence are 'writ large' +in the records, if they are studied with philosophic closeness and +insight, and could be illustrated in many ways had we only time and +space for such an exercise. But we must hurry on to remark that Mr. +Finlay's indefiniteness in the use of the terms 'Greece' and 'Grecian' +is almost equalled by his looseness in dealing with institutions and the +principles which determined their character. He dwells meditatively upon +that tenacity of life which he finds to characterize them--a tenacity +very much dependent upon physical[13] circumstances, and in that respect +so memorably inferior to the social economy of Jewish existence, that +we have been led to dwell with some interest upon the following +distinctions as applicable to the political existence of all nations who +are in any degree civilized. It seems to us that three forces, amongst +those which influence the movement of nations, are practically +paramount; viz., first, the _legislation_ of a people; secondly, the +_government_ of a people; thirdly, the _administration_ of a people. By +the quality of its legislation a people is moulded to this or that +character; by the quality of its government a people is applied to this +or that great purpose; by the quality of its administration a people is +made disposable readily and instantly and completely for every purpose +lying within the field of public objects. _Legislation_ it is which +shapes or qualifies a people, endowing them with such qualities as are +more or less fitted for the ends likely to be pursued by a national +policy, and for the ends suggested by local relations when combined with +the new aspects of the times. _Government_ it is which turns these +qualifications to account, guiding them upon the new line of tendencies +opening spontaneously ahead, or (as sometimes we see) upon new +tendencies created deliberately and by forethought. But _administration_ +it is which organizes between the capacities of the people on the one +hand, and the enlightened wishes of the government on the other--that +intermediate _nexus_ of social machinery without which both the amplest +powers in a nation and the noblest policy in a government must equally +and continually fall to the ground. A general system of instruments, or +if we may use the word, system of instrumentation and concerted +arrangements--behold the one sole _conditio sine qua non_ for giving a +voice to the national interests, for giving a ratification to the +national will, for giving mobility to the national resources. Amongst +these three categories which we have here assigned as summing up the +relations of the public will in great nations to the total system of +national results, this last category of _administration_ is that which +(beyond the rest) postulates and presupposes vast developments of +civilization. Instincts of nature, under favourable circumstances, as +where the national mind is bold, the temper noble, veracity adorning the +speech, and simplicity the manners, may create and _have_ created good +elementary laws; whilst it is certain that, where any popular freedom +exists, the government must resemble and reflect the people. Hence it +cannot be denied that, even in semi-barbarous times, good legislation +and good government may arise. But good administration is not +conceivable without the aids of high civilization. How often have piracy +by sea, systematic robbery by land, tainted as with a curse the +blessings of life and property in great nations! Witness the state of +the Mediterranean under the Cilicians during the very sunset of Marius; +or, again, of the Caribbean seas, in spite of a vast Spanish empire, of +Buccaneers and Filibusters. Witness Bagandę in Roman Spain, or the cloud +of robbers gathering in France through twelve centuries after _every_ +period of war; witness the scourges of public peace in Italy, were it in +papal Rome or amongst the Fra Diavolos of Naples. + +We believe that, so far from possessing any stronger principle of +vitality than the Roman institutions, those of Greece Proper (meaning +those originally and authentically Greek) had any separate advantage +only when applied locally. They were essentially _enchorial_ +institutions, and even _physically_ local (_i.e._, requiring the same +place as well as the same people); just as the ordinances of Mahomet +betray his unconscious frailty and ignorance by presuming and +postulating a Southern climate as well as an Oriental temperament. The +Greek usages and traditionary monuments of civilization had adapted +themselves from the first to the singular physical conformation of +Hellas--as a 'nook-shotten'[14] land, nautically accessible and laid +down in seas that were studded with islands systematically adjusted to +the continental circumstances, whilst internally her mountainous +structure had split up almost the whole of her territory into separate +chambers or wards, predetermining from the first that galaxy of little +republics into which her splintered community threw itself by means of +the strong mutual repulsion derived originally from battlements of +hills, and, secondarily, from the existing state of the military art. +Having these advantages to begin with, reposing upon these foundations, +the Greek civil organization sustained itself undoubtedly through an +astonishing tract of time; before the ship _Argo_ it had commenced; +under the Ottoman Turks it still survived: for even in the Trojan ęra, +and in the pre-Trojan or Argonautic ęra, already (and perhaps for many +centuries before) the nominal kingdoms were virtually republics, the +princes being evidently limited in their authority by the 'sensus +communis' of the body politic almost as much as the Kings of Sparta were +from the time of Lycurgus to the extinction of the Peloponnesian +independence. + +Accidents, therefore, although accidents of a permanent order (being +founded in external nature), gave to Greece a very peculiar advantage. +On her own dunghill her own usages had a tenacity of life such as is +seen in certain weeds (couch-grass, for instance). This natural +advantage, by means of intense local adaptation, did certainly prove +available for Greece, under the circumstances of a hostile invasion. +Even had the Persian invasion succeeded, it is possible that Grecian +civilization would still have survived the conquest, and would have +predominated, as actually it did in Ionia, etc. + +So far our views seem to flow in the channel of Mr. Finlay's. But these +three considerations occur: + +1st. That oftentimes Greece escaped the ravages of barbarians, not so +much by any quality of her civil institutions, whether better or worse, +as by her geographical position. It is 'a far cry to Loch Awe'; and had +Timon of Athens together with Apemantus clubbed their misanthropies, +joint and several, there would hardly have arisen an impetus strong +enough to carry an enemy all the way from the Danube to the Ilyssus; yet +so far, at least, every European enemy of Thebes and Athens had to +march. Nay, unless Monsieur le Sauvage happened to possess the mouths of +the Danube, so as to float down 'by the turn of tide' through the +Euxine, Bosphorus, Propontis, Hellespont, etc., he would think twice +before he would set off a-gallivanting to the regions of the South, +where certainly much sunshine was to be had of undeniable quality, but +not much of anything else. The Greeks were never absolute paupers, +because, however slender their means, their social usages never led to +any Irish expansion of population; but under no circumstances of +government were they or could they have been rich. Plunder therefore, +that could be worth packing and cording, there was little or none in +Greece. People do not march seven hundred miles to steal old curious +bedsteads, swarming, besides, with fleas. Sculptured plate was the +thing. And, from the times of Sylla, _that_ had a strange gravitation +towards Rome. It is, besides, worth noticing--as a general rule in the +science of robbery--that it makes all the difference in the world which +end of a cone is presented to the robber. Beginning at the apex of a +sugar-loaf, and required to move rapidly onwards to the broad basis +where first he is to halt and seek his booty, the robber locust advances +with hope and cheerfulness. Invert this order, and from the vast base of +the Danube send him on to the promontory of Sunium--a tract perpetually +dwindling in its breadth through 500 miles--and his reversion of booty +grows less valuable at every step. Yet even this feature was not the +most comfortless in the case. That the zone of pillage should narrow +with every step taken towards its proper ground, this surely was a bad +look-out. But it was a worse, that even this poor vintage lay hid and +sheltered under the Ęgis of the empire. The whole breadth of the empire +on that side of the Mediterranean was to be traversed before one cluster +of grapes could be plucked from Greece; whereas, upon all the horns of +the Western Empire, plunder commenced from the moment of crossing the +frontier. Here, therefore, lies one objection to the supposed excellence +of Grecian institutions: they are valued, upon Mr. Finlay's scale, by +their quality of elastic rebound from violence and wrong; but, in order +that this quality might be truly tested, they ought to have been equally +and fairly tried: now, by comparison with the Western provinces, that +was a condition not capable of being realized for Greece, having the +position which she had. + +2ndly. The reader will remark that the argument just used is but +negative: it does not positively combat the superiority claimed for the +Greek organization; that superiority may be all that it is described to +be; but it is submitted that perhaps the manifestation of this advantage +was not made on a sufficient breadth of experiment. + +Now let us consider this. Upon the analogy of any possible precedent, +under which Rome could be said to have taken seven centuries in +unfolding her power, our Britain has taken almost fourteen. So long is +the space between the first germination of Anglo-Saxon institutions and +the present expansion of British power over the vast regions of +Hindostan. Most true it is that a very small section of this time and a +very small section of British energies has been applied separately to +the Indian Empire. But precisely the same distinction holds good in the +Roman case. The total expansion of Rome travelled, perhaps, through +eight centuries; but five of these spent themselves upon the mere +_domestic_ growth of Rome; during five she did not so much as attempt +any foreign appropriation. And in the latter three, during which she +did, we must figure to ourselves the separate ramifications of her +influence as each involving a very short cycle indeed of effort or +attention, though collectively involving a long space, separately as +involving a very brief one. If the eye is applied to each conquest +itself, nothing can exhibit less of a slow or gradual expansion than the +Roman system of conquest. It was a shadow which moved so rapidly on the +dial as to be visible and alarming. Had newspapers existed in those +days, or had such a sympathy bound nations together[15] as could have +supported newspapers, a vast league would have been roused by the +advance of Rome. Such a league _was_ formed where something of this +sympathy existed. The kingdoms formed out of the inheritance of +Alexander being in a sense Grecian kingdoms--Grecian in their language, +Grecian by their princes, Grecian by their armies (in their privileged +sections)--_did_ become alarming to the Greeks. And what followed? The +Achęan league, which, in fact, produced the last heroes of +Greece--Aratus, Philopoemen, Cleomenes. But as to Rome, she was too +obscure, too little advertised as a danger, to be separately observed. +But, partly, this arose from her rapidity. Macedonia was taken +separately from Greece. Sicily, which was the advanced port of Greece to +the West, had early fallen as a sort of appanage to the Punic struggle. +And all the rest followed by insensible degrees. In Syria, and again in +Pontus, and in Macedonia, three great kingdoms which to Greece seemed +related rather as enemies than as friends, and which therefore roused no +spirit of resistance in Greece, through Rome had already withdrawn all +the contingent proper from Greece. Had these powers concerted with Egypt +and with Greece a powerful league, Rome would have been thrown back +upon her Western chambers. + +The reason why the Piratic power arose, we suppose to have been this, +and also the reason why such a power was not viewed as extra-national. +The nautical profession as such flowed in a channel altogether distinct +from the martial profession. It was altogether and exclusively +commercial in its general process. Only, upon peculiar occasions arose a +necessity for a nautical power as amongst the resources of empire. +Carthage reared upon the basis of her navy, as had done Athens, Rhodes, +Tyre, some part of her power: and Rome put forth so much of this power +as sufficed to meet Carthage. But that done, we find no separate +ambition growing up in Rome and directing itself to naval war. +Accidentally, when the war arose between Cęsar and Pompey, it became +evident that for rapidly transferring armies and for feeding these +armies, a navy would be necessary. And Cicero, but for _this crisis_, +and not as a _general_ remark, said--that 'necesse est qui mare tenuit +rerum potiri.' + +Hence it happened--that as no permanent establishment could arise where +no permanent antagonist could be supposed to exist--oftentimes, and +indeed always, unless when some new crisis arose, the Roman navy went +down. In one of these intervals arose the Cilician piracy. Mr. Finlay +suggests that in part it arose out of the fragments from Alexander's +kingdoms, recombining: partly out of the Isaurian land pirates already +established, and furnished with such astonishing natural fortresses as +existed nowhere else if we except those aėrial caves--a sort of mountain +nests on the side of declivities, which Josephus describes as harbouring +Idumean enemies of Herod the Great, against whom he was obliged to +fight by taking down warriors in complete panoply ensconced in baskets +suspended by chains; and partly arising on the temptation of rich +booties in the commerce of the Levant, or of rich temples on shore +amidst unwarlike populations. These elements of a warlike form were +required as the means of piracy, these fortresses and Isaurian caves as +the resources of piracy, these notorious cargoes or temples stored with +wealth as temptations to piracy, before a public nuisance could arise +demanding a public chastisement. And yet, because this piracy had a +local settlement and nursery, it seemed hardly consonant to the spirit +of public (or international) law, that all civil rights should be denied +them. + +Not without reason, not without a profound purpose, did Providence +ordain that our two great precedents upon earth should be Greece and +Rome. In all planets, if you could look into them, doubt not (oh, reader +of ours!) that something exists answering to Greece and Rome. Odd it +would be--_curioes_! as the Germans say--if in Jupiter--or Venus--those +precedents should exist under the same _names_ of Greece and Rome. Yet, +why not? Jovial--and Venereal--people may be better in some things than +our people (which, however, we doubt), but certainly a better language +than the Greek man cannot have invented in either planet. Falling back +from cases so low and so lofty (Venus an inferior, Jupiter a far +superior planet) to our own case, the case of poor mediocre Tellurians, +perhaps the reader thinks that other nations might have served the +purpose of Providentia. Other nations might have furnished those +Providential models which the great drama of earth required. No. +Haughtily and despotically we say it--No. Take France. _There_ is a +noble nation. We honour it exceedingly for that heroic courage which on +a morning of battle does not measure the strength of the opposition; +which, when an enemy issues from the darkness of a wood, does not stop +to count noses, but like that noblest of animals, the British bull-dog, +flies at his throat, careless whether a leopard, a buffalo, or a tiger +of Bengal. This we vehemently admire. This we feel to be an echo, an +iteration, of our own leonine courage, concerning which--take you note +of this, oh, chicken-hearted man! (if any such is amongst _our_ +readers)--that God sees it with pleasure, blesses it, and calls it 'very +good!' Next, when we come to think at odd times of that other courage, +the courage of fidelity, which stands for hours under the storm of a +cannonade--British courage, Russian courage--in mere sincerity we cannot +ascribe this to the Gaul. All this is true: we feel that the French is +an imperfect nation. But suppose it _not_ imperfect, would the French +therefore have fulfilled for us the mission of the Greek and the Roman? +Undoubtedly they would not. Far enough are we from admiring either Greek +or Roman in that degree to which the ignorance, but oftener the +hypocrisy, of man has ascended. + +We, reader, are misanthropical--intensely so. No luxury known amongst +men--neither the paws of bears nor the tails of sheep--to us is so sweet +and dear as that of hating (yet much oftener of despising) our excellent +fellow-creatures. Oftentimes we exclaim in our dreams, where excuse us +for expressing our multitude by unity, 'Homo sum; humani nihil mihi +tolerandum puto.' We kick backwards at the human race, we spit upon +them; we void our rheum upon their ugly gaberdines. Consequently we do +not love either Greek or Roman; we regard them in some measure as +humbugs. But although it is no cue of ours to admire them (viz., in any +English sense of that word known to Entick's Dictionary), yet in a +Grecian or Roman sense we may say that [Greek: thaumazomen], +_admiramur_, both of these nations: we marvel, we wonder at them +exceedingly. Greece we shall omit, because to talk of the arts, and +Phidias, and Pericles, and '_all that_,' is the surest way yet +discovered by man for tempting a vindictive succession of kicks. Exposed +to the world, no author of such twaddle could long evade assassination. +But Rome is entitled to some separate notice, even after all that has +been written about her. And the more so in this case, because Mr. Finlay +has scarcely done her justice. He says: 'The Romans were a tribe of +warriors. All their institutions, even those relating to property, were +formed with reference to war.' And he then goes on to this invidious +theory of their history--that, as warriors, they overthrew the local +institutions of all Western nations, these nations being found by the +Romans in a state of civilization much inferior to their own. But +eastwards, when conquering Greece, her institutions they did _not_ +overthrow. And what follows from that memorable difference? Why, that in +after days, when hives of barbarians issued from central Europe, all the +Western provinces (as not cemented by any native and home-bred +institutions, but fighting under the harness of an exotic organization) +sank before them; whereas Greece, falling back on the natural resources +of a system self-evolved and _local_, or epichorial in its origin, not +only defied these German barbarians for the moment, but actually after +having her throat cut in a manner rose up magnificently (as did the +Lancashire woman after being murdered by the M'Keans of Dumfries)[16], +staggered along for a considerable distance, and then (as the +Lancashire woman did not) mounted upon skates, and skated away into an +azure infinite of distance (quite forgetting her throat), so as to--do +what? It is really frightful to mention: so as to come safe and sound +into the nineteenth century, leaping into the centre of us all like the +ghost of a patriarch, setting her arms a-kimbo, and crying out: 'Here I +come from a thousand years before Homer.' All this is really true and +undeniable. It is past contradiction, what Mr. Finlay says, that Greece, +having weathered the following peoples, to wit, the Romans; secondly, +the vagabonds who persecuted the Romans for five centuries; thirdly, the +Saracens; fourthly and fifthly, the Ottoman Turks and Venetians; +sixthly, the Latin princes of Constantinople--not to speak seventhly and +eighthly of Albanian or Egyptian Ali Pashas, or ninthly, of Joseph Humes +and Greek loans, is now, viz., in March, 1844, alive and kicking. Think +of a man, reader, at a _soirée_ in the heavenly spring of '44 (for +heavenly it _will_ be), wearing white kid gloves, and descended from +Deucalion or Ogyges! + +Amongst the great changes wrought in every direction by Constantine, it +is not to be supposed that Mr. Finlay could overlook those which applied +a new organization to the army. Rome would not be Rome; even a product +of Rome would not be legitimate; even an offshoot from Rome would be of +suspicious derivation, which _could_ find that great master-wheel of the +state machinery a secondary force in its system. It is wonderful to mark +the martial destiny of all which inherited, or upon any line descended +from Rome in every age of that mighty evolution. War not barbaric, war +exquisitely systematic, war according to the vigour of all science as +yet published to man, was the talisman by which Rome and the children +of Rome prospered: the S.P.Q.R. on the legionary banners was the sign +set in the rubric of the heavens by which the almighty nation, looking +upwards, read her commission from above: and if ever that sign shall +grow pale, then look for the coming of the end, whispered the prophetic +heart of Rome to herself even from the beginning. But are not all great +kingdoms dependent on their armies? No. Some have always been protected +by their remoteness, many by their adjacencies. Germany, in the first +century from Augustus, retreated into her mighty forests when closely +pressed, and in military phrase 'refused herself' to the pursuer. Persia +sheltered herself under the same tactics for ages;[17] scarcely needed +to fight, unless she pleased, and, when she did so, fought in alliance +with famine--with thirst--and with the confusion of pathless deserts. +Other empires, again, are protected by their infinity; America was found +to have no local existence by ourselves: she was nowhere because she was +everywhere. Russia had the same illimitable ubiquity for Napoleon. And +Spain again is so singularly placed with regard to France, a chamber +within a chamber, that she cannot be approached by any power not +maritime except on French permission. Manifold are the defensive +resources of nations beyond those of military systems. But for the Roman +empire, a ring fence around the Mediterranean lake, and hemmed in upon +every quarter of that vast circuit by an _indago_ of martial hunters, +nature and providence had made it the one sole available policy to stand +for ever under arms, eternally 'in procinctu,' and watching from the +specular altitude of her centre upon which radius she should slip her +wolves to the endless circumference. + +Mr. Finlay, in our judgment, not only allows a most disproportionate +weight to vicious taxation, which is but one wheel amongst a vast system +of wheels in the machinery of administration, and which, like many +similar agencies, tends oftentimes to react by many corrections upon its +own derangements; but subsequently he views as through a magnifying +glass even these original exaggerations when measured upon the scale of +moral obligations. Not only does false taxation ruin nations and defeat +the possibility of self-defence--which is much--but it cancels the +duties of allegiance. He tells us (p. 408) that 'amidst the ravages of +the Goths, Huns, and Avars, the imperial tax-gatherers had never failed +to enforce payment of the tribute as long as anything remained +undestroyed; though according to the rules of justice, the Roman +government had really forfeited its right to levy the taxes, as soon as +it failed to perform its duty in defending the population.' We do not +believe that the government succeeded in levying tribute vigorously +under the circumstances supposed; the science and machinery of +administration were far from having realized that degree of exquisite +skill. But, if the government _had_ succeeded, we cannot admit that this +relation of the parties dissolved their connection. To have failed at +any time in defending a province or an outwork against an overwhelming +enemy, _that_ for a prince or for a minister is a great misfortune. +Shocking indeed it were if this misfortune could be lawfully +interpreted as his crime, and made the parent of a second misfortune, +ratifying the first by authorizing revolt of the people; and the more +so, as that first calamity would encourage traitors everywhere to +prepare the way for the second as a means of impunity for their own +treason. In the prospect of escaping at once from the burdens of war, +and from the penalties of broken vows to their sovereign, multitudes +would from the first enter into compromise and collusion with an +invader; and in this way they would create the calamity which they +charged upon their rulers as a desertion; they would create the +embarrassments for their government by which they hoped to profit, and +they would do this with an eye to the reversionary benefit anticipated +under the maxim here set up. True, they would often find their heavy +disappointment in the more grievous yoke of that invader whom they had +aided. But the temptation of a momentary gain would always exist for the +improvident many, if such a maxim were received into the law of nations; +and, if it would not always triumph, we should owe it in that case to +the blessing that God has made nations proud. Even in the case where men +had received a license from public law for deserting their sovereign, +thanks be to the celestial pride which is in man, few and anomalous +would be the instances in which they really _would_ do so. In reality it +must be evident that, under such a rule of Publicists, subjects must +stand in perpetual doubt whether the case had emerged or not which law +contemplated as the dissolution of their fealty. No man would say that a +province was licensed to desert, because the central government had lost +a battle. But a whole campaign, or ten campaigns, would stand in the +same predicament as a solitary battle, so long as the struggle was not +formally renounced by the sovereign. How many years of absolute +abandonment might justify a provincial people in considering themselves +surrendered to their own discretion, is a question standing on the +separate circumstances of each separate case. But generally it may be +said, that a ruler will be presumed justly _not_ to have renounced the +cause of resistance so long as he makes no treaty or compromise with the +enemy, and so long as he desists from open resistance only through +momentary exhaustion, or with a view to more elaborate preparation. +Would ten battles, would a campaign, would ten campaigns lost, furnish +the justifying motive? Certainly it would be a false casuistry that +would say so. + +Why did the Romans conquer the Greeks? By _why_ we mean, Upon what +principle did the children of Romulus overthrow the children of Ion, +Dorus, Ęolus? Why did not these overthrow those? We, speak _Latino +more_--Vellem ostenderes quare _hi_ non profligaverint _illos_? The +answer is brief: the Romans were _one_, the Greeks were _many_. Whilst +no weighty pressure from without had assaulted Greece, it was of +particular service to that little rascally system that they were split +into sections more than ever we _have_ counted or mean to count. They +throve by mutual repulsion, according to the ballad: + + When Captain X. kick'd Miss Roe, Miss Roe kick'd Captain X. again.' + +Internally, for pleasant little domestic quarrels, the principle of +division was excellent; because, as often as the balance tended to +degravitation (a word we learned, as Juliet tells her nurse, 'from one +we danc'd withal'), _instanter_ it was redressed and trimmed by some +renegade going over to the suffering side. People talk of Athens being +beaten by the Spartans in the person of Lysander; and the vulgar notion +is, that the Peloponnesian war closed by an eclipse total and central +for our poor friend Athens. Nonsense! she had life left in her to kick +twenty such donkeys to death; and, if you look a very little ahead, +gazettes tell you, that before the peace of Antalcidas, those villains, +the Spartans (whom may heaven confound!) had been licked almost too +cruelly by the Athenians. And there it is that we insist upon closing +that one great intestine[18] war of the Greeks. So of other cases: +absolute defeat, final overthrow, we hold to be impossible for a Grecian +state, as against a Grecian state, under the conditions which existed +from the year 500 B.C. But when a foreign enemy came on, the +possibilities might alter. The foreigner, being one, and for the moment +at least united, would surely have a great advantage over the crowd of +little pestilent villains--right and left--that would be disputing the +policy of the case. There lay the original advantage of the Romans; +_one_ they were, and _one_ they were to the end of Roman time. Did you +ever hear of a Roman, unless it were Sertorius, that fought against +Romans? Whereas, scoundrel Greeks were always fighting against their +countrymen. Xenophon, in Persia, Alexander, seventy years later, met +with their chief enemies in Greeks. We may therefore pronounce with +firmness, that unity was one cause of the Roman superiority. What was +the other? Better military institutions. These, if we should go upon the +plan of rehearsing them, are infinite. But let us confine our view to +the separate mode in each people of combining their troops. In Greece, +the _phalanx_ was the ideal tactical arrangement; for Rome, the +_legion_. Everybody knows that Polybius, a Greek, who fled from the +Peloponnesus to Rome a little before the great Carthaginian war, +terminated by Scipio Africanus, has left a most interesting comparison +between the two forms of tactical arrangement: and, waiving the details, +the upshot is this--that the phalanx was a holiday arrangement, a +tournament arrangement, with respect to which you must suppose an excess +of luck if it could be made available, unless by mutual consent, under a +known possibility of transferring the field of battle to some smooth +bowling-green in the neighbourhood. But, on the other hand, the legion +was available everywhere. The _phalanx_ was like the organ, an +instrument almighty indeed where it can be carried; but it cost eight +hundred years to transfer it from Asia Minor to the court of Charlemagne +(_i.e._, Western Europe), so that it travelled at the rate of two miles +_per annum_; but the _legion_ was like the violin, less terrifically +tumultuous, but more infinite than the organ, whilst it is in a perfect +sense portable. Pitch your camp in darkness, on the next morning +everywhere you will find ground for the _legion_, but for the fastidious +_phalanx_ you need as much choice of ground as for the arena of an opera +stage. + +And the same influence that had tended to keep the Greeks in division, +without a proper unity, operated also to infect the national character +at last with some lack of what may be called self-sufficiency. They were +in their later phases subtle, but compliant, more ready to adapt +themselves to changes than to assert a position and risk all in the +effort to hold it. Hence it came that even the most honourable and +upright amongst a nation far nobler in a moral sense (nobler, for +instance, on the scale of capacity for doing and suffering) never rose +to a sentiment of respect for the ordinary Grecian. The Romans viewed +him as essentially framed for ministerial offices. Am I sick? Come, +Greek, and cure me. Am I weary? Amuse me. Am I diffident of power to +succeed? Cheer me with flattery. Am I issuing from a bath? Shampoo me. + +The point of view under which we contemplate the Romans is one which +cannot be dispensed with in that higher or transcendental study of +history now prompted by the vast ferment of the meditative mind. Oh, +feeble appreciators of the public mind, who can imagine even in dreams +that this generation--self-questioned, agitated, haunted beyond any +other by the elementary problems of our human condition, by the awful +_whence_ and the more awful _whither_, by what the Germans call the +'riddle of the universe,' and oppressed into a rebellious impatience by + + 'The burthen of the mystery + Of all this unintelligible world,' + +--that this, above all generations, is shallow, superficial, unfruitful? +That was a crotchet of the late S. T. Coleridge's; that was a crotchet +of the present W. Wordsworth's, but which we will venture to guess that +he has now somewhat modified since this generation has become just to +himself. No; as to the multitude, in no age can it be other than +superficial. But we do contend, with intolerance and scorn of such +opposition as usually we meet, that the tendencies of this generation +are to the profound; that by all its natural leanings, and even by its +infirmities, it travels upwards on the line of aspiration and downwards +in the direction of the unfathomable. These tendencies had been +awakened and quickened by the vast convulsions that marked the close of +the last century. But war is a condition too restless for sustained +meditation. Even the years _after_ war, if that war had gathered too +abundantly the vintages of tears and tragedy and change, still rock and +undulate with the unsubsiding sympathies which wars such as we have +known cannot but have evoked. Besides that war is by too many issues +connected with the practical; the service of war, by the arts which it +requires, and the burthen of war, by the discussions which it prompts, +almost equally tend to alienate the public mind from the speculation +which looks beyond the interests of social life. But when a new +generation has grown up, when the forest trees of the elder generation +amongst us begin to thicken with the intergrowth of a younger shrubbery +that had been mere ground-plants in the ęra of war, _then_ it is, viz., +under the heavenly lull and the silence of a long peace, which in its +very uniformity and the solemnity of its silence has something analogous +to the sublime tranquillity of a Zaarrah, that minds formed for the +great inquests of meditation--feeling dimly the great strife which they +did not witness, and feeling it the more deeply because for _them_ an +idealized retrospect, and a retrospect besides being potently contrasted +so deeply with the existing atmosphere, peaceful as if it had never +known a storm--are stimulated preternaturally to those obstinate +questionings which belong of necessity to a complex state of society, +turning up vast phases of human suffering under all varieties, phases +which, having issued from a chaos of agitation, carry with them too +certain a promise of sooner or later revolving into a chaos of equal +sadness, universal strife. It is the relation of the immediate isthmus +on which we stand ourselves to a past and (prophetically speaking) to a +coming world of calamity, the relation of the smiling and halcyon calm +which we have inherited to that darkness and anarchy out of which it +arose, and towards which too gloomily we augur its return--this relation +it is which enforces the other impulses, whether many or few, connecting +our own transitional stage of society with objects always of the same +interest for man, but not felt to be of the same interest. The sun, the +moon, and still more the starry heavens alien to our own peculiar +system--what a different importance in different ages have they had for +man! To man armed with science and glasses, labyrinths of anxiety and +study; to man ignorant or barbarous less interesting than glittering +points of dew. At present those 'other impulses,' which the permanent +condition of modern society, so multitudinous and feverish, adds to the +meditative impulses of our particular and casual condition as respects a +terrific revolutionary war, are _not_ few, but many, and are all in one +direction, all favouring, none thwarting, the solemn fascinations by +which with spells and witchcraft the shadowy nature of man binds him +down to look for ever into this dim abyss. The earth, whom with +sublimity so awful the poet apostrophized after Waterloo, as 'perturbed' +and restless exceedingly, whom with a harp so melodious and beseeching +he adjured to rest--and again to rest from instincts of war so deep, +haunting the very rivers with blood, and slumbering not through +three-and-twenty years of woe--is again unsealed from slumber by the +mere reaction of the mighty past working together with the too probable +future and with the co-agencies from the unintelligible present. The +fervour and the strife of human thought is but the more subtle for +being less derived from immediate action, and more so from hieroglyphic +mysteries or doubts concealed in the very shows of life. The centres of +civilization seethe, as it were, and are ebullient with the agitation of +the self-questioning heart. + +The fervour is universal; the tumult of intellectual man, self-tormented +with unfathomable questions, is contagious everywhere. And both from +what we know, it might be perceived _ą priori_, and from what we see, it +may be known experimentally, that never was the mind of man roused into +activity so intense and almost morbid as in this particular stage of our +progress. And it has added enormously to this result--that it is +redoubled by our own consciousness of our own state so powerfully +enforced by modern inventions, whilst the consciousness again is +reverberated from a secondary mode of consciousness. All studies +prosper; all, with rare exceptions, are advancing only too impetuously. +Talent of every order is almost become a weed amongst us. + +But this would be a most unreasonable ground for charging it upon our +time and country that they are unprogressive and commonplace. Nay, +rather, it is a ground for regarding the soil as more prepared for the +seed that is sown broadcast. And before our England lies an ample +possibility--to outstrip even Rome itself in the extent and the grandeur +of an empire, based on principles of progress and cohesion such as Rome +never knew. + + +FURTHER NOTES FOR ARTICLE ON MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY. + +_Civilization._--Now about prisoners, strange as this may seem, it +really is not settled whether and how far it is the duty in point of +honour and reasonable forbearance to make prisoners. At Quatre Bras very +few were made by the French, and the bitterness, the frenzy of hatred +which this marked, led of necessity to a reaction. + +But the strangest thing of all is this, that in a matter of such a +nature it should be open to doubt and mystery whether it is or is not +contradictory, absurd, and cancellatory or obligatory to make prisoners. +Look here, the Tartars in the Christian war, not from cruelty--at least, +no such thing is proved--but from mere coercion of what they regarded as +good sense the Tartars thought it all a blank contradiction to take and +not kill enemies. It seemed equal to taking a tiger laboriously and at +much risk in a net, then next day letting him go. Strange it is to say, +but it really requires an express experience to show the true practical +working of the case, and this demonstrates (inconceivable as that would +have been to the Tartars) that the capture is quite equal (quoad damage +to the enemy) to the killing. + +(1.) As to durability, was it so? The Arabs were not strong except +against those who were peculiarly weak; and even in Turkey the Christian +Rajah predominates. + +(2.) As to bigotry and principles of toleration Mr. Finlay says--and we +do not deny that he is right in saying--they arose in the latter stages. +This, however, was only from policy, because it was not safe to be so; +and repressed only from caution. + +(3) About the impetuosity of the Arab assaults. Not what people think. + +(4.) About the permanence or continuance of this Mahometan system--we +confound the religious system with the political. The religious movement +engrafted itself on other nations, translated and inoculated itself upon +other political systems, and thus, viz., as a principle travelling +through or along new machineries, propagated itself. But here is a deep +delusion. What should we Europeans think of an Oriental historian who +should talk of the Christians amongst the Germans, English, French, +Spaniards, as a separate and independent nation? My friend, we should +say, you mistake that matter. The Christians are not a local tribe +having an insulated local situation amongst Germans, French, etc. The +Christians _are_ the English, Germans, etc., or the English, Germans, +French, _are_ the Christians. So do many readers confer upon the Moslems +or Mahometans of history a separate and independent unity. + +(_a_) Greek administration had a vicarious support. + +(_b_) Incapacity of Eastern nations to establish primogeniture. + +(_c_) Incapacity of Eastern nations to be progressive. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] '_Lackington's counter_': Lackington, an extensive seller of old +books and a Methodist (see his _Confessions_) in London, viz., at the +corner of Finsbury Square, about the time of the French Revolution, +feeling painfully that this event drew more attention than himself, +resolved to turn the scale in his own favour by a _ruse_ somewhat +unfair. The French Revolution had no counter; he _had_, it was circular, +and corresponded to a lighted dome above. Round the counter on a summer +evening, like Phęton round the world, the Edinburgh, the Glasgow, the +Holyhead, the Bristol, the Exeter, and the Salisbury Royal Mails, all +their passengers on board, and canvas spread, swept in, swept round, and +swept out at full gallop; the proximate object being to publish the +grandeur of his premises, the ultimate object to publish himself. + +[13] 'Dependent upon _physical_ circumstances,' and, amongst those +physical circumstances, intensely upon climate. The Jewish ordinances, +multiplied and burthensome as they must have been found under any +mitigations, have proved the awfulness (if we may so phrase it) of the +original projectile force which launched them by continuing to revolve, +and to propagate their controlling functions through forty centuries +under all latitudes to which any mode of civilization has reached. But +the _Greek_ machineries of social life were absolutely and essentially +limited by nature to a Grecian latitude. Already from the earliest +stages of their infancy the Greek cities or rural settlements in the +Tauric Chersonese, and along the shores (Northern and Eastern) of the +Black Sea, had been obliged to unrobe themselves of their native Grecian +costumes in a degree which materially disturbed the power of the Grecian +literature as an influence for the popular mind. This effect of a new +climate to modify the influence of a religion or the character of a +literature is noticed by Mr. Finlay. Temples open to the heavens, +theatres for noonday light and large enough for receiving 30,000 +citizens--these could no longer be transplanted from sunny regions of +Hymettus to the churlish atmospheres which overcast with gloom so +perpetual poor Ovid's sketches of his exile. Cherson, it is true, in the +Tauric Chersonese, survived down to the middle of the tenth century; so +much is certain from the evidence of a Byzantine emperor; and Mr. Finlay +is disposed to think that this famous little colonial state retained her +Greek 'municipal organization.' If this could be proved, it would be a +very interesting fact; it is, at any rate, interesting to see this saucy +little outpost of Greek civilization mounting guard, as it were, at so +great a distance from the bulwark of Christianity (the city of +Constantine), under whose mighty shadow she had so long been sheltered, +and maintaining _by whatever means_ her own independence. But, if her +municipal institutions were truly and permanently Greek, then it would +be a fair inference that to a Grecian mechanism of society she had been +indebted for her Grecian tenacity of life. And this is Mr. Finlay's +inference. Otherwise, and for our own parts, we should be inclined to +charge her long tenure of independence upon her strong situation, +rendered for _her_ a thousand times stronger by the two facts of her +commerce in the first place, and secondly, of her commerce being +maritime. Shipping and trade seem to us the two anchors by which she +rode. + +[14] 'Nook-shotten,' an epithet applied by Shakspeare to England. + +[15] Christianity is a force of unity. But was Paganism such? No. To be +idolatrous is no bond of union. + +[16] See Murder as one of the Fine Arts. (Postscript in 1854.) + +[17] '_Under the same tactics_'--the tactics of 'refusing' her columns +to the enemy. On this subject we want an elaborate memoir +historico-geographical revising every stage of the Roman warfare in +Pers-Armenia, from Crassus and Ventidius down to Heraclius--a range of +six and a half centuries; and specifically explaining why it was that +almost always the Romans found it mere destruction to attempt a passage +much beyond the Tigris or into central Persia, whilst so soon after +Heraclius the immediate successors of Mahomet overflowed Persia like a +deluge. + +[18] 'Intestine war.' Many writers call the Peloponnesian war (by the +way, a very false designation) the great _civil_ war of Greece. +'Civil'!--it might have been such, had the Grecian states had a central +organ which claimed a common obedience. + + + + +_III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CĘSAR._ + + +The assassination of Cęsar, we find characterized in one of his latter +works (_Farbenlehre_, Theil 2, p. 126) by Goethe, as '_die +abgeschmackteste That die jemals begangen worden_'--_the most +outrageously absurd act that ever was committed_. Goethe is right, and +more than right. For not only was it an atrocity so absolutely without a +purpose as never to have been examined by one single conspirator with a +view to its probable tendencies--in that sense therefore it was absurd +as pointing to no result--but also in its immediate arrangements and +precautions it had been framed so negligently, with a carelessness so +total as to the natural rebounds and reflex effects of such a tragic +act, that the conspirators had neither organized any resources for +improving their act, nor for securing their own persons from the first +blind motions of panic, nor even for establishing a common rendezvous. +When they had executed their valiant exploit, the very possibility of +which from the first step to the last they owed to the sublime +magnanimity of their victim--well knowing his own continual danger, but +refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust--when they had +gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their +daggers--cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'--they had +come to the end of the play. _Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite_. Not a step +further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they +began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe that no act +so thoroughly womanish, that is, moving under a blind impulse without a +thought of consequences, without a concerted succession of steps, and no +_arričre pensée_ as to its final improvement, ever yet had a place or +rating in the books of Conspiracy, far less was attended (as by accident +this was) with an equipage of earth-shattering changes. Even the poor +deluded followers of the Old Mountain Assassin, though drugged with +bewildering potions, such men as Sir Walter Scott describes in the +person of that little wily fanatic gambolling before the tent of Richard +_Coeur-de-lion_, had always settled which way they would run when the +work was finished. And how peculiarly this reach of foresight was +required for these anti-Julian conspirators--will appear from one fact. +Is the reader aware, were these boyish men aware, that--besides, what we +all know from Shakespeare, a mob won to Cęsar's side by his very last +codicils of his will; besides a crowd of public magistrates and +dependents charged upon the provinces, etc., for two years deep by +Cęsar's act, though in requital of no services or attachment to himself; +besides a distinct Cęsarian party; finally, besides Antony, the express +representative and assignee of Cęsar, armed at this moment with the +powers of Consul--there was over and above a great military officer of +Cęsar's (Lentulus), then by accident in Rome, holding a most potent +government through the mere favour of Cęsar, and pledged therefore by an +instant interest of self-promotion, backed by a large number of Julian +troops at that instant billeted on a suburb of Rome--veterans, and +fierce fellows that would have cut their own fathers' throats 'as soon +as say dumpling' (see Lucan's account of them in Cęsar's harangue before +Pharsalia)? Every man of sense would have predicted ruin to the +conspirators. '_You'll tickle it for your concupy_' (Thersites in 'Troil +and Cress.') would have been the word of every rational creature to +these wretches when trembling from their tremulous act, and reeking from +their bloody ingratitude. For most remarkable it is that not one +conspirator but was personally indebted to Cęsar for eminent favours; +and many among them had even received that life from their victim which +they employed in filching away _his_. Yet after that feature of the +case, so notorious as it soon became, historians and biographers are all +ready to notice of the centurion who amputated Cicero's head that, he +had once been defended by Cicero. What if he had, which is more than we +know--must _that_ operate as a perpetual retaining fee on Cicero's +behalf? Put the case that we found ourselves armed with a commission (no +matter whence emanating) for abscinding the head of Mr. Adolphus who now +pleads with so much lustre at the general jail delivery of London and +Middlesex, or the head of Mr. Serjeant Wild, must it bar our claim that +once Mr. Adolphus had defended us on a charge of sheep-stealing, or that +the Serjeant had gone down 'special' in our cause to York? Very well, +but doubtless they had their fees. 'Oh, but Cicero could not receive +fees by law.' Certainly not by law; but by custom many _did_ receive +them at dusk through some postern gate in the shape of a huge cheese, or +a guinea-pig. And, if the 'special retainer' from Popilius Lęnas is +somewhat of the doubtfullest, so is the 'pleading' on the part of +Cicero. + +However, it is not impossible but some will see in this desperate game +of hazard a sort of courage on the part of the conspirators which may +redeem their knavery. But the courage of desperation is seldom genuine, +and least of all where the desperation itself was uncalled for. Yet even +this sort of merit the conspirators wanted. The most urgent part of the +danger was that which in all probability they had not heard of, viz., +the casual presence at Rome of Julian soldiers. Pursuing no inquiries at +all, they would hear not; practising no caution, they would keep no +secret. The plot had often been betrayed, we will swear: but Cęsar and +Cęsar's friends would look upon all such stories as the mere expressions +of a permanent case, so much inevitable exposure on _their_ part--so +much possibility of advantage redounding to the other side. And out of +these naked possibilities, as some temptation would continually arise to +use them profitably, much more would arise to use them as delightful +offsets to the sense of security and power. + + [Mommsen is more at one with De Quincey here than Merivale, + who, at p. 478, vol. ii., writes: 'We learn with pleasure + that the conspirators did not venture even to sound Cicero'; + but at vol. iii., p. 9, he has these significant words: + 'Cicero, himself, we must believe, was not ashamed to lament + the scruples which had denied him initiation into the plot.' + Forsyth writes of Cicero's views: 'He was more than ever + convinced of the want of foresight shown by the + conspirators. Their deed, he said, was the deed of men, + their counsels were the counsels of children,' 'Life of + Cicero,' 3rd edition, pp. 435-6.--ED.] + + + + +_IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY)._ + + +Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero +as Proconsul of Cilicia.[19] And it surprises us greatly to find a man, +so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf +of a friend. How came it--that he or any man of the world should fancy +any substance or reality in the public enthusiasm for one whose +character belonged to a past generation? Nine out of ten amongst the +Campanians must have been children when Pompey's name was identified +with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to +sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns +knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching +question--Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so +extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more +heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive +privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer who +amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was +well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the +hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen, +crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations, +could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators +panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he +beheld--taking the field on the opposite quarter--one, the greatest of +men, who spoke authentically to all classes alike, authorizing all to +hope and to draw their breath in freedom under that general recast of +Roman society which had now become inevitable! As between such +competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally +the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion, +although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed +locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have +gathered about the name of Cęsar. But enough transpired to show which +way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He +acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Cęsar. And Pompey, who +was much more forced into towns and public scenes, had even less +opportunity for deceiving himself. He, who had fancied all Campania +streaming with incense to heaven on his own personal account, now made +the misanthropical discovery--not only that all was hollow, and that his +own name was held in no esteem--but absolutely that the barrier to any +hope of popularity for himself was that very man whom, on other and +previous grounds, he had for some time viewed as his own capital +antagonist. + +Here then, in this schism of the public affections, and in the +mortifying discovery so abruptly made by Pompey, lay the bitter affront +which he could not digest--the injury which he purposed to avenge. What +barbed this injury to his feelings, what prepared him for exhausting +its bitterness, was the profound delusion in which he had been +previously laid asleep by flattering friends--the perfect faith in his +own uniform popularity. And now, in the very teeth of all current +representations, we advance this proposition: That the quality of his +meditated revenge and its horrid extent were what originally unveiled to +Cicero's eyes the true character of Pompey and his partisans. + + * * * * * + +The last letter of the sixth book is written from Athens, which city, +after a voyage of about a fortnight, Cicero reached precisely in the +middle of October, having sailed out of Ephesus on the 1st. He there +found a letter from Atticus, dated from Rome on the 18th of September; +and his answer, which was 'by return of post,' closes with these words: +'Mind that you keep your promise of writing to me fully about my darling +Tullia,' which means of course about her new husband Dolabella; next +about the Commonwealth, which by this time I calculate must be entering +upon its agony; and then about the Censors, etc. Hearken: 'This letter +is dated on the 16th of October; that day on which, by your account, +Cęsar is to reach Placentia with four legions. What, I ask myself for +ever, is to become of us? My own situation at this moment, which is in +the Acropolis of Athens, best meets my idea of what is prudent under the +circumstances.' + +Well it would have been for Cicero's peace of mind if he could seriously +have reconciled himself to abide by that specular station. Had he +pleaded ill-health, he might have done so with decorum. As it was, +thinking his dignity concerned in not absenting himself from the public +councils at a season so critical, after a few weeks' repose he sailed +forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with +what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem, +after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his +friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required, +every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution, +individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero +discovered in the end) a principle of despair, and _the secret reserve +of a flight operating_ upon the leaders _from the very beginning_. The +key to all this is obvious for those who read with their eyes awake. +Pompey and the other consular leaders were ruined for action by age and +by the derangement of their digestive organs. Eating too much and too +luxuriously is far more destructive to the energies of action than +intemperance as to drink. Women everywhere alike are temperate as to +eating; and the only females memorable for ill-health from luxurious +eating have been Frenchwomen or Belgians--witness the Duchess of +Portsmouth, and many others of the two last centuries whom we could +name. But men everywhere commit excesses in this respect, if they have +it in their power. With the Roman nobles it was almost a necessity to do +so. Could any popular man evade the necessity of keeping a splendid +dinner-table? And is there one man in a thousand who can sit at a festal +board laden with all the delicacies of remotest climates, and continue +to practise an abstinence for which he is not sure of any reward? All +his abstinence may be defeated by a premature fate, and in the meantime +he is told, with some show of reason, that a life defrauded of its +genial enjoyments is _not_ life, is at all events a present loss, whilst +the remuneration is doubtful, except where there happen to be powerful +intellectual activities to reap an _instant_ benefit from such +sacrifices. Certainly it is the last extremity of impertinence to attack +men's habits in this respect. No man, we may be assured, has ever yet +practised any true self-denial in such a case, or ever will. Either he +has been trained under a wholesome poverty to those habits which +intercept the very development of a taste for luxuries, which evade the +very possibility therefore of any; or if this taste has once formed +itself, he would find it as impossible in this as in any other case to +maintain a fight with a temptation recurring _daily_. Pompey certainly +could not. He was of a slow, torpid nature through life; required a +continual supply of animal stimulation, and, if he had _not_ required +it, was assuredly little framed by nature for standing out against an +_artificial_ battery of temptation. There is proof extant that his +system was giving way under the action of daily dinners. Cicero mentions +the fact of his suffering from an annual illness; what may be called the +_etesian_ counter-current from his intemperance. Probably the liver was +enlarged, and the pylorus was certainly not healthy. Cicero himself was +not free from dyspeptic symptoms. If he had survived the Triumvirate, he +would have died within seven years from some disease of the intestinal +canal. Atticus, we suspect, was troubled with worms. Locke, indeed, than +whom no man ever less was acquainted with Greek or Roman life, pretends +that the ancients seldom used a pocket-handkerchief; knew little of +catarrhs, and even less of what the French consider indigenous to this +rainy island--_le catch-cold_. Nothing can be more unfounded. Locke was +bred a physician, but his practice had been none; himself and the cat +were his chief patients. Else we, who are no physicians, would wish to +ask him--what meant those continual _febriculę_ to which all Romans of +rank were subject? What meant that _fluenter lippire_, a symptom so +troublesome to Cicero's eyes, and always arguing a functional, if not +even an organic, derangement of the stomach? Take this rule from us, +that wherever the pure white of the eye is clouded, or is veined with +red streaks, or wherever a continual weeping moistens the eyelashes, +there the digestive organs are touched with some morbid affection, +probably in it's early stages; as also that the inferior viscera, _not_ +the stomach, must be slightly disordered before toothache _can_ be an +obstinate affection. And as to _le catch-cold_, the-most dangerous shape +in which it has ever been known, resembling the English _cholera +morbus_, belongs to the modern city of Rome from situation; and probably +therefore to the ancient city from the same cause. Pompey, beyond all +doubt, was a wreck when he commenced the struggle. + +Struggle, conflict, for a man who needed to be in his bed! And struggle +with whom? With that man whom his very enemies viewed as a monster +([Greek: teras] is Cicero's own word), as preternaturally endowed, in +this quality of working power. But how then is it consistent with our +view of Roman dinners, that Cęsar should have escaped the universal +scourge? We reply, that one man is often stronger than another; every +man is stronger in some one organ; and secondly, Cęsar had lived away +from Rome through the major part of the last ten years; and thirdly, the +fact that Cęsar _had_ escaped the contagion of dinner luxury, however it +may be accounted for, is attested in the way of an exception to the +general order of experience, and with such a degree of astonishment, as +at once to prove the general maxim we have asserted, and the special +exemption in favour of Cęsar. He _only_, said Cato, he, as a +contradiction to all precedents--to the Gracchi, to Marius, to Cinna, to +Sylla, to Catiline--had come in a state of temperance (_sobrius_) to the +destruction of the state; not meaning to indicate mere superiority to +wine, but to _all_ modes of voluptuous enjoyment. Cęsar practised, it is +true, a refined epicureanism under the guidance of Greek physicians, as +in the case of his emetics; but this was by way of evading any gross +effects from a day of inevitable indulgence, not by way of aiding them. +Besides, Pompey and Cicero were about seven years older than Cęsar. They +stood upon the threshold of their sixtieth year at the _opening_ of the +struggle; Cęsar was a hale young man of fifty-two. And we all know that +Napoleon at forty-two was incapacitated for Borodino by incipient +disease of the stomach; so that from that day he, though junior by +seventeen years to Pompey, yet from Pompey's self-indulgence (not +certainly in splendid sensuality, but in the gross modes belonging to +his obscure youth) was pronounced by all the judicious, superannuated as +regarded the indispensable activity of martial habits. If he cannot face +the toils of military command, said his officers, why does he not +retire? Why does he not make room for others? Neither was the campaign +of 1813 or 1814 any refutation of this. Infinite are the cases in which +the interests of nations or of armies have suffered through the dyspepsy +of those who administered them. And above all nations the Romans laid +themselves open to this order of injuries from a dangerous oversight in +their constitutional arrangements, which placed legal bars on the +youthful side of all public offices, but none on the aged side. Of all +nations the Romans had been most indebted to men emphatically young; of +all nations they, by theory, most exclusively sanctioned the pretensions +of old ones. Not before forty-three could a man stand for the +consulship; and we have just noticed a case where a man of pestilent +activity in our own times had already become dyspeptically incapable of +command at forty-two. Besides, after laying down his civil office +(which, by itself, was often in the van of martial perils), the consul +had to pass into some province as military leader, with the prospect by +possibility of many years' campaigning. It is true that some men far +anticipated the legal age in assuming offices, honours, privileges. But +this, being always by infraction of fundamental laws, was no subject of +rejoicing to a patriotic Roman. And the Roman folly at this very crisis, +in trusting one side of the quarrel to an elderly, lethargic invalid, +subject to an annual struggle for his life, was appropriately punished +by that catastrophe which six years after threw them into the hands of a +schoolboy. + +Yet on the other hand it may be asked, by those who carry the proper +spirit of jealousy into their historical reading, was Cicero always +right in these angry comments upon Pompey's strategies? Might it not be, +that where Cicero saw nothing but groundless procrastination, in reality +the obstacle lay in some overwhelming advantage of Cęsar's? That, where +his reports to Atticus read the signs of the time into the mere panic of +a Pompey, some more impartial report would see nothing to wonder at but +the overcharged expectations of a Cicero? Sometimes undoubtedly this is +the plain truth. Pompey's disadvantages were considerable; he had no +troops upon which he could rely; that part which had seen service +happened to be a detachment from Cęsar's army, sent home as a pledge for +his civic intentions at an earlier period, and their affection was still +lively to their original leader. The rest were raw levies. And it is a +remarkable fact, that the insufficiency of such troops was only now +becoming matter of notoriety. In foreign service, where the Roman +recruits were incorporated with veterans, as the natives in our Eastern +army, with a small proportion of British to steady them, they often +behaved well, and especially because they seldom acted against an enemy +that was not as raw as themselves. But now, in civil service against +their own legions, it was found that the mere novice was worth nothing +at all; a fact which had not been fully brought out in the strife of +Marius and Sylla, where Pompey had himself played a conspicuous and +cruel part, from the tumultuary nature of the contest; besides which the +old legions were then by accident as much concentrated on Italian ground +as now they were dispersed in transmarine provinces. Of the present +Roman army, ten legions at least were scattered over Macedonia, Achaia, +Cilicia, and Syria; five were in Spain; and six were with Cęsar, or +coming up from the rear. To say nothing of the forces locked up in +Sicily, Africa, Numidia, etc. It was held quite unadvisable by Pompey's +party to strip the distant provinces of their troops, or the great +provincial cities of their garrisons. All these were accounted as so +many reversionary chances against Cęsar. But certainly a bolder game was +likely to have prospered better; had large drafts from all these distant +armies been ordered home, even Cęsar's talents might have been +perplexed, and his immediate policy must have been so far baffled as to +force him back upon Transalpine Gaul. Yet if such a plan were eligible, +it does not appear that Cicero had ever thought of it; and certainly it +was not Pompey, amongst so many senatorial heads, who could be blamed +for neglecting it. Neglect he did; but Pompey had the powers of a +commander-in-chief for the immediate arrangements; but in the general +scheme of the war he, whose game was to call himself the servant of the +Senate, counted but for one amongst many concurrent authorities. +Combining therefore his limited authority with his defective materials, +we cannot go along with Cicero in the whole bitterness of his censure. +The fact is, no cautious scheme whatever, no practicable scheme could +have kept pace with Cicero's burning hatred to Cęsar. 'Forward, forward! +crush the monster; stone him, stab him, hurl him into the sea!' This was +the war-song of Cicero for ever; and men like Domitius, who shared in +his hatreds, as well as in his unseasonable temerity, by precipitating +upon Cęsar troops that were unqualified for the contest, lost the very +_élite_ of the Italian army at Corfinium; and such men were soon found +to have been embarked upon the ludicrous enterprise of 'catching a +Tartar;' following and seeking those + + 'Quos opimus + Fallere et effugere est triumphus.' + + +ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR CICERO. + + +I. + +Bribery was it? which had been so organized as the sole means of +succeeding at elections, and which, once rendered necessary as the organ +of assertion for each man's birthright, became legitimate; in which +Cicero himself declared privately that there was '[Greek: exochź] in +nullo,' no sort of pre-eminence, one as bad as another, _pecunia +exaequet omnium dignitatem_. Money was the universal leveller. Was it +gladiators bought for fighting with? These were bought by his friend +Milo as well as his enemy Clodius, by Sextus Pompey on one side as much +as by Cęsar on the other. Was it neglect of _obnunciatio_? And so far as +regards treating, Cicero himself publicly justified it against the +miserable theatrical Cato. How ridiculous to urge that against a popular +man as a crime, when it was sometimes enjoined by the Senate with +menaces as a duty! Was it the attacking all obnoxious citizens' houses? +That was done by one side quite as much as by the other, and signifies +little, for the attack always fell on some leading man in wealth; and +such a man's house was a fortress. Was it accepting provinces from the +people? Cicero would persuade us that this was an unheard of crime in +Clodius. But how came it that so many others did the same thing? Nay, +that the Senate abetted them in doing it; saying to such a person, 'Oh, +X., we perceive that you have extorted from the people.' + + +II. + +Then his being recalled; what if a man should say that his nephew was +for it, and all his little nieces, not to mention his creditors? The +Senate were for it. But why not? Had the Senate exiled him? And, +besides, he was their agent. + + +III. + +It was 'an impious bargain' are the words of Middleton, and Deiotarus +who broke it was a prince of noble character. What was he noble for? We +never heard of anything very noble that he did; and we doubt whether Dr. +Conyers knew more about him than we. But we happen to know why he calls +him noble. Cicero, who long afterwards came to know this king personally +and gave him a good dinner, says now upon hearsay (for he had then never +been near him, and could have no accounts of him but from the wretched +Quintus) that _in eo multa regia fuerunt_. Why yes, amputating heads was +in those parts a very regal act. But what he chiefly had in his eye, +comes out immediately after. Speaking to Clodius, he says that the visit +of this king was so bright, _maxime quod tibi nullum nummum dedit_. + + +IV. + +Wicked Middleton says that Cicero followed his conscience in following +Pompey and the cause approved by what in the odious slang of his own +days he calls 'the honest men.' But be it known unto him that he tells a +foul falsehood. He followed his personal gratitude. This he is careful +to say over and over again. Some months before he had followed what he +deemed the cause of the Commonwealth and of the _boni_. The _boni_ were +vanished, he sought them and found only a heap of selfish nobles, half +crazy with fear and half crazy with pride. These were gone, but Pompey +the man remained that he clung to. And in his heart of hearts was +another feeling--hatred to Cęsar. + + +V. + +403. 'Cicero had only stept aside' was the technical phrase for lurking +from creditors. So Bishop Burnet of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, it was +thought he might have stept aside for debt. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] Cicero entered on the office of Proconsul of Cilicia on the last +day of July, 703 A.U.C.; he resigned it on the last day but one of July, +704.--ED. + + + + +_V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY._ + + +I. _The Main Subject Opened._ What is Chronology, and how am I to teach +it? The _what_ is poorly appreciated, and chiefly through the defects of +the _how_. Because it is so ill-taught, therefore in part it is that +Chronology is so unattractive and degraded. Chronology is represented to +be the handmaid of history. But unless the machinery for exhibiting this +is judicious, the functions, by being obscured, absolutely lose all +their value, flexibility, and attraction. Chronology is not meant only +to enable us to refer each event to its own particular era--that may be +but trivial knowledge, of little value and of slight significance in its +application; but chronology has higher functions. It teaches not only +when A happened, but also with what other events, B, C, or D, it was +associated. It may be little to know that B happened 500 years before +Christ, but it may be a most important fact that A and B happened +concurrently with D, that both B and D were prepared by X, and that +through their concurrent operation arose the ultimate possibility of Z. +The mere coincidences or consecutions, mere accidents of simultaneity or +succession, of precession or succession, maybe less than nothing. But +the co-operation towards a common result, or the relation backwards to a +common cause, may be so important as to make the entire difference +between a story book, on the one hand, and a philosophic history, on the +other, of man as a creature. + +History is not an anarchy; man is not an accident. The very motions of +the heavenly bodies for many a century were thought blind and without +law. Now we have advanced so far into the light as to perceive the +elaborate principles of their order, the original reason of their +appearing, the stupendous equipoise of their attraction and repulsion, +the divine artifice of their compensations, the original ground of their +apparent disorder, the enormous system of their reactions, the almost +infinite intricacy of their movements. In these very anomalies lies the +principle of their order. A curve is long in showing its elements of +fluxion; we must watch long in order to compute them; we must wait in +order to know the law of their relations and the music of the deep +mathematical principles which they obey. A piece of music, again, from +the great hand of Mozart or Beethoven, which seems a mere anarchy to the +dull, material mind, to the ear which is instructed by a deep +sensibility reveals a law of controlling power, determining its +movements, its actions and reactions, such as cannot be altogether +hidden, even when as yet it is but dimly perceived. + +So it is in history, though the area of its interest is yet wider, and +the depths to which it reaches more profound; all its contradictory +phenomena move under one embracing law, and all its contraries shall +finally be solved in the clear perception of this law. + + * * * * * + +Reading and study ill-conducted run to waste, and all reading and study +are ill-conducted which do not plant the result as well as the fact or +date in the memory. With no form of knowledge is this more frequently +the case than with history. Such is the ill-arranged way of telling all +stories, and so perfectly without organization is the record of history, +that of what is of little significance there is much, and of what is of +deep and permanent signification there is little or nothing. + +The first step in breaking ground upon this almost impracticable +subject, is--to show the student a true map of the field in which his +labours are to lie. Most people have a vague preconception, peopling the +fancy with innumerable shadows, of some vast wilderness or Bilidulgerid +of trackless time, over which are strewed the wrecks of events without +order, and persons without limit. _Omne ignotum_, says Tacitus, _pro +magnifico_; that is, everything which lies amongst the shades and +darkness of the indefinite, and everything which is in the last degree +confused, seems infinite. But the gloom of uncertainty seems far greater +than it really is. + +One short distribution and circumscription of historical ages will soon +place matters in a more hopeful aspect. Fabulous history ceases, and +authentic history commences, just three-quarters of a millennium before +Jesus Christ; that is, just 750 years. Let us call this space of time, +viz., the whole interval from the year 750 B.C. up to the Incarnation of +Christ, the first chamber of history. I do not mean that precisely 750 +years before our Saviour's birth, fabulous and mythological history +started like some guilty thing at the sound of a cock-crowing, and +vanished as with the sound of harpies' wings. It vanished as the natural +darkness of night vanishes. A stealthy twilight first began to divide +and give shape to the formless shadows: what previously had been one +blank mass of darkness began to break into separate forms: outlines +became perceptible, groups of figures started forward into relief; chaos +began to shape and organize its gloomy masses. Next, and by degrees, +came on the earliest dawn. This ripened imperceptibly into a rosy aurora +that gave notice of some mightier power approaching. And at length, but +not until the age of Cyrus, five centuries and a half before Christ, +precisely one century later, the golden daylight of authentic history +sprang above the horizon and was finally established. Since that time, +whatever want of light we may have to lament is due to the _loss_ of +records, not to their original _absence_; due to the victorious +destructions of time, not[20] to the error of the human mind confounding +the provinces of Fable and of History. + +Let the first chamber of history therefore be that which stretches from +the year 750 B.C. to the era of His Incarnation. I say 750 for the +present, because it would be quite idle, in dealing with intervals of +time so vast, to take notice of any little excess or defect by which the +actual period differed from the ideal; strictly speaking, the period of +authentic history commences sixteen or seventeen years earlier. But for +the present let us say in round numbers that this period commenced 750 +years B.C. And let the first chamber of history be of that duration. + +B. Next let us take an equal space _after_ Christ. This will be the +second chamber of history. Starting from the birth of our Saviour, it +will terminate in the middle of the eighth century, or in the early +years of Charlemagne. These surely are most remarkable eras. + +C. Then passing for the present without explanation to the year 1100 for +the first Crusade, let us there fix one foot of our 'golden compasses,' +and with the other mark off an equal period of 750 years. This carries +us up nearly to the reign of George III, of England. And this will be +the third great chamber of history. + +D. Fourthly, there will now remain a period just equal to one-half of +such a chamber, viz.: 350 years between Charlemagne's cradle and the +first Crusade, the terminal era of the second chamber and the inaugural +era of the third. This we will call the ante-chamber of No. 3. + +Now, upon reviewing these chambers and antechambers, the first important +remark for the student is, that the second chamber is nearly empty of +all incidents. Take away the migrations and invasions of the several +Northern nations who overran the Western Empire, broke it up, and laid +the foundations of the great nations of Christendom--England, France, +Spain--and take away the rise of Mahommedanism, and there would remain +scarcely anything memorable. + +From all this we draw the following inference: that memory is, in +certain cases, connected with great effort, in others, with no effort at +all. Of one class we may say, that the facts absolutely deposit +themselves in the memory; they settle in our memories as a sediment or +deposition from a liquor settles in a glass; of another we may say that +the facts cannot maintain their place in the memory without continued +exertion, and with something like violence to natural tendencies. Now, +beyond all other facts, the facts of dates are the most severely of this +latter class. Oftentimes the very actions or sufferings of a man, +empire, army, are hard to be remembered because they are +non-significant, non-characteristic: they belong by no more natural or +intellectual right to that man, empire, army, than to any other man, +empire, army. We remember, for instance, the simple diplomacy of Greece, +when she summoned all States to the grand duty of exterminating the +barbarian from her limits, and throwing back the tides of barbarism +within its natural limits; for this appealed to what was noblest in +human nature. We forget the elaborate intrigues which preceded the +Peloponnesian war, for these appealed only to vulgar and ordinary +motives of self-aggrandisement. We remember the trumpet voice which +summoned Christendom to deliver Christ's sepulchre from Pagan insults, +for that was the great romance of religious sentiment. But we forget the +treaties by which this or that Crusading king delivered his army from +Mahometan victors, because these proceeded on the common principles of +fear and self-interest; principles having no peculiar relation to those +from which the Crusades had arisen. + +Now, if even actions themselves are easily dropped from the memory, +because they stand in no logical relation to the central interest +concerned, how much more and how universally must dates be liable to +oblivion--dates which really have no more discoverable connection with +any name of man or place or event, than the letters or syllables of +that name have with the great cause or principles with which it may +happen to have been associated. Why should Themistocles or Aristides +have flourished 500 B.C., rather than 250, 120, or any other number of +years? No conceivable relation--hardly so much as any fanciful +relation--can be established between the man and his era. And in this +one (to all appearance insuperable) difficulty, in this absolute defect +of all connection between the two objects that are to be linked together +in the memory, lies the startling task of Chronology. Chronology is +required to chain together--and so that one shall inevitably recall the +other--a name and an era which with regard to each other are like two +clouds, aerial, insulated, mutually repulsive, and throwing out no +points for grappling or locking on, neither offering any natural +indications of interconnection, nor apparently by art, contrivance,[21] +or fiction, susceptible of any. + +II. _Jewish as compared with other records._--Let us open our review +with the annals of Judea; and for two reasons: first, because in the +order of time it _was_ the inaugural chapter, so that the order of our +rehearsal does but conform to the order of the facts; secondly, because +on another principle of arrangement, viz., its relation to the capital +interests of human nature, it stands first in another sense by a degree +which cannot be measured. + +These are two advantages, in comparison with all other history whatever, +which have crowned the Jewish History with mysterious glory, and of +these the pupil should be warned in her introductory lesson. The first +is: that the Jewish annals open by one whole millennium before all other +human records. Full a thousand years had the chronicles of the Hebrew +nation been in motion and unfolding that sublime story, fitter for the +lyre and the tumultuous organ, than for unimpassioned recitation, before +the earliest whispers of the historic muse began to stir in any other +land. Amongst Pagan nations, Greece was the very foremost to attempt +that almost impracticable object under an imperfect civilization--the +art of fixing in forms not perishable, and of transmitting to distant +generations, her social revolutions.[22] She wanted paper through her +earlier periods, she wanted typographic art, she wanted, above all, +other resources for such a purpose--the art of reading as a national +accomplishment. How could people record freely and fervently, with +Hebrew rapture, those events which must be painfully chiselled out in +marble, or expensively ploughed and furrowed into brazen tablets? What +freedom to the motions of human passion, where an _extra_ word or two of +description must be purchased by a day's labour? But, above all, what +motive could exist for the accumulation or the adequate diffusion of +records, howsoever inscribed, on slabs of marble or of bronze, on +leather, or plates of wood, whilst as yet no general machinery of +education had popularized the art of reading? Until the age of Pericles +each separate Grecian city could hardly have furnished three citizens on +an average able to read. Amongst a people so illiterate, how could +manuscripts or manu_sculpts_ excite the interest which is necessary to +their conservation? Of what value would a shipload of harps prove to a +people unacquainted with the science or the practical art of music? Too +much or too little interest alike defeat this primary purpose of the +record. Records must be _self_-conservative before they can be applied +to the conservation of events. Amongst ourselves the _black-letter_ +records of English heroes by Grafton and Hollinshed, of English voyagers +by Hakluyt, of English martyrs by Fox, perished in a very unusual +proportion by excessive use through successive generations of readers: +but amongst the Greeks they would have perished by neglect. The too much +of the English usage and the too little of the Grecian would have tended +to the same result. Books and the art of reading must ever be powerful +re-agents--each upon the other: until books were multiplied, there could +be no general accomplishment of reading. Until the accomplishment was +taken up into the system of education, books insculptured by painful +elaboration upon costly substances must be too much regarded as +jewellery to obtain a domestic value for the mass. + +The problem, therefore, was a hard one for Greece--to devise any art, +power or machinery for fixing and propagating the great memorials of +things and persons. Each generation as it succeeded would more and more +furnish subjects for the recording pen of History, yet each in turn was +compelled to see them slipping away like pearls from a fractured +necklace. It seems easy, but in practice it must be nearly impossible, +to take aim, as it were, at a remote generation--to send a sealed letter +down to a posterity two centuries removed--or by any human resources, +under the Grecian conditions of the case, to have a chance of clearing +that vast bridgeless gulf which separates the present from the far-off +ages of perfect civilization. Maddening it must have been to know by +their own experience, derived from the far-off past, that no monuments +had much chance of duration, except precisely those small ones of medals +and sculptured gems, which, if durable by metallic substance and +interesting by intrinsic value, were in the same degree more liable to +loss by shipwreck, fire, or other accidents applying to portable things, +but above all furnished no field for more than an intense +abstractiveness. The Iliad arose, as we shall say, a thousand years +before Christ, consequently it bisected precisely the Hebrew history +which arose two thousand years before the same era. Now the Iliad was +the very first historic record of the Greeks, and it was followed at +intervals by many other such sections of history, in the shape of +_Nostoi_, poems on the homeward adventures of the Greek heroes returning +from Troy, or of Cyclical Poems taking a more comprehensive range of +action from the same times, filling up the interspace of 555 years +between this memorable record of the one great Pagan Crusade[23] at the +one limit, and the first Greek prose history--that of Herodotus--at the +lower limit. Even through a space of 555 years _subsequent_ to the +Iliad, which has the triple honour of being the earliest Greek book, the +earliest Greek poem, the earliest Greek history, we see the Grecian +annals but imperfectly sustained; legends treated with a legendary +variety; romances embroidered with romantic embellishments; poems, +which, if Greek narrative poetry allowed of but little fiction and +sternly rejected all pure invention, yet originally rested upon +semi-fabulous and mythological marvels, and were thus far poetic in the +basis, that when they durst not invent they could still garble by +poetical selection where they chose; and thus far lying--that if they +were compelled to conform themselves to the popular traditions which +must naturally rest upon a pedestal of fact, it was fact as seen through +an atmosphere of superstition, and imperceptibly modified by priestly +arts. + +The sum, therefore, of our review is, that one thousand [1,000] years +B.C. did the earliest Grecian record appear, being also the earliest +Greek poem, and this poem being the earliest Greek book; secondly, that +for the five-hundred-and-fifty-five [555] years subsequent to the +earliest record, did the same legendary form of historic composition +continue to subsist. On the other hand, as a striking antithesis to this +Grecian condition of history, we find amongst the Hebrews a +circumstantial deduction of their annals from the very nativity of their +nation--that is, from the birth of the Patriarch Isaac, or, more +strictly, of his son the Patriarch Jacob--down to the captivity of the +two tribes, their restoration by Cyrus, and the dedication of the Second +Temple. This Second Temple brings us abreast of Herodotus, the first +Greek historian. Fable with the Greeks is not yet distinguished from +fact, but a sense of the distinction is becoming clearer. + +The privileged use of the word Crusade, which we have ventured to make +with reference to the first great outburst of Greek enthusiasm, suggests +a grand distinction, which may not unreasonably claim some illustration, +so deep does it reach in exhibiting the contrast between the character +of the early annals of the Hebrews and those of every other early +nation. + +Galilee and Joppa, and Nazareth, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives--what +a host of phantoms, what a resurrection from the graves of twelve and +thirteen centuries for the least reflecting of the army, had his mission +connected him no further with these objects than as a traveller passing +amongst them. But when the nature of his service was considered, the +purposes with which he allied himself, and the vindicating which he +supported, many times as a volunteer--the dullest natures must have been +penetrated, the lowest exalted.[24] + +To this grand passion of religious enthusiasm stands opposed, according +to the general persuasion, the passion, equally exalted, or equally open +to exaltation, of love. 'So the whole ear of Denmark is abused.' Love, +chivalrous love, love in its noblest forms, was a passion unknown to the +Greeks; as we may well suppose in a country where woman was not +honoured, not esteemed, not treated with the confidence which is the +basis of all female dignity. However, this subject I shall leave +untouched: simply reminding the reader that even conceding for a moment +so monstrous an impossibility as that pure chivalrous love, as it exists +under Christian institutions, could have had an existence in the Greece +of 1000 B.C.; the more elevated, the more tender it was, the less fitted +it could be for the coarse air of a camp. The holy sepulchre would +command reverence, and the expression of reverence, from the lowest +sutler of the camp; but we may easily imagine what coarse jests would +eternally surround the name of Helen amongst the Greek soldiery, and +everything connected with the cause which drew them into the field. + +Yet even this coarse travesty of a noble passion was a higher motive +than the Greeks really obeyed in the war with Troy. England, it has been +sometimes said, went to war with Spain, during George II.'s reign, on +account of Capt. Jenkins's ears, which a brutal Spanish officer, in the +cowardly abuse of his power, had nailed to the mast. And if she did, the +cause was a noble one, however unsuitably expounded by its outward +heraldry. There the cause was noble, though the outward sign was below +its dignity. But in the Iliad, if we may give that name to the total +expedition against Troy and the Troad, the relations were precisely +inverted. Its outward sign, its ostensible purpose, was noble: for it +was woman. _But the real and sincere motive which collected fifty +thousand Grecians under one common banner, was_ (I am well assured upon +meditation) _money--money, and money's worth_. No less motive in that +age was adequate to the effect. Helen was, assuredly, no such prize +considering her damaged reputation and other circumstances. Revenge +might intermingle in a very small proportion with the general principle +of the war; as to the oath and its obligation, which is supposed to have +bound over the princes of Greece: that I suppose to be mere cant; for +how many princes were present in the field that never could have been +suitors to Helen, nor parties to the oath? Do we suppose old Nestor to +have been one? A young gentleman 'rising' 99, as the horse-jockeys say; +or by some reckonings, 113! No, plunder was the object. + +The truth was this--the plain historic truth for any man not wilfully +blind--Greece was miserably poor; that we know by what we find five +centuries after, when she must, like other people who find little else +to do, have somewhat bettered her condition. Troy and the Troad were +redundantly rich; it was their great crime to be so. Already the western +coast of Asia Minor was probably studded with Greek colonies, standing +in close connection with the great capitals on the Euphrates or the +Tigris, and sharing in the luxurious wealth of the great capitals on the +Euphrates or the Tigris. Mitford most justly explained the secret +history of Cęsar's expedition to England out of his wish to find a new +slave country.[25] And after all the romantic views of the Grecian +expedition to the Troad, I am satisfied we should look for its true +solution in the Greek poverty and the wealth--both _locally +concentrated_ and _portable_--of the Trojans. Land or cities were things +too much diffused: and even the son of Peleus or of Telamon could not +put them into his pocket. But golden tripods, purple hangings or robes, +fine horses, and beautiful female slaves could be found over the +Hellespont. Helen, the _materia litis_, the subject of quarrel on its +earliest pretence, could not be much improved by a ten years' blockade. +But thousands of more youthful Helens were doubtless carried back to +Greece. And in this prospect of booty most assuredly lay the unromantic +motive of the sole romantic expedition amongst the Greeks. + +III. _Oriental History._--We here set aside the earlier tangle of legend +and fact which is called Oriental History, and for these reasons: (1) +instead of promoting the solution of chronological problems, Oriental +history is itself the most perplexing of those problems; (2) the +perpetual straining after a high fabulous antiquity amongst the nations +of the east, vitiates all the records; (3) the vast empires into which +the plains of Asia moulded the eastern nations, allowed of no such +rivalship as could serve to check their legends by collateral +statements; and (4) were all this otherwise, still the great permanent +schism of religion and manners has so effectually barred all coalition +between Europe and Asia, from the oldest times, that of necessity their +histories have flowed apart with little more reciprocal reference or +relationship, than exists between the Rhine and the Danube--rivers, +which almost meeting in their sources, ever after are continually +widening their distance until they fall into different seas two thousand +miles apart. Asia never, at any time, much acted upon Europe; and when +later ages had forced them into artificial connections, it was always +Europe that acted upon Asia; never Asia, upon any commensurate scale, +that acted upon Europe.[26] + +Not, therefore, in Asia can the first footsteps of chronology be sought; +not in Africa, because, _first_, the records of Egypt, so far as any +have survived, are intensely Asiatic; liable to the same charge of +hieroglyphic ambiguity combined with the exaggerations of outrageous +nationality; because, _secondly_, the separate records of the adjacent +State of Cyrene have perished; because, _thirdly_, the separate records +of the next State, Carthage, have perished; because, _fourthly_, the +learned labours of Mauritania[27] have also perished. + +Thus the pupil is satisfied that of mere necessity the chronologer must +resort to Europe for his earliest monuments and his earliest +authentications--for the facts to be attested, and for the evidences +which are to attest them. But if to Europe, next, to what part of +Europe? Two great nations--great in a different sense, the one by +dazzling brilliancy of intellect, the other by weight and dignity of +moral grandeur--divide between them the honours of history through the +centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ. To which of these, +the pupil asks, am I to address myself? On the one hand, the greater +refinement and earlier civilization of Greece would naturally converge +all eyes upon her; but then, on the other hand, we cannot forget the +'_levitas levissimę gentis_'--the want of stability, the want of all +that we call moral dignity, and by direct consequence, the puerile +credulity of that clever, sparkling, but very foolish people, the +Greeks. That quality which, beyond all others, the Romans imputed to the +Grecian character; that quality which, in the very blaze of admiration, +challenged by the Grecian intellect, still overhung with deep shadows +their rational pretensions and degraded them to a Roman eye, was the +essential _levitas_--the defect of any principle that could have given +steadiness and gravity--which constituted the original sin of the Greek +character. By _levitas_ was meant the passive obedience to casual, +random, or contradictory impulses, the absence of all determining +principle. Now this _levitas_ was the precise anti-pole of the Roman +character; which was as massy, self-supported, and filled with +resistance to chance impulses, as the Greek character was windy, vain, +and servile to such impulses. Both nations, it is true, were +superstitious, because all nations, in those ages were intensely +superstitious; and each, after a fashion of its own, intensely +credulous. But the Roman superstition was coloured by something of a +noble pride; the Grecian by vanity. The Greek superstition was fickle +and self-contradicting, and liable to sudden changes; the Roman, +together with the gloom, had the unity and the perseverance of bigotry. +No Christian, even, purified and enlightened by his sublime faith, could +more utterly despise the base crawling adorations of Egypt, than did the +Roman polytheist, out of mere dignity of mind, while to the frivolous +Athenian they were simply objects of curiosity. In the Greek it was a +vulgar sentiment of clannish vanity.[28] Even the national +self-consequence of a Roman and a Greek were sentiments of different +origin, and almost opposite quality; in the Roman it was a sublime and +imaginative idea of Rome, of her self-desired grandeur, and, above all, +of her divine _destiny_, over which last idea brooded a cloud of +indefinite expectation, not so entirely unlike the exalting expectations +of the Jews, looking for ever to some unknown 'Elias' that should come. + +Thus perplexed by the very different claims upon his respect in these +two exclusive authorities of the ancient world--carried to the Roman by +his _moral_ feelings, to the Grecian by his intellectual--the student is +suddenly delivered from his doubts by the discovery that these two +principal streams of history flow absolutely apart through the elder +centuries of historical light. + + +IV. _777 and its Three Great Landmarks._--In this perplexity, we say, +the youthful pupil is suddenly delighted to hear that there is no call +upon her to choose between Grecian and Roman guides. Fortunately, and as +if expressly to save her from any of those fierce disputes which have +risen up between the true Scriptural chronology and the chronology of +the mendacious Septuagint, it is laid down that the Greek and Roman +history, soon after both had formally commenced, flowed apart for +centuries; nor did they so much as hear of each other (unless as we +moderns heard of Prester John in Abyssinia, or of the Great Mogul in +India), until the Greek colonies in Calabria, etc., began to have a +personal meaning for a Roman ear, or until Sicily (as the common field +for Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian) began to have a dangerous meaning +for all three. As to the Romans, the very grandeur of their +self-reliance and the sublime faith which they had in the destinies[29] +of Rome, inclined them to carelessness about all but their nearest +neighbours, and sustained for ages their illiterate propensities. +Illiterate they were, because incurious; and incurious because too +haughtily self-confident. The Greeks, on the other hand, amongst the +other infirmities attached to their national levity, had curiosity in +abundance. But it flowed in other channels. There was nothing to direct +their curiosity upon the Romans. Generally speaking, there is good +reason for thinking that as, at this day, the privilege of a man to +present himself at any court of Christendom is recognised upon his +producing a ticket signed by a Lord Chamberlain of some other court, to +the effect that 'the Bearer is known at St. James's,' or 'known at the +Tuileries,' etc.; so, after the final establishment of the Olympic +games, the Greeks looked upon a man's appearance at that great national +congress as the criterion and ratification of his being a known or +knowable person. Unknown, unannounced personally or by proxy at the +great periodic Congress of Greece, even a prince was a _homo +ignorabilis_; one whose existence nobody was bound to take notice of. A +Persian, indeed, was allowably absent; because, as a permanent public +enemy, he could not safely be present. But as to all others, and +therefore as to Romans, the rule of law held--that 'to those not coming +forward and those not in existence, the same line of argument applies.' +[_De non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio._] + +Had this been otherwise--had the two nations met freely before the light +of history had strengthened into broad daylight--it is certain that the +controversies upon chronology would have been far more and more +intricate than they are. This profound[30] separation, therefore, has +been beneficial to the student in one direction. But in another it has +increased his duties; or, if not increased, at all events it serves to +remind him of a separate chapter in his chronological researches. Had +Rome stood in as close a relation to Greece as Persia did, one single +chronology would have sufficed for both. Hardly one event in Persian +history has survived for our memory, which is not taken up by the looms +of Greece and interwoven with the general arras and texture of Grecian +history. And from the era of the Consul Paulus Emilius, something of the +same sort takes place between Greece and Rome; and in a partial sense +the same result is renewed as often as the successive assaults occur of +the Roman-destroying power applied to the several members of the +Gręco-Macedonian Empire. But these did not commence until Rome had +existed for half-a-thousand years. And through all that long period, +two-thirds of the entire Roman history up to the Christian era, the two +Chronologies flow absolutely apart. + +Consequently, because all chronology is thrown back upon Europe, and +because the pre-Christian Europe is split into two collateral bodies, +and because each of these separate bodies must have a separate head--it +follows that chronology, as a pre-Christian chronology, will, like the +Imperial eagle, be two-headed. Now this accident of chronology, on a +first glance, seems but too likely to confuse and perplex the young +student. + +How fortunate, then, it must be thought, and what a duty it imposes upon +the teacher, not to defeat this bounty of accident by false and pedantic +rigour of calculation, that these two heads of the eagle--that head +which looks westward for Roman Chronology, that which looks eastward for +Grecian Chronology--do absolutely coincide as to their nativity. The +birthday of Grecian authentic history everybody agrees to look upon as +fixed to the establishment [the _final_ establishment] of the Olympic +games. And when was _that_? Generally, chronologers have placed this +event just 776 years before Christ. Now will any teacher be so 'peevish' +[as hostess Quickly calls it]--so perversely unaccommodating--as not to +lend herself to the very trivial alteration of one year, just putting +the clock back to 7 instead of 6, even if the absolute certainty of the +6 were made out? But if she _will_ break with her chronologer, 'her +guide, philosopher and friend,' upon so slight a consideration as one +year in three-quarters of a millennium, it then becomes my duty to tell +her that there is no such certainty in the contested number as she +chooses to suppose. Even the era of our Saviour's birth oscillates +through an entire Olympiad, or period of four years; to that extent it +is unsettled: and in fifty other ways I could easily make out a title to +a much more considerable change. In reality, when the object is--not to +secure an attorney-like[31] accuracy--but to promote the _liberal_ +pursuit of chronology, a teacher of good sense would at once direct her +pupil to record the date in round terms as just reaching the +three-quarters of a thousand years; she would freely sacrifice the +entire twenty-six years' difference between 776 and 750, were it not +that the same purpose, viz., the purpose of consulting the powers or +convenience and capacity of the memory, in neglect and defiance of +useless and superstitious arithmetic punctilios, may be much better +attained by a more trifling sacrifice. Three-quarters of a millennium, +that is three parts in four of a thousand years, is a period easily +remembered; but a triple repetition of the number 7, simply saying +'_Seven seven seven_' is remembered even _more_ easily.[32] + +Suppose this point then settled, for anything would be remarkable and +highly rememberable which comes near to a common familiar fraction of so +vast a period in human affairs as a millennium [a term consecrated to +our Christian ears, (1) by its use in the Apocalypse; (2) by its +symbolic use in representing the long Sabbath of rest from sin and +misery, and finally (3) even to the profane ear by the fact of its being +the largest period which we employ in our historical estimates]. But a +triple iteration of the number 7, simply saying '_Seven seven seven_,' +would be even more rememberable. And, lastly, were it still necessary to +add anything by way of reconciling the teacher to the supposed +inaccuracy (though, if a real[33] and demonstrated inaccuracy, yet, be +it remembered, the very least which _can_ occur, viz., an error of a +single unit), I will--and once for all, as applying to many similar +cases, as often as they present themselves--put this stringent question +to every woman of good sense: is it not better, is it not more +agreeable to your views for the service of your pupils, that they should +find offered to their acceptance some close approximation to the truth +which they can very easily remember, than an absolute conformity to the +very letter of the truth which no human memory, though it were the +memory of Mithridates, could retain? Good sense is shown, above all +things, in seeking the practicable which is within our power, by +preference to a more exquisite ideal which is unattainable. Not, I +grant, in moral or religious things. Then I willingly allow, we are +forbidden to sit down contented with imperfect attempts, or to make +deliberate compromises with the slightest known evil in principle. To +this doctrine I heartily subscribe. But surely in matters _not_ moral, +in questions of erudition or of antiquarian speculation, or of +historical research, we are under a different rule. Here, and in similar +cases, it is our business, I conceive with Solon legislating for the +Athenians, to contemplate, not what is best in an abstract sense, but +what is best under the circumstances of the case. Now the most important +circumstances of this case are--that the memory of young ladies must be +assumed as a faculty of average power, both as to its apprehensiveness +and as to its tenacity; its power of mastering for the moment, and its +power of retaining faithfully; that this faculty will not endure the +oppression of mere blank facts having no organization or life of logical +relation running through them; that by 'not enduring' I mean that it +cannot support this harassing and persecution with impunity[34]; that +the fine edge of the higher intellectual powers will be taken off by +this laborious straining, which is not only dull, but the cause of +dulness; that finally, the memory, supposing it in a given and rare case +powerful enough to contend successfully with such tasks, must even as +regards this time required, hold itself disposable for many other +applications; and therefore, as the inference from the whole, that not +any slight or hasty, but a most intense and determinate effort should be +made to substitute some technical artifices for blank pulls against a +dead weight of facts, to substitute fictions, or artificial imitations +of logical arrangement, wherever that is possible, for blind +arrangements of chance; and finally, in a process which requires every +assistance from compromise and accommodation constantly to surrender the +rigour of superstitious accuracy, (which, after all its magnificent +pretensions, _must_ fail in the performance), to humbler probability of +a reasonable success. + +I have dwelt upon this point longer than would else have been right, +because in effect here lies the sole practical obstacle to the +realization of a very beautiful framework of chronology, and because I +consider myself as now speaking _once for all_. Let us now move forward. +I now go on to the other head of the eagle--the head which looks +westward. + +Here it will be objected that the Foundation of Rome is usually laid +down in the year 753 B.C.; and therefore that it differs from the +foundation of the Olympiads by as much as 23 or 24 years; and can I have +the conscience to ask my fair friends that they should _put the clock +back_ so far as that? Why, really there is no knowing; perhaps if I were +hard pressed by some chronological enemy, I might ask as great a favour +even as that. But at present it is not requisite; neither do I mean to +play any jugglers' tricks, as perhaps lawfully I might, with the +different computations of Varro, of the Capitoline Marbles, etc. All +that need be said in this place is simply--that Rome is not Romulus. And +let Rome have been founded when she pleases, and let her secret name +have been what it might--though really, in default of a better, Rome +itself is as decent and _'sponsible_ a name as a man would wish--still I +presume that Romulus must have been a little older than Rome, the +builder a little anterior to what he built. Varro and the Capitoline +Tables and Mr. Hook will all agree to that postulate. And whatever some +of them may say as to the youth of Romulus, when he first began to wield +the trowel, at least, I suppose, he was come to years of discretion; +and, if we say twenty-three or twenty-four, which I am as much entitled +to say as they to deny it, then we are all right. 'All right behind,' as +the mail guards say, 'drive on.' And so I feel entitled to lay my hand +upon my heart and assure my fair pupils that Romulus himself and the +Olympiads did absolutely start together; and for anything known to the +contrary, perhaps in the same identical moment or bisection of a moment. +Possibly his first little wolfish howl (for it would be monstrous to +think that he or even Remus condescended to a _vagitus_ or cry such as a +young tailor or rat-catcher might emit) may have symphonized with the +ear-shattering trumpet that proclaimed the inauguration of the first +Olympic contest, or which blew to the four winds the appellation of the +first Olympic victor. + +That point, therefore, is settled, and so far, at least, 'all's right +behind.' And it is a great relief to my mind that so much is +accomplished. Two great arrow-headed nails at least are driven 'home' to +the great dome of Chronology from which my whole golden chain of +historical dependencies is to swing. And even that will suffice. Careful +navigators, indeed, like to ride by three anchors; but I am content with +what I have achieved, even if my next attempt should be less +satisfactory. + +It is certainly a very striking fact to the imagination that great +revolutions seldom come as solitary cases. It never rains but it pours. +At times there _is_ some dark sympathy, which runs underground, +connecting remote events like a ground-swell in the ocean, or like the +long careering[35] of an earthquake before it makes its explosion. +_Abyssus abyssum invocat_--'One deep calleth to another.' And in some +incomprehensible way, powers not having the slightest _apparent_ +interconnexion, no links through which any _casual_ influence could +rationally be transmitted, do, nevertheless, in fact, betray either a +blind nexus--an undiscoverable web of dependency upon each other, or +else a dependency upon some common cause equally undiscoverable. What +possible, what remote connexion could the dissolution of the Assyrian +empire have with the Olympiads or with the building of Rome? Certainly +none at all that we can see; and yet these great events so nearly +synchronize that even the latest of them seems but a more distant +undulation of the same vast swell in the ocean, running along from west +to east, from the Tiber to the Tigris. Some great ferment of revolution +was then abroad. The overthrew of Nineveh as the capital of the Assyrian +empire, the ruin of the dynasty ending in Sardanapalus, and the +subsequent dismemberment of the Assyrian empire, took place, according +to most chronologers, 747 years B.C., just 30 years, therefore, after +the two great events which I have assigned to 777. These two events are +in the strictest and most capital sense the inaugural events of history, +the very pillars of Hercules which indicate a _ne plus ultra_ in that +direction; namely, that all beyond is no longer history but romance. I +am exceedingly anxious to bring this Assyrian revolution also to the +same great frontier line of columns. In a gross general way it might +certainly be argued that in such a great period, thirty years, or one +generation, can be viewed as nothing more than a trifling quantity. But +it must also be considered that the exact time, and even the exact +personality,[36] of Sardanapalus in all his relations are not known. All +are vast phantoms in the Assyrian empire; I do not say fictions, but +undefined, unmeasured, immeasurable realities; far gone down into the +mighty gulf of shadows, and for us irrecoverable. All that is known +about the Assyrian empire is its termination under Sardanapalus. It was +then coming within Grecian twilight; and it will be best to say that, +generally speaking, Sardanapalus coincided with Romulus and the Greek +Olympiad. To affect any nearer accuracy than this would be the grossest +reliance on the mere jingle of syllables. History would be made to rest +on something less than a pun; for such as _Palus_ and _Pul_, which is +all that learned archbishops can plead as their vouchers in the matter +of Assyria, there is not so much as the argument of a child or the wit +of a punster. + +Upon the whole, the teacher will make the following remarks to her +pupils, after having read what precedes; remarks partly upon the new +mode of delivering chronology, and partly upon the things delivered: + +I. She will notice it--as some improvement--that the three great +leading events, which compose the opening of history not fabulous, are +here, for the first time, placed under the eye in their true relations +of time, viz., as about contemporary. For without again touching on the +question--do they, or do they not, vary from each other in point of time +by twenty-three and by thirty years--it will be admitted by everybody +that, at any rate, the three events stand equally upon the frontier line +of authentic history. A frontier or debateable land is always of some +breadth. They form its inauguration. And they would do so even if +divided by a much wider interval. Now, it is very possible to know of A, +B, and C, separately, that each happened in such a year, say 1800; and +yet never to have noticed them consciously _as_ contemporary. We read of +many a man (L, M, N, suppose), that he was born in 1564, or that he died +in 1616. And we may happen separately to know that these were the years +in which Shakespeare was born and died. Yet, for all that, we may never +happen consciously to notice with respect to any one of the men, L, M, +N, that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare's. Now, this was the case +with regard to the three great events, Greek, Roman, and Assyrian. No +chronologer failed to observe of each in its separate place that it +occurred somewhere about 750 years B.C. But every chronologer had failed +to notice this coincident time of each _as_ coincident. And, +accordingly, all failed to converge these three events into one focus as +the solemn and formal opening of history. It is good to have a +beginning, a starting post, from which to date all possible historical +events that are worthy to be regarded as such. But it is better still to +find that by the rarest of accidents, by a good luck that could never +have been looked for, the three separate starting posts--which +historical truth obliges us to assume for the three great fields of +history, Roman, Grecian, and Asiatic[37]--all closely coincide in point +of time; or, to use the Greek technical term, all closely synchronize. + +II. With respect to Greece and the Olympiad in particular, she will +inform her pupil that the Olympic games, celebrated near the town of +Olympia, recurred every fifth year; that is to say, there was a clear +interval of four years between each revolution of the games. Each +Olympiad, therefore, containing four years, it is usual in citing the +particular Olympiad in which an event happened, to cite also the year, +should that be known, or, being known, should that be of importance. +Thus Olymp. CX. 3 would mean that such a thing, say X, occurred in the +third year of the 110th Olympiad; that is, four times 110 will be 440; +and this, deducted from 777 (the era of the Olympiads), leaves 337 years +B.C. as the era when X occurred. Only that, upon reviewing the case, we +find that the 110th Olympiad was not absolutely completed, not by one +year; which, subtracted from the 337, leaves 336 B.C. as the true date. +If her pupil should say, 'But were there no great events in Greece +before the Olympiads?' the teacher will answer, 'Yes, a few, but not +many of a rank sufficient to be called Grecian.' They are merely local +events; events of Thessaly, suppose; events of Argos; but much too +obscure, both as to the facts, as to the meaning of the facts, and as to +the dates, to be worth any student's serious attention. There were, +however, three events worthy to be called _Grecian_; partly because +they interested more States than one of Greece; and partly because they +have since occupied the Athenian stage, and received a sort of +consecration from the great masters of Grecian tragedy. These three +events were the fatal story of the house of Oedipus; a story +stretching through three generations; and in which the war against the +Seven Gates of Thebes was but an episode. Secondly, the Argonautic +expedition (voyage of the ship _Argo_, and of the sailors in that ship, +_i.e._, the Argonauts), which is consecrated as the first voyage of any +extent undertaken by Greeks. Both these events are as full of heroic +marvels, and of supernatural marvels, as the legends of King Arthur, +Merlin, and the Fairy Morgana. Later than these absolute romances comes +the semi-romance of the Iliad, or expedition against Troy. This, the +most famous of all Pagan romances, we know by two separate criteria to +be later in date than either of the two others; first, because the +actors in the Iliad are the descendants of those who figured as actors +in the others; secondly, from the subdued tone of the romantic[38] which +prevails throughout the Iliad. Now, with respect to these three events +in Grecian history, anterior to the Olympiads, which are all that a +young student ought to notice, it is sufficient if generally she is made +aware of the order in which they stand to each other, or, at least, that +the Iliad comes last in the series, and if as to this last and greatest +of the series, she fixes its era precisely to one thousand years before +Christ. Chronologers, indeed, sometimes bring it down to something +lower. But one millennium, the clear unembarrassed cyphers of 1,000, +whether in counting guineas or years, is a far simpler and a far more +rememberable era than any qualifications of this round number; which +qualifications, let it not for a moment be forgotten, are not at all +better warranted than the simpler expression. One only amongst all +chronologers has anything to stand upon that is not as unsubstantial as +a cloud; and this is Sir Isaac Newton. And the way in which he proceeded +it may be well to explain, in order that the young pupil may see what +sort of evidences we have _prior to the Olympiads_ for any chronological +fact. Sir Isaac endeavoured by calculating backwards to ascertain the +exact time of some celestial phenomenon--as, suppose, an eclipse of the +sun, or such and such positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to +each other. This phenomenon, whatever it were, call X. Then if (upon +looking into the Argonautic Expedition or any other romance of those +elder times) he finds X actually noticed as co-existing with any part of +the adventures, in that case he has fixed by absolute observation, as it +were, what we may call the latitude and longitude of that one historical +event; and then using this, as we use our modern meridian of Greenwich, +as a point of starting, he can deduce the distances of all subsequent +events by tracing them through the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons +of the several actors concerned. The great question which will then +remain to be settled is, how many years to allow for a generation; and, +secondly, in monarchies, how much to allow for a reign, since often two +successive reigns will not be two successive generations, because whilst +the two reigns are distinct quantities, the two lives are coincident +through a great part of their duration. Now, of course, Sir Isaac is +very often open to serious criticism, or to overpowering doubts. That is +inevitable. But on the whole he treads upon something like a firm +footing. Others, as regards that era, tread upon mere clouds, and their +authority goes for nothing at all. + +Such being the state of the case, let the pupil never trouble her memory +for one moment with so idle an effort as that of minutely fixing or +retaining dates that, after all, are more doubtful, and for us +irrecoverable, than the path of some obscure trading ship in some past +generation through the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, it will be quite near +enough to the truth if she places upon the meridian of 1000 years B.C. +the three Romances--Argonautic, Theban, Trojan; and she will then have +the satisfaction of finding that, as at the opening of authentic +history, she found the Roman, the Greek, and the Asiatic inaugural +events coinciding in the same exact focus, so in these semi-fabulous or +ante-Olympian events, she finds that one and the same effort of memory +serves to register _them_, and also the most splendid of the Jewish +eras--that of David and Solomon. The round sum of 1000 years B.C., so +easily remembered, without distinction, without modification, '_sans +phrase_' (to quote a brutal regicide), serves alike for the Seven-gated +Thebes,[39] for Troy, and for Jerusalem in its most palmy days. + +V. _A Perplexity Cleared Up._--Before passing onward here, it is highly +important to notice a sort of episode in history, which fills up the +interval between 777 and 555, but which is constantly confounded and +perplexed with what took place before 777. + +The word _Assyria_ is that by which the perplexity is maintained. The +Assyrian empire, as the pupil is told, was destroyed in the person of +Sardanapalus. Yet, in her Bible, she reads of Sennacherib, King of +Assyria. 'Was Sennacherib, then, before Sardanapalus?' she will ask; and +her teacher will inform her that he was not. + +Such things puzzle her. They seem palpable contradictions. But now let +her understand that out of the Assyrian empire split off three separate +kingdoms, of which one was called the Assyrian, not empire, but kingdom; +there lurks the secret of the error. And to this kingdom of Assyria it +was that Sennacherib belonged. Or, in order to represent by a sensible +image this derivation of kingdoms from the stock of the old +superannuated Assyrian empire (to which belonged Nimrod, Ninus, and +Semiramis--those mighty phantoms, with their incredible armies); let her +figure to herself some vast river, like the Nile or the Ganges, with the +form assumed by its mouths. Often it will happen, where such a river is +not hemmed in between rocks, or confined to the bed of a particular +valley, that, perhaps, a hundred or two of miles before reaching the +sea, upon coming into a soft, alluvial soil, it will force several +different channels for itself. As these must make angles to each other, +in order to form different roads, the land towards the disemboguing of +the river will take the arrangement of a triangle. And as that happens +to be the form of a Greek capital D (in the Greek alphabet called +Delta), it has been usual to call such an arrangement of a great river's +mouth a Delta. + +Now, then, let her think of the Assyrian empire under the notion of the +Nile, descending from far distant regions, and from fountains that were +concealed for ages, if even now discovered. Then, when it approaches +the sea, and splits up its streams, so as to form a Delta, let her +regard that Delta as the final state of the Assyrian power, the kingdom +state lasting for about two centuries until swallowed up altogether, and +remoulded into unity by the Persian empire. + +The Delta, therefore, or the Nile dividing into three streams, will +represent the three kingdoms formed out of the ruins of the Assyrian +empire, when falling to pieces by the death of Sardanapalus. One of +these three kingdoms is often called the Median; one the Chaldęan; and +the third is called the Assyrian kingdom. But the most rememberable +shape in which they can be recalled is, perhaps, by the names of their +capitals. The capital cities were as follows: of the first, _Ecbatana_, +which is the modern _Hamadan_; of the second, _Babylon_, on the +Euphrates, of which the ruins have been fully ascertained in our own +times; at present, nothing remains _but_ ruins, and these ruins are +dangerous to visit, both from human marauders prowling in that +neighbourhood, and from wild beasts of the most formidable class, which +are so little disturbed in their awful lairs, that they bask at noon-day +amongst the huge hills of half-vitrified bricks. Finally, of the third +kingdom, which still retained the name of Assyria, the metropolis was +_Nineveh_, on the Tigris, revealed by Layard. + +These three kingdoms had some internal wars and revolutions during the +two centuries which elapsed from the great period 777 (the period of +Sardanapalus), until the days of Cyrus, the Persian. By that time the +three had become two, the kingdom of Nineveh had been swallowed up, and +Cyrus, who was destined to form the Persian empire upon their ruins, +found one change less to be effected than might have been looked for. Of +the two which remained, he conquered one, and the other came to him by +maternal descent. Thus he gained all three, and moulded them into one, +called Persia. + +VI. _Five and Five and Five._--The crowning action in which Cyrus +figures is, therefore, that of conqueror of Babylon, and all the details +of his career point forward, like markings on the dial, towards that +great event, as full of interest for the imagination as any of the +events of pre-Christian history. I would fain for once by the aid of +metre, fix more firmly in the mind of the reader the grandeur and +imposing significance of this event: + + Thus in Five and Five and Five did Cyrus the Great of Elam,[40] + On a festal night break in with roar of the fierce alalagmos.[41] + Over Babylonian walls, over tower and turret of entrance, + Over helmčd heads, and over the carnage of armies. + Idle the spearsman's spear, Assyrian scymitar idle; + Broken the bow-string lay of the Mesopotamian archer; + 'Ride to the halls of Belshazzar, ride through the murderous uproar; + Ride to the halls of Belshazzar!' commanded Cyrus of Elam. + They rode to the halls of Belshazzar. Oh, merciful, merciful angels! + That prompt sweet tears to men, hang veils, hang drapery darkest,-- + If any may hide or may pall this night's tempestuous horror. + Like a deluge the army poured in on their snorting Bactrian horses, + Rattled the Parthian quivers, rang the Parthian harness of iron, + High upon spears rode the torches, and from them in showery blazes + Rained splendour lurid and fierce on the dreamlike ruinous uproar, + Such as delusions often from fever's fierce vertical ardour + Show through the long-chambered halls and corridors endless, + Blazing with cruel light--show to the brain of the stricken man; + Such as the angel of dreams sometimes sends to the guilty. + Such light lay in open front, but palpable ebony blackness, + Sealed every far-off street in deep and awful abysses, + Out of which rose like phantoms, rose and sank as a sea-bird + Rises and sinks on the waves of a dim, tumultuous ocean, + Faces dabbled in blood, phantasmagory direful and scenic. + + * * * * * + + But where is Belshazzar the Lord? Has he fled? Has he found an asylum? + Or still does he pace in his palace, blind-seeming or moonstruck? + Still does he tread proudly the palace, fancy-deluded, + Prophets of falsehood trusting, or false Babylonian idols, + Defying the odious truth from the summit of empire! + Lo! at his palace gates the fierce Apollyon's great army, + With maces uplifted, stand to make way for great Cyrus of Elam. + Watching for signal from him whose truncheon this way or that bids: + 'Strike!' said Cyrus the King. 'Strike!' said the princes of Elam; + And the brazen gates at the word, like flax that is broken asunder + By fire from earth or from heaven, snapped as a bulrush, + Snapped as a reed, as a wand, as the tiny toy of an infant. + Marvellous the sight that followed! Oh, most august revelation! + Mile-long were the halls that appeared, and open spaces enormous; + Areas fit to hold armies on the day of muster for battle; + Hosts upon either side, for amplest castrametation. + Depth behind depth, and dim labyrinthine apartments. + Golden galleries above running high into darkening vistas, + Staircases soaring and climbing, till sight grew dizzy with effort + Of chasing the corridors up to their whispering gloomy recesses. + Nations were ranged in the halls, nations ranged at a banquet, + Even then lightly proceeding with timbrel, dulcimer, hautboy, + Gong and loud kettledrum and fierce-blown tempestuous organ. + Banners floated in air, colossal embroidery tissues + Of Tyrian looms, scarlet, black, violet and amber, + Or the perfectest cunning of trained Babylonian artist, + Or massy embossed, from the volant shuttle of Phrygian. + Banners suspended in shade, or in the full glare of the lamplight, + Mid cressets and chandeliers by jewelly chains swinging pendant. + + * * * * * + + Draw a veil o'er the rout when advances great Cyrus of Elam, + Dusky-browed archers behind him, and spearmen before, + When he cries 'Strike!' and the gorgeously inlaid pavements + Run ruddy with blood of the festive Assyrians there. + +VII.--_Greece and Rome._--My female readers, whom only I contemplate in +every line of this little work, and who would have a right to consider +it disrespectful if I were to leave a single word of Latin or Greek +unexplained, must understand that the Greeks, according to that +universal habit of viewing remote objects in a relation of ascent or +descent with respect to the observer, whence the 'going up to +Jerusalem,' and our own 'going up to London,' always figured a journey +eastwards, that is, directed towards the Euphrates or Tigris, or to any +part of Asia from Greece as tending _upwards_. In this mode of +conceiving their relations to the East, they were governed +semi-consciously by the sense of a vast presence beyond the +Tigris--glorified by grandeur and by distance--the golden city of Susa, +and the throne of the great king. Accordingly, the expedition therefore +of Cyrus the younger against his brother Artaxerxes was called by +Xenophon, when recording it, the Anabasis, or going up of Cyrus; and, +from the accident of its celebrity, this title has adhered to that +expedition; and to that book--as if either could claim it by some +exclusive title; whereas, on the contrary, the Katabasis, or going down, +furnishes by much the larger and the more interesting part of the work. +And, in any case, the title is open to all Asiatic expeditions +whatsoever; to the Trojan that just crossed the water, to the Macedonian +that went beyond the Indus. The word Anąbasis must have its accent on +the syllable _ab_, not on the penultimate syllable _as_. + +In coming to the history of Imperial Rome, one is fortunately made +sensible at once of a vast advantage, which is this--that one is not +throwing away one's labour. Sad it is, after ploughing a stiff and +difficult clay, to find all at once that the whole is a task of so +little promise that perhaps, on the whole, one might as well have left +it untouched. + +X. Yes, I remember that my cousin, Cecilia Dinbury, took the pains to +master--or perhaps one ought to say to _mistress_--the history. + +L. No, to _miss_ it, is what one ought to say. + +X. Fie, my dear second cousin--Fie, fie, if you please. To _miss_ it, +indeed! Ah, how we wished that we _had_ missed it. But we had no such +luck. There were we broiling through a hot, hot August, broiling away at +this intolerable stew of Iskis and Fuskis, and all to no end or use. +Granted that too often it is, or it may be so. But here we are safe. Who +can fancy or feel so much as the shadow of a demur, when peregrinating +Rome, that we might be losing our toil? + +Now, then, in the highest spirits, let us open our studies. And first +let us map out a chart of the _personnel_ for pretty nearly a century. +Twelve Cęsars--the twelve first--should clearly of themselves make more +than a century. For I am sure all of you, except our two new friends, +know so much of arithmetic as that multiplication and division are a +great menace upon addition and subtraction. It is, therefore, a thing +most desirable to set up compound modes--short devices for abridging +these. Now 10 is the earliest number written with two digits: and the +higher the multiplier, so much harder, apparently, the process. Yet here +at least a great simplification offers. To multiply by 10, all you have +to do is to put a cipher after the multiplicand. Twenty-seven soldiers +are to have 10 guineas each, how much is required to pay all +twenty-seven? Why, 27 into 10 is 27 with a cipher at the end--27:0, +_i.e._, 270. _Ergo_, twelve Cęsars, supposing each to reign ten years, +would make, no, _should_ make, with anything like great lives--12:0, +_i.e._, 120 years. And when you consider that one of the twelve, viz., +Augustus, singly, for _his_ share, contributed fifty and odd years, if +the other eleven had given ten each that would be 11:0; this would make +a total of about 170. + +VIII.--_Beginning of Modern Era._--From the period of Justinian +commences a new era--an era of unusual transition. This is the broad +principle of change. Old things are decaying, new things are forming and +gathering. The lines of decay and of resurrection are moving visibly and +palpably to every eye in counteracting agency for one result--life and a +new truth for humanity. All the great armies of generous barbarians, +showing, by contrast with Rome and Greece, the opulence of teeming +nature as against the powers of form in utter superannuation, were now, +therefore, no longer moving, roaming, seeking--they had taken up their +ground; they were in a general process of castrametation, marking out +their alignments and deploying into open order upon ground now +permanently taken up for their settlement. The early trumpets, the +morning _réveillé_ of the great Christian nations--England, France, +Spain, Lombardy--were sounding to quarters. Franks had knit into one the +rudiments of a great kingdom upon the soil of France; the Saxons and +Angles, with some Vandals, had, through a whole century, been defiling +by vast trains into the great island which they were called by +Providence to occupy and to ennoble; the Vandals had seated themselves, +though in this case only with no definite hopes, along the extreme +region of the Barbary States. Vandals might and did survive for a +considerable period in ineffective fragments, but not as a power. The +Visigoths had quartered themselves on Spain, there soon to begin a +conflict for the Cross, and to maintain it for eight hundred years, and +finally to prevail. And lastly, the Lombards had thrown a network of +colonization over Italy, which, as much by the cohesions which it shook +loose and broke asunder as by the new one which it bred, exhibited a +power like that of the coral insects, and gave promise of a new empire +built out of floating dust and fragments. + +The movements which formerly had resembled those gigantic pillars of +sand that mould themselves continually under the action of sun and wind +in the great deserts--suddenly showing themselves upon the remote +horizon, rear themselves silently and swiftly, then stalking forward +towards the affected caravan like a phantom phantasmagoria, approach, +manoeuvre, overshadow, and then as suddenly recede, collapse, +fluctuate, again to remould into other combinations and to alarm other +travellers--have passed. This vast structure of Central Europe had been +abandoned by all the greater tribes; they had crossed the vast barriers +of Western Europe--the Alps, the Vosges, the Pyrenees, the ocean--these +were now the wards within which they had committed their hopes and the +graves of their fathers. Social developments tended to the same, and no +longer either wishing or finding it possible to roam, they were all now, +through an entire century, taking up their ground and making good their +tumultuous irruptions; with the power of moving had been conjoined a +propensity to move. Rustic life, which must essentially have been +maintained on the great area of German vagrancy, was more and more +confirmed. + +With this physical impossibility of roaming, and with the reciprocal +compression of each exercised on the other, coincided the new instincts +of civilization. They were no longer barbarous by a brutal and animal +barbarism. The deep soil of their powerful natures had long been budding +into nobler capacities, and had expanded into nobler perceptions. +Reverence for female dignity, a sentiment never found before in any +nation, gave a vernal promise of some higher humanity, on a wider scale +than had yet been exhibited. Strong sympathies, magnetic affinities, +prepared this great encampment of nations for Christianity. Their +nobility needed such a field for its expansion; Christianity needed such +a human nature for its evolution. The strong and deep nature of the +Teutonic tribes could not have been evolved, completed, without +Christianity. Christianity in a soil so shallow and unracy as the +Gręco-Latin, could not have struck those roots which are immovable. The +ultimate conditions of the soil and the capacities of the culture must +have corresponded. The motions of Barbaria had hitherto indicated only +change; change without hope; confusion without tendencies; strife +without principle of advance; new births in each successive age without +principle of regeneration; momentary gain balanced by momentary loss; +the tumult of a tossing ocean which tends to none but momentary rest. +But now the currents are united, enclosed, and run in one direction, and +that is definite and combined. + +Now truly began that modern era, of which we happily reap the harvest: +then were laid the first foundations of social order and the first +effective hint of that sense of mutual aid and dependence which has, +century by century, been creating such a balance and harmony of adjusted +operations--of agencies working night and day, which no man sees, for +services which no man creates: the agencies are like Ezekiel's +wheels--self-sustained; the services in which they labour have grown up +imperceptibly as the growth of a yew, and from a period as far removed +from cognizance. One man dies every hour out of myriads, his place is +silently supplied, and the mysterious economy thus propagates itself in +silence, like the motion of the planets, from age to age. Hands +innumerable are every moment writing summonses, returns, reports, +figures--records that would stretch out to the crack of doom, as yet +every year accumulated, written by professional men, corrected by +correctors, checked by controllers, and afterwards read by corresponding +men, re-read by corresponding controllers, passed and ratified by +corresponding ratifiers; and through this almighty pomp of wheels, whose +very whirling would be heard into other planets, did not the very +velocity of their motion seem to sleep on their soft axle, is the +business of this great nation, judicial, fixed, penal, deliberative, +statistical, commercial, all carried on without confusion, never +distracting one man by its might, nor molesting one man by its noise. + +Now, in the semi-fabulous times of Egypt and Assyria, things were not so +managed. Ours are the ages of intellectual powers, of working by +equivalents and substitutions; but theirs were done by efforts of brute +power, possible only in the lowest condition of animal man, when all +wills converged absolutely in one, and when human life, cheap as dog's, +had left man in no higher a state of requirement, and had given up human +power to be applied at will--without art or skill. + +Then the armies of a Semiramis even were in this canine state. It was +her curse to have subjects that had no elevation, swarming by myriads +like flies; mere animal life, the mere animal armies which she needed; +what she wanted was exactly what they would yield. To such cattle all +cares beyond that of mere provender were thrown away. Surgical care and +the ambulance, such as the elevation of man's condition, and the +solemnity of his rights, seen by the awful eye of Christianity, will +always require, were simply ridiculous. As well raise hospitals for +decayed butterflies. Provender was all: not _panem et circenses_--bread +and theatrical shows--but simply bread, and that wretched of its kind. +Drink was an ideal luxury. Was there not the Euphrates, was there not +the Tigris, the Aranes? The Roman armies carried _posca_ by way of such +luxury, a drink composed of vinegar and water. But as to Semiramis--what +need of the vinegar? And why carry the water? Could it not be found in +the Euphrates, etc.? Let the dogs lap at the Euphrates, and stay for +their next draught till they come to the Tigris or the Aranes. Or, if +they drank a river or so dry, and a million or two should die, what of +that? Let them go on to the Tigris, and thence to the Aranes, the Oxus, +or Indus. Clothes were dispensable from the climate, food only of the +lowest quality, and finally the whole were summoned only for one +campaign, and usually this was merely a sort of partisan camisade upon a +colossal scale, in which the superfluous population of one vast nation +threw themselves upon another. Mere momentum turned the scale; one +nuisance of superfluous humanity was discharged upon such another +nuisance, the one exterminating the other, or, if both by accident +should be exterminated, what mattered it? The major part of the two +nuisances, like algebraical quantities of plus and minus, extinguished +each other. And, in any case, the result, whatever it might be, of that +one campaign, which was rather a journey terminating in a bad battle of +mobs, than anything artificial enough to deserve the title of camp, +terminated the whole war. Here, at least, we see the determining impulse +of political economy intervening, coming round upon them, if it had not +been perceived before. If the two nations began their warfare, and +planned it in defiance of all common laws and exchequers, at any rate +the time it lasted was governed by that only. The same thing recurred in +the policy of the feudal ages; the bumpkins, the vassals, were compelled +to follow the standard, but their service was limited to a certain +number of weeks. Afterwards, by law, as well as by custom, they +dissolved for the autumnal labour of the harvest. And thus it was, until +the princes would allow of mercenary armies, no system of connecting +politics grew up in Europe, or could grow up; having no means of +fighting each other, they were like leopards in Africa gnawing at a +leopard in Asia; they fumed apart like planets that could not cross; a +vast revolution, which Robertson ascribes to the reign of Francis I., +but which I, upon far better grounds and on speculations much more +exclusively pursued, date from the age of Louis XI. Differing in +everything, and by infinite degrees for the worse from these early +centuries, the age of Semiramis agreed in this--that if the non-culture +of the human race allowed them to break out into war with little or no +preparation but what each man personally could make, and if thus far +political economy did not greatly control the policy of nations, yet in +the reaction these same violated laws vindicated their force by sad +retributions. Famines, at all events dire exhaustion, invariably put an +end to such tumultuary wars, if they did not much control their +beginnings,[42] and periodically expressed their long retributory +convulsions. + +Not, therefore, because political economy was of little avail, but +because the details are lost in the wilderness of years, must we +disregard the political economy in the early Assyrian combinations of +the human race. The details are lost for political economy as a cause, +and the details are equally lost of the wars and the revolutions which +were its effects. But in coming more within the light of authentic +history, I contend that political economy is better known, and that in +that proportion it explains much of what ought to be known. For example, +I contend that the condition of Athens, for herself and for the rest of +the Greek confederacy, nay, the entire course of the Athenian wars, of +all that Athens did or forbore to do, her actions alike, and her +omissions, are to be accounted for, and lie involved in the statistics +of her fiscal condition. + +IX.--_Geography._--Look next at geography. The consideration of this +alone throws a new light on history. Every country that is now or will +be, has had some of its primary determinations impressed upon its policy +and institutions; nay, upon its feeling and character, which is the well +of its policy, by its geographical position: that is, by its position +as respects climate in the first place, secondly, as respects neighbours +(_i.e._, enemies), whether divided by mountains, rivers, deserts, or the +great desert of the sea--or divided only by great belts of land--a +passable solitude. Thirdly, as respects its own facilities and +conveniences for raising food, clothing, luxuries. Indeed, not only is +it so moulded and determined as to its character and aspects, but +oftentimes even as to its very existence. + +Many have noticed wisely and truly in the physical aspect of Asia and +the South of Caucasus, that very destiny of slavery and of partition +into great empires, which has always hung over them. The great plains of +Asia fit it for the action of cavalry and vast armies--by which the fate +of generations is decided in a day; and at the same time fit it for the +support of those infinite myriads without object, which make human life +cheap and degraded. That this was so is evident from what Xenophon +tells. + +On the other hand, many have seen in the conformation of Greece +revolving round a nucleus able to protect in case of invasion, yet cut +up into so many little chambers, of which each was sacred from the +intrusion of the rest during the infancy of growth, the solution of all +the marvels which Grecian history unfolds. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] This distinction is of some consequence. Else the student would be +puzzled at finding [which is really the truth] that, after the Twelve +Cęsars and the five patriotic emperors who succeeded them, we know less +of the Roman princes through centuries after the Christian era, than of +the Roman Consuls through a space of three centuries preceding the +Christian era. In fact, except for a few gossiping and merely _personal_ +anecdotes communicated by the Augustan History and a few other +authorities, we really know little of the most illustrious amongst the +Roman emperors of the West, beyond the fact (all but invariable) that +they perished by assassination. But still this darkness is not of the +same nature, nor owing to the same causes, as the Grecian darkness prior +to the Olympiads. + +[21] Except, indeed, by the barbarous contrivance of cutting away some +letters from a name, and then filling up their place with other letters +which, by previous agreement, have been rendered significant of +arithmetic numbers. This is the idea on which the _Memoria Technica_ of +Dr. Grey proceeds. More appropriately it might have been named _Memoria +Barbarica_, for the dreadful violence done to the most beautiful, +rhythmical, and melodious names would, at any rate, have remained as a +repulsive expression of barbarism to all musical ears, had the practical +benefits of this machinery been all that they profess to be. Meantime +these benefits are really none at all. They offer us a mere mockery, +defeating with one hand what they accomplish with the other. + +[22] It is all but an impossible problem for a nation in the situation +of Greece to send down a record to a posterity distant by five +centuries, to overlap the gulf of years between the point of +starting--the absolute now of commencement and the remote generation at +which you take aim. Trust to tradition, not to the counsel of one man. +But tradition is buoyant. + +[23] _Crusade._--There seems a contradiction in the very terms of +Pagan--that is, non-Christian, and Crusade--that is, warfare +symbolically Christian. But, by a license not greater than is often +practised in corresponding circumstances, the word Crusade may be used +to express any martial expedition amongst a large body of confederate +nations having or representing an imaginative (not imaginary) interest +or purpose with no direct profession of separate or mercenary object for +each nation apart. + +[24] The truths of Scripture are of too vast a compass, too much like +the Author of those truths--illimitable and incapable of verbal +circumscription, and, besides, are too much diffused through many +collateral truths, too deeply echoed and reverberated by trains of +correspondences and affinities laid deep in nature, and above all, too +affectingly transcribed in the human heart, ever to come within the +compass or material influence of a few words this way or that; any more +than all eternity can be really and locally confined within a little +golden ring which is assumed for its symbol. The same thing, I repeat, +may be said of chronology and its accidents. The chronologies of +Scripture, its prophetic weeks of Daniel, and its mysterious ęons of the +Apocalypse, are too awful in their realities, too vast in their sweep +and range of application, to be controlled or affected by the very +utmost errors that could arise from lapse of time or transcription +unrevised. And the more so, because errors that by the supposition are +errors of accident, cannot all point in one direction: one would be +likely in many cases to compensate another. But, finally, I would make +this frank acknowledgment to a young pupil without fear that it could +affect her reverence for Scripture. It is of the very grandeur of +Scripture that she can afford to be negligent of her chronology. Suppose +this case: suppose the Scriptures protected by no special care or +providence; suppose no security, no barrier to further errors, to have +arisen from the discovery of printing--suppose the Scriptures to be in +consequence transcribed for thousands of years--even in that case the +final result would be this: it would be (and in part perhaps it really +is) true or not true as to its minor or petty chronology--not true, as +having been altered insensibly like any human composition where the +internal sense was not of a nature to maintain its integrity. True, even +as to trifles, in that sense which the majestic simplicity and +self-conformity of truth in a tale originally true would guarantee, it +might yet be, because of the grandeur of the main aim, and the sense of +deeper relations and the perception of verisimilitude. + +[25] '_A New Slave Country_'--and this for more reasons than one. Slaves +were growing dearer in Rome; secondly, a practice had been for some time +increasing amongst the richest of the noble families in Rome, of growing +household bodies of gladiators, by whose aid they fought the civic +battles of ambition; and thirdly, as to Cęsar in particular, he had +raised and equipped a whole legion out of his own private funds, and, of +course, for his own private service; so that he probably looked to +Britain as a new quarry from which he might obtain the human materials +of his future armies, and also as an arena or pocket theatre, in which +he could organize and discipline these armies secure from jealous +observation. + +[26] Here the pupil will naturally object--was not Judęa an Asiatic +land? And did not Judęa act upon Europe? Doubtless; and in the sublimest +way by which it is possible for man to act upon man; not only through +the highest and noblest part of man's nature, but (as most truly it may +be affirmed) literally creating, in a practical sense, that nature. For, +to say nothing of the sublime idea of Redemption as mystically involved +in the types and prophecies of Jewish prophets, and in the very +ceremonies of the Jewish religion, what was the very highest ideal of +God which man--philosophic man even--had attained, compared with that of +the very meanest Jew? It is false to say that amongst the philosophers +of Greece or Rome the Polytheistic creed was rejected. No Pagan +philosopher ever adopted, ever even conceived, the sublime of the Jewish +God--as a being not merely of essential unity, but as deriving from that +unity the moral relations of a governor and a retributive judge towards +human creatures. So that Judęa bore an office for the human race of a +most awful and mysterious sanctity. But (and partly for that reason) the +civil and social relations of Judęa to the human race were less than +nothing. And thence arose the intolerant scorn of such writers as +Tacitus for the Christians, whom, of course, they viewed as Jews, and +nothing _but_ Jews. Thus far they were right--that, as a nation, valued +upon the only scale known to politicians, the Jews brought nothing at +all to the common fund of knowledge or civilization. One element of +knowledge, however, the Jews did bring, though at that time unknown, and +long after, for want of historic criticism in the history of chronologic +researches, viz., a chronology far superior to that of the Septuagint, +as will be shown farther on, and far superior to the main guides of +Paganism. But the reason why this superiority of chronology will, after +all, but little avail the general student is, that it relates merely to +the Assyrian or Persian princes in their intercourse with the courts of +Jerusalem or of Samaria. + +[27] Juba, King of Mauritania, during the struggle of Cęsar and Pompey. + +[28] Which clannish feeling, be it observed, always depends for its life +and intensity upon the comparison with others; as they are despised, in +that ratio rises the clannish self-estimation. Whereas the nobler pride +of a Roman patriotism is [Greek: autarkźs] and independent of external +relations. Nothing is more essentially opposed, though often confounded +under the common name of patriotism, than the love of country in a Roman +or English sense, and the spirit of clannish jealousy. + +[29] This it was (a circumstance overlooked by many who have written on +the Roman literature), this destiny announced and protected by early +auguries, which made the idea of Rome a great and imaginative idea. The +patriotism of the Grecian was, as indicated in an earlier note, a mean, +clannish feeling, always courting support to itself, and needing support +from imaginary 'barbarism' in its enemies, and raising itself into +greatness by means of _their_ littleness. But with the nobler Roman +patriotism was a very different thing. The august destiny of his own +eternal city [observe--'_eternal_,' not in virtue of history, but of +prophecy, not upon the retrospect and the analogies of any possible +experience, but by the necessity of an aboriginal doom], a city that was +to be the centre of an empire whose circumference is everywhere, did not +depend for any part of its majesty upon the meanness of its enemies; on +the contrary, in the very grandeur of those enemies lay, by a rebound of +the feelings inevitable to a Roman mind, the paramount grandeur of that +awful Republic which had swallowed them all up. + +[30] I do not mean to deny the casual intercourse between Rome and +particular cities of Greece, which sometimes flash upon us for a moment +in the earliest parts of the Roman annals: what I am insisting upon, is +the absence of all national or effectual intercourse. + +[31] Even an attorney, however [according to an old story, which I much +fear is a Joe Miller, but which ought to be fact], is not so rigorous as +to allow of no latitude, for, having occasion to send a challenge with +the stipulation of fighting at twelve paces, upon 'engrossing' this +challenge the attorney directed his clerk to add--'Twelve paces, be the +same more or less.' And so I say of the Olympiad--'777 years, be the +same more or less.' + +[32] And finally, were it necessary to add one word by way of +reconciling the student to the substitution of 777 for 776, it might be +sufficient to remind him that, even in the rigour of the minutest +calculus, when the 776 years are fully accomplished--to prove which +accomplishment we must suppose some little time over and above the 776 +to have elapsed--then this surplus, were it but a single hour, throws us +at once into the 777th year. This was, in fact, the oversight which +misled a class of disputants, whom I hope the reader is too young to +remember, but whom I, alas! remember too well in the year 1800. They +imagined and argued that the eighteenth century closed upon the first +day of the year 1800. New Year's Day of the year 1799, they understood +as the birthday of the Christian Church, proclaiming it to be then 1799 +years old, not as commencing its 1799th year. And so on. Pye, the Poet +Laureate of that day, in an elaborate preface to a secular ode, argued +the point very keenly. It is certain (though not evident at first sight) +that in the year 1839 the Christian period of time is not, as children +say, '_going of_' 1840, but going of 1839: whereas the other party +contend that it is in its 1840th year, tending in short to become that +which it will actually be on its birthday, _i.e._, on the calends of +January, or _le Jour de l'an_, or New Year's Day of 1840. + +[33] See note immediately preceding on previous page. + +[34] '_With impunity._'--There is no one point in which I have found a +more absolute coincidence of opinion amongst all profound thinkers, +English, German, and French, when discussing the philosophy of +education, than this great maxim--_that the memory ought never to be +exercised in a state of insulation_, that is, in those blank efforts of +its strength which are accompanied by no law or logical reason for the +thing to be remembered; by no such reason or principle of dependency as +could serve to recall it in after years, when the burthen may have +dropped out of the memory. The reader will perhaps think that I, the +writer of this little work, have a pretty strong and faithful memory, +when I tell him that every word of it, with all its details, has been +written in a situation which sternly denied me the use of books bearing +on my subject. A few volumes of rhetorical criticism and of polemic +divinity, that have not, nor, to my knowledge, could have furnished me +with a solitary fact or date, are all the companions of my solitude. +Other voice than the voice of the wind I have rarely heard. Even my +quotations are usually from memory, though not always, as one out of +three, perhaps, I had fortunately written down in a pocket-book; but no +one date or fact has been drawn from any source but that of my +unassisted memory. Now, this useful sanity of the memory I ascribe +entirely to the accident of my having escaped in childhood all such +mechanic exercises of the memory as I have condemned in the text--to +this accident, combined with the constant and severe practice I have +given to my memory, in working and sustaining immense loads of facts +that had been previously brought under logical laws. + +[35] '_The long careering of an earthquake._'--It is remarkable, and was +much noticed at the time by some German philosophers, that the +earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins about ninety-five years ago, could +be as regularly traced through all its stages for some days previous to +its grand _finale_, as any thief by a Bow Street officer. It passed +through Ireland and parts of England; in particular it was dogged +through a great part of Leicestershire; and its rate of travelling was +not so great but that, by a series of telegraphs, timely notice might +have been sent southwards that it was coming. [The Lisbon earthquake +occurred in 1755; so that this paper must have been written about 1849 +or 1850.--ED.] + +[36] '_The exact personality._'--The historical personality, or complete +identification of an individual, lies in the whole body of circumstances +that would be sufficient to determine him as a responsible agent in a +court of justice. Archbishop Usher and others fancy that Sardanapalus +was the son of Pul; guided merely by the sound of a syllable. +Tiglath-Pileser, some fancy to be the same person as Sardanapalus; +others to be the very rebel who overthrew Sardanapalus. In short, all is +confused and murky to the very last degree. And the reader who fancies +that some accurate chronological characters are left, by which the era +of Sardanapalus can be more nearly determined than it is determined +above, viz., as generally coinciding with the era of Romulus and of the +Greek Olympiad, is grossly imposed upon. + +[37] '_And Asiatic._'--_Asiatic_, let the pupil observe, and not merely +Assyrian; for the Assyria of this era represents all that was afterwards +Media, Persia, Chaldęa, Babylonia, and Syria. No matter for the exact +limits of the Assyrian empire, which are as indistinct in space as in +time. Enough that no Asiatic State is known as distinct from this +empire. + +[38] And this is so exceedingly striking, that I am much surprised at +the learned disputants upon the era of Homer having failed to notice +this argument; especially when we see how pitiably poor they are in +probabilities or presumptions of any kind. The miserable shred of an +argument with those who wish to carry up Homer as high as any colourable +pretext will warrant, is this, that he must have lived pretty near to +the war which he celebrates, inasmuch as he never once alludes to a +great revolutionary event in the Peloponnesus. Consequently, it is +argued, Homer did not live to witness that revolution. Yet he must have +witnessed it, if he had lived at the distance of eighty years from the +capture of Troy; for such was the era of that event, viz., the return of +the Heraclidę. Now, in answer to this, it is obvious to say that +negations prove little. Homer has failed to notice, has omitted to +notice, or found no occasion for noticing, scores of great facts +contemporary with Troy, or contemporary with himself, which yet must +have existed for all that. In particular, he has left us quite in the +dark about the great empires, and the great capitals on the Euphrates +and the Tigris, and the Nile; and yet it was of some importance to have +noticed the relation in which the kingdom of Priam stood to the great +potentates on those rivers. The argument, therefore, drawn from the +non-notice of the Heraclidę, is but trivial. On the other hand, an +argument of some strength for a lower era as the true era of Homer, may +be drawn from the much slighter colouring of the marvellous, which in +Homer's treatment of the story attaches to the _Iliad_, than to the +_Seven against Thebes_. In the Iliad we have the mythologic marvellous +sometimes; the marvellous of necessity surrounding the gods and their +intercourse with men; but we have no Amphiaraus swallowed up by the +earth, no Oedipus descending into a mysterious gulf at the summons of an +unseen power. And beyond all doubt the shield of Achilles, supposing it +no interpolation of a later age, argues a much more advanced state of +the arts of design, etc., than the shields, (described by Ęschylus, as +we may suppose, from ancient traditions preserved in the several +families), of the seven chiefs who invaded Thebes. + +[39] '_Seven-gated_,' both as an expression which recalls the subject of +the Romance (the Seven Anti-Theban Chieftains), and as one which +distinguishes this Grecian Thebes from the Egyptian Thebes; that being +called _Hekatómpylos_, or _Hundred-gated_. Of course some little +correction will always be silently applied to the general expression, so +as to meet the difference between the two generations that served at +Troy and in the Argonautic expedition, and again between David and his +son. If the elder generation be fixed to the year 1000, then 1000 +_minus_ 30 will express the era of the younger; if the younger be fixed +to the year 1000, then 1000 _plus_ 30 will express the era of the elder. +Or, better still, 1000 may be taken as the half-way era in which both +generations met; that era in which the father was yet living and active, +whilst the son was already entering upon manhood; that era, for +instance, at which David was still reigning, though his son Solomon had +been crowned. On this plan, no correction at all will be required; 15 +years on each side of the 1000 will mark the two terms within which the +events and persons range; and the 1000 will be the central point of the +period. + +[40] Elam is the Scriptural name for Persia. + +[41] 'Alala! Alala!' the war cry of Eastern armies. + +[42] And for the very reason that political economy had but a small +share in determining the war of the year A, it became not so much a +great force as the sole force for putting an end to the war of the year +D. + + + + +_VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE._ + + +Some time back I published in this journal a little paper on the +Californian madness--for madness I presumed it to be, and upon two +grounds. First, in so far as men were tempted into a lottery under the +belief that it was _not_ a lottery; or, if it really _were_ such, that +it was a lottery without blanks. Secondly, in so far as men were tempted +into a transitory speculation under the delusion that it was not +transitory, but rested on some principle of permanence. We have since +seen the Californian case repeated, upon a scale even of exaggerated +violence, in Australia. There also, if great prizes seemed to be won in +a short time, it was rashly presumed that something like an equitable +distribution of these prizes took place. Supposing ten persons to have +obtained £300 in a fortnight, people failed to observe that, if divided +amongst the entire party of which these ten persons formed a section, +the £300 would barely have yielded average wages. In one instance a very +broad illustration of this occurred in the early experience of Victoria. +A band of seven thousand people had worked together; whether simply in +the sense of working as neighbours in the same local district, or in the +commercial sense of working as partners, I do not know, nor is it +material to know. The result sounded enormous, when stated in a +fragmentary way with reference to particular days, and possibly in +reference also to particular persons, distinguished for luck, but on +taking the trouble to sum up the whole amount of labourers, of days, and +of golden ounces extracted, it did not appear that the wages to each +individual could have averaged quite so much as twenty shillings a week, +supposing the total product to have been on that principle of +participation. Very possibly it was _not_; and in that case the gains of +some individuals may have been enormous. But a prudent man, if he quits +a certainty or migrates from a distance, will compute his prospects upon +this scale of averages, and assuredly not upon the accidents of +exceptional luck. The instant objection will be, that such luck is _not_ +exceptional, but represents the ordinary case. Let us consider. The +reports are probably much exaggerated; and something of the same +machinery for systematic exaggeration is already forming itself as +operated so beneficially for California. As yet, however, it is not +absolutely certain that the reports themselves, taken literally, would +exactly countenance the romantic impressions drawn from those reports by +the public. + +Until the reader has checked the accounts, or, indeed, has been enabled +to check them, by balancing the amount of gain against the amount of +labour applied, he cannot know but that the reports themselves would +show on examination a series of unusual successes set against a series +of entire failures, so as to leave a _facit_, after all corrections and +allowances, of moderately good wages upon an equal distribution of the +whole. I would remind him to propose this question: has it been +asserted, even by these wild reports, with respect to any thousand men +(taken as an aggregate), I do not mean to say that all have succeeded, +or even that a majority have not failed decisively--that is more than I +demand--but has it been asserted that they have realized so much in any +week or any month as would, if divided equally amongst losers and +winners, have allowed to each man anything conspicuously above the rate +of ordinary wages? Of lotteries in general it has been often remarked, +that if you buy a single ticket you have but a poor chance of winning, +if you buy twenty tickets your chance is very much worse, and if you buy +all the tickets your chance is none at all, but is exchanged for a +certainty of loss. So as to the gold lottery of Australia, I suspect +(and, observe, not assuming the current reports to be false, but, on the +contrary, to be strictly correct for each separate case, only needing to +be combined and collated as a whole) that if each separate century[43] +of men emigrating to the goldfield of Mount Alexander were to make a +faithful return of their aggregate winnings, that return would not prove +seductive at all to our people at home, supposing these winnings to be +distributed equally as amongst an incorporation of adventurers; though +it _has_ proved seductive in the case of the extraordinary success being +kept apart so as to fix and fascinate the gaze into an oblivion of the +counterbalancing failures. + +There is, however, notoriously, a natural propensity amongst men to +confide in their luck; and, as this is a wholesome propensity in the +main, it may seem too harsh to describe by the name of _mania_ even a +morbid excess of it, though it ought to strike the most sanguine man, +that in order to account for the possibility of any failures at all, we +must suppose the main harvest of favourable chances to decay with the +first month or so of occupation by any commensurate body of settlers; so +that in proportion to the strength and reality of the promises to the +earliest settlers, will have been the rapid exhaustion of such promises. +Exactly _because_ the district was really a choice one for those who +came first, it must often be ruined for _him_ who succeeds him. + +Here, then, is a world of disappointments prepared and preparing for +future emigrants. The favourite sports and chief lands of promise will +by the very excess of their attractiveness have converged upon +themselves the great strength of the reapers; and in very many cases the +main harvest will have been housed before the new race of adventurers +from Great Britain can have reached the ground. In most cases, +therefore, ruin would be the instant solution of the disappointment. But +in a country so teeming with promise as Australia, ruin is hardly a +possible event. A hope lost is but a hope transfigured. And one is +reminded of a short colloquy that took place on the field of Marengo. +'Is this battle lost?' demanded Napoleon of Desaix. 'It is,' replied +Desaix; 'but, before the sun sets, there is plenty of time to win it +back.' In like manner the new comers, on reaching the appointed grounds, +will often have cause to say, 'Are we ruined this morning?' To which the +answer will not unfrequently be, 'Yes; but this is the best place for +being ruined that has yet been discovered. You have trusted to the +guidance of a _will-of-the-wisp_; but a _will-of-the-wisp_ has been +known to lead a man by accident to a better path than that which he had +lost.' There is no use, therefore, in wasting our pity upon those who +may happen to suffer by the first of the two delusions which I noticed, +viz., the conceit that either Australia or California offers a lottery +without blanks. Blanks too probably they will draw; but what matters it, +when this disappointment cannot reach them until they find themselves +amidst a wilderness of supplementary hopes? One prize has been lost, but +twenty others have been laid open that had never been anticipated. + +Far different, on the other hand, is the second delusion--the delusion +of those who mistake a transitional for a permanent prosperity, and many +of whom go so far in their frenzy as to see only matter of +congratulation in the very extremity of changes, which (if realized) +would carry desperate ruin into our social economy. For these people +there is no indemnification. I begin with this proposition--that no +material extension can be given to the use of gold after great national +wants are provided for, without an enormous lowering of its price: which +lowering, if once effected, and exactly in proportion as it is effected, +takes away from the gold-diggers all motive for producing it. The +dilemma is this, and seems to me inevitable: Given a certain +depreciation of gold, as, for instance, by 80 per cent., then the +profits of the miners falling in that same proportion[44] (viz., by +four-fifths) will leave no temptation whatever to pursue the trade of +digging. But, on the other hand, such a depreciation _not_ being +given--gold being supposed to range at anything approaching to its old +price--in that case no considerable extension as to the uses of gold is +possible. In either case alike the motive for producing gold rapidly +decays. To keep up any steady encouragement to the miners, the market +for gold must be prodigiously extended. That the market may be extended, +new applications of gold must be devised: the old applications would not +absorb more than a very limited increase. That new applications may be +devised, a prodigious lowering of the price is required. But precisely +as that result is approached the _extra_ encouragement to the miners +vanishes. _That_ drooping, the production will droop, even if nature +should continue the extra supplies; and the old state of prices must +restore itself. + +The whole turns upon the possibility of extending the market for gold. A +child must see that, if the demand for gold cannot be materially +increased, it is altogether nugatory that nature should indefinitely +enlarge the supply. In articles that adapt themselves to a variable +scale of uses, so as to be capable of substitution for others, according +to the relations of price, it is often possible enough that, in the +event of any change which may lower their price, the increased demand +may go on without assignable limits. For instance, when iron rises +immoderately in price, timber is substituted to an indefinite extent. +But, on the other hand, where the application is severely circumscribed, +no fall of price will avail to extend the demand. Certain herbs, for +instance, or minerals, employed for medicinal purposes, and for those +only, have their supply regulated by the demand of hospitals and of +private medical practitioners. That demand being once exhausted, no +cheapness whatever will extend the market. Suppose the European market +for leeches to be saturated; every man, suppose, is supplied; in that +case, even an _extra_ thousand cannot be sold. The purpose which leeches +answer has been met. And after _that_ nobody will take them as a gift. +But in the case of gold, it is imagined that, although the market is +pretty stationary whilst the price is stationary, let that price +materially lower itself, and immediately the substitutions of gold for +other metals, or for other decorative materials (as ivory, etc.), would +begin to extend; and commensurately with such extensions the regular +gold market would widen. This is the prevailing conceit. Now let us +consider it. + +What are the known applications of gold in the old state of +circumstances, which may be supposed capable of furnishing a basis for +extension in the altered circumstances? I will rapidly review them. +First, a very large amount of gold more than people would imagine is +annually wasted in gilding. Much of what has been applied to other +purposes is continually reverting to the market; but the gold used in +gilding is absolutely lost. This already makes a drain upon the gold +market; but will that drain be materially larger in the event of gold +falling by 50 _per cent._? Apparently not. Amongst ourselves the chief +subjects of gilding are books, picture-frames, and some varieties of +porcelain. But none of these would be bought more extensively in +consequence of gold being cheap: a man does not buy a book, for +instance, simply with a view to its being gilt; the gilding follows as a +contingency depending upon a previous act not modified in any degree by +the price of gold. In the decoration of houses it is true that hitherto +our English expenditure of gilding has been very trifling compared with +that of France and Italy, and to a great extent therefore would allow of +an increased use. Cornices, for instance, in rooms, and sections of +panels, are rarely gilt with us; and apart from any reference to the +depreciation of gold, I believe that this particular application of it +is sensibly increasing at present. Of course an improvement, which has +already begun, would extend itself further under a reduced price of +gold; yet still, as the class of houses so decorated is somewhat +aristocratic, the effect could not be very important. On the Continent +it is probable that at any rate gilding will be more extensively applied +to out-of-doors decoration, as for example, of domes, cupolas, +balustrades, etc. But all architectural innovations are slow in +travelling! And I am of opinion that five to seven thousand pounds' +worth of gold would cover all the augmented expenditure of this class. +It is doubtful, indeed, whether all the increase of gilding will do more +than balance the total abolition of it on the panels of carriages. In +the time of Louis XIV. an immense expenditure occurred in this way, and +the disuse of it is owing to the superior chastity of taste amongst our +English carriage-builders, who, in this particular art, have shot far +ahead of continental Europe. But the main consumption of gold occurs, +first, I should imagine, in watches and watch chains; secondly, in +personal ornaments; and thirdly, in gold plate. Now we must remember, at +starting, that what is called jewellers' gold, even when manufactured by +honourable tradesmen, avowedly contains a very much smaller proportion +of the pure metal than our gold coinage. Consequently an increase in the +use of watches and personal ornaments, or of such trinkets as +snuff-boxes, supposing it in the first year of cheapened gold to go the +length of 20 per cent., would not even in that department of the gold +demand enhance it by one-fifth, but perhaps by one-fourth the part of +one-fifth--that is to say, by one-twentieth. The reader, I hope, +understands me, for upon _that_ depends a pretty strong presumption of +the small real change that would be worked in the effective demand for +gold by a great apparent change in our chief demand for gold +manufactures. There can be no doubt that in watches and personal +ornaments is involved our main demand upon the gold market; through +these it is that we chiefly act upon the market. Now three corrections +are applicable to the _primā facie_ view of this subject. + +The first of these is--that gold chains, etc., and a pompous display of +rings have long ago been degraded in public estimation by the practice +and opinions prevailing in aristocratic quarters. This tendency of +public feeling at once amounts to a large deduction from what would +otherwise be our demand. + +The second of these corrections is--that, since our main action upon the +gold market lies through the jewellers, and, consequently, through +jewellers' gold, therefore, on allowing for the way in which jewellers +alloy their gold, our real means of operating upon the gold market may +be estimated perhaps at not more than one-fourth part of our apparent +means. + +A third important correction is this--at first sight it might seem as +though the purchaser of gold articles would benefit by the whole +depreciation of gold, and that the depreciation might be taken to +represent exactly the amount of stimulation applied to the sale, for +instance, of gold plate. But this is not so. Taking the depreciation of +gold at one-half, then upon any gold article, as suppose a salver, each +ounce would have sunk from 77s. to 38s. 6d. Next, rate the workmanship +at 40s. the ounce, and then the total cost upon each ounce will not be +(77s. + 40)/2, or in other words 58s. 6d., as a hasty calculation might +have fancied, but (77s./2) + 40, that is to say, 78s. 6d. Paying +heretofore £5 17s., under the new price of gold you would pay £4 within +a trifle. Consequently, when those who argue for the vast extension of +the gold market, rely for its possibility upon a vast preliminary +depreciation of gold, they are deceiving themselves as to the nature and +compass of that depreciation. The main action of the public upon the +gold market must always lie through _wrought_ and not through unwrought +gold, and in this there must always be two elements of price, viz., X, +the metal, and Y, the workmanship; so that the depreciation will never +be = (_x_ + _y_)/2 but only _x_/2 + _y_; and _y_, which is a very costly +element, will never be bound at all, not by the smallest fraction, +through any possible change in the cost of _x_. + +This is a most important consideration; for if the price of gold could +fall to nothing at all, not the less the high price of the +workmanship--this separately for itself--would for ever prevent the +great bulk of society from purchasing gold plate. Yet, through what +other channel than this of plate is it possible for any nation to reach +the gold market by any effectual action upon the price? M. Chevalier, +the most influential of French practical economists, supposes the case +that California might reduce the price of gold by one-half. Let us say, +by way of evading fractions, that gold may settle finally at the price +of forty shillings the ounce. But to what purpose would the diggers +raise enormous depōts of gold for which they can have no commensurate +demand? As yet the true difficulty has not reached them. The tendency +was frightful; but, within the short period through which the new power +has yet worked, there was not range enough to bring this tendency into +full play. Now, however, when new powers of the same quality, viz., in +Australia, in Queen Charlotte's Island, in Owhyhee, and, lastly, on Lord +Poltimore's estate in South Moulton, are in working, it seems sensibly +nearer. It is a literal fact that we have yet to ascertain whether this +vaunted gold will even pay for the costs of working it. Coals lying at +the very mouth of a pit will be thankfully carried off by the poor man, +but dig a little deeper, and it requires the capital of a rich man to +raise them; and after _that_ it requires a good deal of experience, and +the trial of much mechanic artifice, to ascertain whether after all it +will be worth while to raise them. To leap from the conclusion--that, +because a solitary prize of 25 lb. weight may largely remunerate an +emigrant to California, therefore a whole generation of emigrants will +find the average profits of gold-washing, golddigging, etc., beyond +those of Russia or of Borneo, is an insanity quite on a level with all +the other insanities of the case. But, says the writer in the _Times_, +the fact has justified the speculation; the result is equal to the +anticipation; in practice nobody has been disappointed; everybody has +succeeded; nobody complains of any delusion. We beg his pardon. There +have been very distinct complaints of that nature. These have proceeded +not from individuals merely, but from associations of ten or twelve, +who, after working for some time, have not reaped the ordinary profits +on their expenses; whereas, they were also entitled to expect high wages +for their labour, in addition to extravagant profits on their outlay. +Yet, suppose this to have been otherwise, what shadow of an argument can +be drawn from the case of those privileged few, who entered upon a +virgin harvest, applicable to the multitudes who will succeed to an +inheritance of ordinary labour, tried in all quarters of the globe, and +seldom indeed found to _terminate_ in any extra advantages? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] '_Century of Men_,'--It may be necessary to remind some readers +that this expression, to which I resort for want of any better or +briefer, is strictly correct. The original Latin word _centuria_ is a +collection of one hundred separate items, no matter what, whether men, +horses, ideas, etc. 'A Century of Sonnets' was properly taken as the +title of a book. 'A Century of Inventions' was adopted by Lord Worcester +as the title of _his_ book. And when we use the word century (as +generally we do) to indicate a certain duration of time, it is allowable +only on the understanding that it is an elliptical expression; the full +expression is _a century of years_. + +[44] 'In that same proportion,' but in reality the profits would fall in +a much greater proportion. To illustrate this, suppose the existing +price of gold in Australia to be sixty shillings an oz. I assume the +price at random, as being a matter of no importance; but, in fact, I +understand that at Melbourne, and other places in the province of +Victoria, this really _is_ the ruling price at present. For some little +time the price was steady at fifty-seven shillings; that is, assuming +the mint price in England to be seventy-seven shillings (neglecting the +fraction of 10-1/2d.), and the Australian price sank by twenty +shillings; which sinking, however, we are not to understand as any +depreciation that had the character of permanence; it arose out of local +circumstances. Subsequently the price fell as low even as forty-five +shillings, where it halted, and soon ascended again to sixty shillings. +Sixty shillings therefore let us postulate as the present price. Upon +this sum descended the expenses of the miner. Let these, including +tools, machinery, etc., be assumed at three half-crowns for each ounce +of gold. Then, at a price of sixty shillings, this discount descends +upon each sovereign to the amount of one half-crown, or one-eighth. But +at a reduced price of thirty shillings, this discount of three +half-crowns amounts to one-fourth. And, at a price of twelve shillings, +it amounts to five-eighths. So that, as the gross profits descend, the +_nett_ profits descend in a still heavier proportion. + + + + +_VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE._ + + +It is by a continued _secretion_ (so to speak) of all which forces +itself to the surface of national importance in the way of patriotic +services that the English peerage keeps itself alive. Stop the laurelled +trophies of the noble sailor or soldier pouring out his heart's blood +for his country, stop the intellectual movement of the lawyer or the +senatorial counsellor, and immediately the sources are suffocated +through which _our_ peerage is self-restorative. The simple truth is, +how humiliating soever it may prove I care not, that whether positively +by cutting off the honourable sources of addition, or negatively by +cutting off the ordinary source of subtraction, the other peerages of +Europe are peerages of _Fainéans_. Pretend not to crucify for ignominy +the sensual and torpid princes of the Franks; in the same boat row all +the peerages that _can_ have preserved their regular hereditary descent +amongst civil feuds which _ought_ to have wrecked them. The Spanish, the +Scotch, the Walloon nobility are all of them nobilities from which their +several countries would do well to cut themselves loose, so far as +_that_ is possible. How came _you_, my lord, we justly say to this and +that man, proud of his ancient descent, to have brought down your +wretched carcase to this generation, except by having shrunk from all +your bloody duties, and from all the chances that beset a gallant +participation in the dreadful enmities of your country? Would you make +it a reproach to the Roman Fabii that 299 of that house perished in +fighting for their dear motherland? And that, if a solitary Fabius +survived for the rekindling of the house, it was because the restorer of +his house had been an infant at the ęra of his household catastrophe. +And if, through such burning examples of patriotism, far remote +collateral descendants entered upon the succession, was this a reproach? +Was this held to vitiate or to impair the heraldic honours? A +disturbance, a convulsion, that shook the house back into its primitive +simplicities of standing, was that a shock to its hereditary grandeur? +If it _had_ been, there perished the efficient fountain of nobility as +any _national_ or _patriotic_ honour; that being extinguished, it became +a vile, _personal_ distinction. For instance, like the Roman Fabii, the +major part of the English nobility was destroyed in the contest (though +so short a contest) of the two Roses. To restore it at all, recourse was +had to every mode of healing family wounds through distant marriage +connections, etc. But in the meantime, to a Spanish or a Scottish +nobleman, who should have insisted upon the _directness_ of his descent, +the proper answer would have been: 'Dog! in what kennel were you lurking +when such and such civil feuds were being agitated? As an honest man, as +a gallant man, ten times over you ought to have died, had you felt, +which the English nobility of the fifteenth century _did_ feel, that +your peerage was your summons to the field of battle and the scaffold.' +For, again in later years than the fifteenth century, the English +nobility--those even who, like the Scotch, had gained their family +wealth by plundering the Church--in some measure washed out this +original taint by standing forward as champions of what they considered +(falsely or truly) national interests. The Russells, the Cavendishes, +the Sidneys, even in times of universal profligacy, have held aloft the +standard of their order; and no one can forget the many peers in Charles +I.'s time, such as Falkland, or the Spencers (Sunderland), or the +Comptons (Northampton), who felt and owned their paramount duty to lie +in public self-dedication, and died therefore, and oftentimes left their +inheritances a desolation. 'Thus far'--oh heavens! with what bitterness +I said this, knowing it a thing undeniable by W. W. or by Sir +George--you, the peerages that pretend to try conclusions with the +English, you--French, German, Walloon, Spanish, Scottish--are able to do +so simply because you are _fainéans_, because in time of public danger +you hid yourselves under your mammas' petticoats, whilst the glorious +work of reaping a bloody harvest was being done by others. + +But the English peerage also celebrates services in the Senate as well +as in the field. Look for a moment at the house of Cecil. The interest +in this house was national, and at the same time romantic. Two families +started off--one might say _simultaneously_--from the same radix, for +the difference in point of years was but that which naturally divided +the father and the son. Both were Prime Ministers of England, rehearsing +by anticipation the relations between the two William Pitts--the +statesmen who guided, first, the _Seven Years' War_, from 1757 to 1763; +and, secondly, the French Revolutionary War, from the murder of Louis +XVI. in 1793 to the battle of Trafalgar in October, 1805. Sir William +Cecil, the father, had founded the barony of Burleigh, which +subsequently was raised into the earldom of Exeter. Sir Robert Cecil, +the son, whose personal merits towards James I. were more conspicuous +than those of his father towards Queen Elizabeth, had leaped at once +into the earldom of Salisbury. Through two centuries these distinguished +houses--Exeter the elder and Salisbury the junior--had run against each +other. At length the junior house ran ahead of its elder, being raised +to a marquisate. But in this century the elder righted itself, rising +also to a marquisate. In an ordinary case this would not have won any +notice, but the historic cradle of the two houses, amongst burning feuds +of Reformation and anti-Reformation policy, fiery beyond all that has +ever raged amongst men, fixed the historic eye upon them. Neck and neck +they ran together. Hatfield House for the family of Salisbury, Burleigh +House (founded by the original Lord Burleigh) for the family of Exeter, +expressed in the nineteenth century that fraternal conflict which had +commenced in the sixteenth. Personal merits, if any such had varied and +coloured the pretensions of this or that generation, had, in the midst +of wealth and ease and dignity, withdrawn themselves from notice, except +that about the splendid decennium of the Regency and the second +decennium of George IV.'s reign, no lady of the Court had been so +generally acceptable to the world of fashion and elegance, domestic or +foreign, as the Marchioness of Salisbury, whose tragical death by fire +at Hatfield House, in spite of her son's heroic exertions, was as +memorable for the last generation as the similar tragedy at the Austrian +Ambassador's continued to be for the Court and generation of +Napoleon.[45] It is not often that two kindred houses, belonging in the +Roman sense to the same _gens_ or clan, run against each other with +parity of honour and public consideration through nearly three +centuries. The present representative of the Exeter house of the +Cecils[46] was not individually considered a very interesting person. +Or, at least, any interest that might distinguish him did not adapt +itself to conversational display. His personal story was more remarkable +than he was himself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] Napoleon attached a superstitious importance to this event. In +1813, upon the sudden death of Moreau, whilst as yet the circumstances +were entirely unknown, he fancied strangely enough that the ambassador +(Prince Schwartzenberg) whose fźte had given birth to the tragedy, must +himself have been prefigured. + +[46] 'The present representative of the Exeter Cecils' was the father of +the present peer, Brownlow, 2nd Marquis; born 2nd July, 1785; succeeded +1st May, 1804, and died 16th Jan., 1867.--ED. + + + + +_VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT._ + + +The sincerity of an author sometimes borrows an advantageous +illustration from the repulsiveness of his theme. That a subject is +dull, however unfortunately it may operate for the impression which he +seeks to produce, must at least acquit him of seeking any aid to that +impression from alien and meretricious attractions. Is a subject +hatefully associated with recollections of bigotry, of ignorance, of +ferocious stupidity, of rancour, and of all uncharitableness? In that +case, the reader ought to be persuaded that nothing less than absolute +consciousness--in that case he ought to know that nothing short of TRUTH +(not necessarily as it _is_, but at least as it _appears_ to the writer) +can have availed to draw within an arena of violence and tiger-like +_acharnement_ one who, by temperament and by pressure of bodily disease, +seeks only for repose. Most unwillingly I enter the ring. Mere disgust +at the wicked injustice, which I have witnessed silently through the +last three months, forces me into the ranks of the combatants. Mere +sympathy with the ill-used gives me any motive for stirring. People have +turned Christian from witnessing the torments suffered with divine +heroism by Christian martyrs. And I think it not impossible that many +hearts may be turned favourably towards Popery by the mere recoil of +disgust from the savage insolence with which for three weeks back it has +in this country been tied to a stake, and baited. The actors, or at +least the leaders, in such scenes seem to forget that Popery has +peculiar fascinations of her own; her errors, supposing even all to be +errors which Protestantism denounces for such, lie in doctrinal points; +but her merit, and her prodigious advantage over Protestantism, lies in +the devotional spirit which she is able to kindle and to sustain amongst +simple, docile, and confiding hearts. In mere prudence it ought to be +remembered, that to love, to trust, to adore, is a far more contagious +tendency amongst the poor, the wretched, and the despised, than to +question, investigate, and reflect. + +How, then, did this movement begin? By _that_, perhaps, we may learn +something of its quality. Who was it that first roused this movement? +The greater half of the nation, viz., all the lower classes, cannot be +said to have shared in the passions of the occasion; but the educated +classes, either upon a sincere impulse, or in a spirit of excessive +imitation, have come forward with a perseverance, which (in a case of +perils confessedly so vague) is more like a moonstruck infatuation than +any other recorded in history. Until Parliament met on the 4th of +February, when a Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons first +attempted to give some specific account of the legal effects incident to +a substitution of bishops for vicars apostolic, no man has made the very +cloudiest sketch of the evils that were apprehended, or that _could_ be +apprehended, or that were in the remotest way possible. Sir Edward +Sugden, indeed, came forward with a most unsatisfactory effort to show +how Cardinal Wiseman might be punished, or might be restrained, +supposing that he had done wrong; but not at all to show that the +Cardinal _had_ done wrong, and far less to show that, if wrong could be +alleged, any evils would follow from it. Sir Edward most undoubtedly did +not satisfy himself, and so little did he satisfy anybody else, that +already his letter is forgotten; nor was it urged or relied upon by any +one of the great meetings which succeeded it. Too painful it would be to +think that Sir Edward had in this instance stepped forward +sycophantically, as so many prominent people undoubtedly did, to meet +and to aid a hue and cry of fanaticism simply because it had emanated +from a high quarter. But _what_ quarter? Again I ask, _who_ was it that +originated this fierce outbreak of bigotry? Much depends upon _that_. It +was Lord John Russell, it was the First Minister of the Crown, that +abused the power of his place for a purpose of desperate fanaticism; +yes, and for a purpose which his whole life had been dedicated to +opposing, to stigmatizing, to overthrowing. Right or wrong, he has to +begin life anew. Bigotry may _not_ be bigotry, change of position may +show it under a new aspect. But still upon that, which once was _called_ +bigotry, Lord John must now take his stand. Neither will _ratting_ a +second time avail to set him right. These things do not stand under +algebraical laws, as though ratting to the right hand could balance a +ratting to the left, and leave the guilt = 0. On the contrary, five +rattings, of which each is valued at ten, amount to fifty degrees of +crime; or, perhaps, if moral computations were better understood, amount +to a crime that swells by some secret geometrical progression +unintelligible to man. + +But now, reader, pause. Suppose that Lord John Russell, aware of some +evil, some calamity or disease, impending over the established Church +of England--sure of this evil, but absolutely unable to describe it by +rational remarks or premonitory symptom, had cast about for a channel by +which he might draw attention to the evil, and, by exposing, make an end +of it. But who could have dreamed that he would have chosen the means he +has chosen? What propriety was there in Lord John's addressing himself +upon such a subject to the Bishop of Durham? Who is that Bishop? And +what are his pretensions to public authority? He is a respectable Greek +scholar; and has re-edited the Prosodiacal Lexicon of Morell--a service +to Greek literature not easily overestimated, and beyond a doubt not +easily executed. But in relation to the Church he is not any official +organ; nor was there either decorum or good sense in addressing a letter +essentially official from the moment that it was published with consent +of the writer, to a person clothed with no sort of official powers or +official relation to the Church of England. If Lord John should have +occasion to communicate with the Bank of England, what levity, and in +the proper sense of the word what impertinence, it would be to invoke +the attention--not of the Governor--but of some clerk in a special +department of that establishment whom Lord John might happen to know. +Which of us, that wishes to bring a grievance before the authorities of +the Post-Office, would address himself to his private friend that might +happen to hold a respectable situation in the Money Order or in the Dead +Letter Office? Of mere necessity, that he might gain for his own +application an official privilege, he would address it to the +Postmaster-General through the Secretary. Not being so addressed, his +communication would take rank as gossip; neither meriting nor obtaining +any serviceable notice. Two points are still in suspense: whether the +people of England as a nation have taken any interest in the uproar +caused by Lord John's letter; and secondly, whether the writer of that +letter took much interest in it himself. Spite of all the noise and +tumult kept up for three months by the Low-Church party, clerks and +laymen, it is still a question with many vigilant lookers-on--whether +the great neutral majority in the lower strata of society (five-sixths +in short of what we mean by the nation) have taken any real interest in +the agitation. Any real share in it, beyond all doubt, they have _not_ +taken: the movers in these meetings from first to last would not make +fifteen thousand; and the inert subscribers of Petitions would not make +seventy thousand. Secondly, in spite of the hysterical violence +manifested by the letter of the Premier, and partly in consequence of +that violence (so theatrical and foreign to Lord John's temperament), +many doubt whether he himself carried any sincerity with the movement. +And this doubt is strengthened by the singular indecorum of his having +addressed himself to Dr. Maltby. + +Counterfeit zeal is likely enough to have recoiled from its own act in +the very moment of its execution. The purpose of Lord John was +sufficiently answered, if he succeeded in diverting public attention +from quarters in which it might prove troublesome: and to that extent +was sure of succeeding by an extra-official note addressed to any bishop +whatever--whether zoological like the late Bishop of Norwich, or +Prosodiacal like Dr. Maltby. A storm in a slop-basin was desirable for +the moment. But had the desire been profoundly sincere, and had it +soared to that height which _real_ fears for religious interests are apt +to attain, then beyond all doubt the Minister would not have addressed +himself to a Provincial bishop, but to the two Metropolitan bishops of +Canterbury and York. They, but not an inferior prelate, represent the +Church of England. + +The letter therefore, had it been solemn and austere in the degree +suitable to an _unsimulated_ panic, would have taken a different +direction. Gossip may be addressed to anybody. He that will listen is +sought for; and not he that can co-operate. But earnest business, +soaring into national buoyancy on the wings of panic, turns by instinct +to the proper organs for giving it effect and instant mobility. Yet, on +the other hand, if the letter really _had_ been addressed to the Primate +(as in all reason it would have been, if thoroughly in earnest), that +change must have consummated the false step, diplomatically valued, +which Lord John Russell has taken. Mark, reader! We are told, and so +often that the very echoes of Killarney and Windermere will be +permanently diseased by this endless iteration of lies, that His +Holiness has been insulting us. Ancient Father of Christendom, under +whose sheltering shadow once slept in peace for near a thousand years +the now storm-tossed nations of Western and Central Christendom, couldst +thou indeed, when turned out a houseless[47] fugitive like Lear upon a +night of tempest, still retain aught of thy ancient prestige, and +through the might of belief rule over those who have exiled thee? + + +EDITOR'S NOTE. + +The famous Durham Letter which excited so much controversy, and +re-opened what can only be called so many old sores, was addressed by +Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, to Dr. Maltby, in November, 1850. +At first it was received with great approbation, as presenting a +decisive front against Papal assumption; the Pope having recently issued +a Bull, dividing England into twelve Sees, and appointing Dr. Wiseman, +who was made a Cardinal, Archbishop of Westminster. But some expressions +in Lord John's letter, especially the expression 'unworthy sons,' +applied to High Churchmen, aroused the active opposition of a class, +with whom, he never had much sympathy, looking on the attitude and +spirit of Drs. Pusey and Newman with unaffected dislike. Catholics, of +course, and with them many moderate Roman Catholics, set up an +agitation, and soon the Durham Letter was in everybody's mouth. De +Quincey, of course, writes from his own peculiar philosophic point of +view; and when he somewhat sarcastically alludes to the informality of +addressing such a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and not to one or +other of the Archbishops, he was either ignorant of, or of set purpose +ignored, the exceptionally intimate relations in which Lord John had for +many years stood to Dr. Maltby, such relations as might well have been +accepted as explaining, if not justifying, such a departure from strict +formal propriety. Lord Russell's biographer writes: + +'Dr. Maltby, who in 1850 held the See of Durham, to which he had been +promoted on Lord John's own recommendation in 1836, was one of Lord +John's oldest and closest friends. He had been his constant +correspondent for more than twenty years; he had supplied him with much +information for the religious chapters of the "Affairs of Europe," and +he had been his frequent counsellor on questions affecting the Church, +and on the qualifications and characters of the men who were candidates +for promotion in it. It was natural, therefore, to Lord John, to open +his mind freely to the Bishop' (ii. 119, 120). + +Lord John had added in a postscript: 'If you think it will be of any +use, you have my full permission to publish this letter.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] 'A houseless fugitive.' No one expression of petty malice has +struck the generous as more unworthy, amongst the many insolences +levelled at the Pope, than the ridicule so falsely fastened upon the +mode of his escape from Rome, and upon the apparently tottering tenure +of his temporal throne. His throne rocked with subterraneous heavings. +True, and was _his_ the only throne that rocked? Or which was it amongst +continental thrones that did _not_ rock? But he escaped in the disguise +of a livery servant. What odious folly! In such emergencies, no disguise +can be a degradation. Do we remember our own Charles II. assuming as +many varieties of servile disguise as might have glorified a pantomime? +Do we remember Napoleon reduced to the abject resource of entreating one +of the Commissioners to _whistle_, by way of misleading the infuriated +mob into the belief that _l'empereur_ could not be supposed present in +that carriage when such an indecency was attempted? As to the insecurity +of his throne, we must consider that other thrones, and amongst them +some of the first rank (as those of Turkey and Persia) redress their own +weakness by means of alien strength. In the jealousies of England and +France is found a bulwark against the overshadowing ambition of Russia. + + + + +_IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE:_ + + _Review of Kant's Essay on the Common Saying, that such and + such a thing may be true in theory, but does not hold good + in practice._ + + +What was the value of Kant's essay upon this popular saying? Did it do +much to clear up the confusion? Did it exterminate the vice in the +language by substituting a better _formula_? Not at all. Immanuel Kant +was, we admit, the most potent amongst all known intellects for +functions of pure abstraction. But also, viewed in two separate +relations: first, in relation to all _practical_ interests (manners, +legislation, government, spiritual religion); secondly, in relation to +the arts of teaching, of explaining, of communicating any man's meaning +where it happened to be dark or perplexed (above all, if that meaning +were his own)--this same Kant was merely impotent; absolutely, and 'no +mistake,' a child of darkness. Were it not that veneration and gratitude +cause us to suspend harsh words with regard to such a man, who has upon +the greatest question affecting our human reason almost, we might say, +_revealed_ the truth (viz., in his theory of the categories), we should +describe him, and continually we are tempted to describe him as the most +superhuman of recorded blockheads. Would it be credited, that at this +time of day, actually in the very closing years of the eighteenth +century, a man armed with some reading, but not too much study--and +sixty years' profound meditation should treat it as a matter of obvious +good sense that crowns and the succession to mighty empires ought to +travel along the line of 'merit'; not exactly on the ground of personal +beauty, or because the pretender was taller by the head than most of his +subjects--no, _that_ would be the idea of a barbarous nation. Thank God! +a royal professor of Koenigsberg was above _that_. But on the assumption +of an _appropriate_ merit, as if, for instance, he were wiser, if he +were well grounded in Transcendentalism, if he had gained a prize for +'virtue,' surely, surely, such graces ought to ensure a sceptre to their +honoured professor. Especially when we consider how _readily_ these +personal qualities _prove_ themselves to the general understanding, and +how cheerfully they are always _allowed_ by jealous and abominating +competitors! Now turn from this haughty philosopher to a plain but most +sensible and reflecting scholar--Isaac Casaubon. This man pretended to +no philosophy, but a sincere, docile heart, much good sense, and patient +observation of his own country's annals, which in the midst of +belligerent papists, and very much against his own interest, had made +him a good Church of England Protestant, made him also intensely +attached to the doctrine of fixed succession under closer and clearer +limitations than exist even in England. For a thousand years this one +plain rule had been the amulet for liberating France (else so +constitutionally disposed to war) from the bloodiest of intestine +contests. The man's career was pretty nearly concurrent as to its two +limits with that of our own Shakespeare. Both he and Shakespeare were +patronized, or, at least, countenanced by James the First, and both died +many years before their patron. More than two centuries by a good deal +have therefore passed away since he spoke, but this is the emphatic +testimony which even at that time, wanting the political experience +superadded, he bore to the peace and consequently to the civilization +won for his country by this divine maxim, this _lex trabalis_ (as so +powerfully Casaubon calls it) of hereditary succession, the cornerstone, +the main beam, in the framework of Gallic polity. These are the words: +'_Occidebant et occidebantur_' (_i.e._, in those days of Roman Cęsars) +'_immanitate pari; cum in armis esset jus omne regnandi_'--in the sword +lay the arbitration of the title. He speaks of the horrid murderous +uniformity by which the Western Empire moved through five centuries (for +it commenced in murder 42 years B.C. and lasted for 477 after Christ). +But why? Simply by default of any conventional rule, and the consequent +necessity that men should fall back upon the title of the strongest. For +that ridiculous plausibility of Kant's superscribed with _Detur +meliori_, it should never be forgotten, is so far from having any +pacific tendencies, that originally, according to the eldest of Greek +fables, it was [Greek: Eris], Eris, the goddess of dissension, no +peace-making divinity, who threw upon a wedding-table the fatal apple +thus ominously labelled. _Meliori_! in that one word went to wreck the +harmony of the company. But for France, for the famous kingdom of the +Fleur-de-lys, for the first-born child of Christianity, always so prone +by her gentry to this sword-right, Nature herself had been silenced +through a long millennium by this one almighty amulet. 'Inde' (that is, +from this standing appeal made to personal vanity or to ambition +amongst Roman nobles)--'_inde_ haec tam spissa principatuum mutatio: quā +re nulla alia miseris populis ne dici quidem aut fingi queat +perniciosior.' So often, he goes on to say, as this dreadful curse +entailed upon Rome Imperial comes into my mind, so often 'Francię patrię +meę felicitatem non possim non prędicare; quę sub imperio Regum +sexaginta trium (LXIII)--non dicam CLX annos' (which had been the upshot +of time, the 'tottle,' upon sixty-three Imperatores) sed paullo minus +CIO (one clear thousand, observe) 'et CC--rem omnibus seculis +inauditam!--egit beata; fared prosperously; et egisset beatior, si sua +semper bona intellexisset. Tanti est, jura regię successionis trabali +lege semel fixisse.' Aye, faithful and sagacious Casaubon! there lies +the secret. In that word '_fixisse_'--the having settled once and for +ever, the having laid down as beams and main timbers those adamantine +rules of polity which leave no opening to doubt, no licence to caprice, +and no temptation to individual ambition. We are all interested, +Christendom to her very depths is interested, in the well-being and +progress of this glorious realm--the kingdom of the lilies, the kingdom +of Charlemagne and his paladins; from the very fierceness and angry +vigilance of whose constant hostility to ourselves has arisen one chief +re-agent in sustaining our own concurrent advancement. Under the torpor +of a German patriotism, under the languor of a _sensus communis_ which +is hardly at all developed, our own unrivalled energy would partially +have gone to sleep. We are, therefore, deeply indebted to the rancorous +animosity of France. And in this one article of a sound political creed +we must be sensible that France, so dreadfully in arrear as to all other +political wisdom, has run ahead of ourselves. For to what else was +owing our ruinous war of the Two Roses than to an original demur in our +courts of law whether the descendant of an elder son through the female +line had a title preferable or inferior to that of a descendant in the +male line from a son confessedly _junior_? Whether the element to the +right hand of uncontested superiority balanced or did _not_ balance that +element to the left hand of undenied inferiority? How well for us +English, and for the interests of our literature so cruelly barbarized +within fifty years from the death of Chaucer (A.D. 1400), had we been +able to intercept the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, +Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of +French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the +arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the +old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or +the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested +abrogation of that law were the governing principle in strict +constitutional practice. To this point had the French dynasty brought +matters, that no lawyer even could say on which side the line of +separation lay the _onus_ of treason. We have ultimately so far improved +our law of succession by continued limitations, that now even the +religion of a prince has become one amongst his indispensable +qualifications. But how matters once stood, we see written in letters of +blood. And yet to this state of perilous uncertainty would Kant have +reduced every nation under the conceit of mending their politics. 'Orbis +terrarum dominatio'--_that_, says Casaubon, was the prize at stake. And +how was it awarded? '_In parricidii pręmium cedebat._' By tendency, by +usage, by natural gravitation, this Imperial dignity passed into a +bounty upon murder, upon treasonable murder, upon parricidal murder. For +the oath of fealty to the _sacra Cęsaria majestas_ was of awful +obligation, although the previous title of the particular Cęsar had been +worth nothing at all. And the consequent condition of insecurity, the +shadowy tenure of all social blessings, is described by Casaubon in +language truly forcible. + +Kant's purpose, as elsewhere we shall show, was not primarily with the +maxim: that was but a secondary purpose. His direct and real object lay +in one or two of the illustrative cases under the maxim. With this +particular obliquity impressed upon the movement of his own essay, we +can have no right to quarrel. Kant had an author's right to deal with +the question as best suited his own views. But with one feature of his +treatment we quarrel determinately. He speaks of this most popular (and, +we venture to add, most wise and beneficial) maxim, which arms men's +suspicions against all that is merely speculative, on the ground that it +is continually at war with the truth of practical results, as though it +were merely and blankly a vulgar error, as though _sans phrase_ it might +be dismissed for nonsense. But, because there is a casual inaccuracy in +the wording of a great truth, we are not at liberty to deny that truth, +to evade it, to 'ignore' it, or to confound a faulty expression with a +meaning originally untenable. Professor Kant, of all men, was least +entitled to plead blindness as to the substance in virtue of any vice +affecting the form. No man knew better the art of translating so wise +and beneficial a sentiment, though slightly disfigured by popular usage, +into the appropriate philosophic terms. To this very sentiment it is, +this eternal _protest_ against the plausible and the speculative, not +as a flash sentiment for a gala dinner, but as a principle of action +operative from age to age in all parts of the national conduct, that +England is indebted more than she is to any other known influence for +her stupendous prosperity on two separate lines of progress: first, on +that of commercial enterprise; secondly, on that of political +improvement. At this moment there are two forces acting upon Christendom +which constitute the principles of movement all over Europe: these are, +the questions incident to representative government, and the mighty +interests combined by commercial enterprise. Both have radiated from +England as their centre. There only did the early models of either +activity prosper. Through North America, as the daughter of England, +these two forces have transplanted themselves to every principal region +(except one) of the vast Southern American continent. Thus, to push our +view no further, we behold one-half of the habitable globe henceforth +yoked to the two sole forces of _permanent_ movement for nations, since +war and religious contests are but intermitting forces; and these two +principles, we repeat, have grown to what we now behold chiefly through +the protection of this one great maxim which throws the hopes of the +world, not upon what the scheming understanding can suggest, but upon +what the most faithful experiment can prove. + + + + +_X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY._ + + +The 'Essay on Criticism' illustrates the same profound misconception of +the principle working at the root of Didactic Poetry as operated +originally to disturb the conduct of the 'Essay on Man' by its author, +and to disturb the judgments upon it by its critics. This 'Essay on +Criticism' no more aims at unfolding the grounds and theory of critical +rules applied to poetic composition, than does the _Epistola ad Pisones_ +of Horace. But what if Horace and Pope both believed themselves the +professional expounders _ex cathedrį_ of these very grounds and this +very theory? No matter if they did. Nobody was less likely to understand +their own purposes than themselves. Their real purposes were _immanent_, +hidden in their poems; and from the poems they must be sought, not from +the poets; who, generally, in proportion as the problem is one of +analysis and evolution, for which, simply as the authors of the work, +Horace and Pope were no better qualified than other people, and, as +authors having that particular constitution of intellect which +notoriously they had, were much worse qualified than other people. We +cannot possibly allow a man to argue upon the meaning or tendency of his +own book, as against the evidence of the book itself. The book is +unexceptionable authority: and, as against _that_, the author has no +_locus standi_. Both Horace and Pope, however little they might be aware +of it, were secretly governed by the same moving principle--viz., not to +teach (which was impossible for two reasons)--but to use this very +impossibility, this very want of flexibility in the subject to the +ostensible purpose of the writers, as the resistance of the atmosphere +from which they would derive the motion of their wings. That it was +impossible in a poem seriously to teach the principles of criticism, we +venture to affirm on a double argument: 1st, that the teaching, if in +earnest, must be _polemic_: and how alien from the spirit of poetry to +move eternally through controversial discussions! 2ndly, that the +teaching, from the very necessities of metre, must be _eclectic_; +innumerable things must be suppressed; and how alien from the spirit of +science to move by discontinuous links according to the capricious +bidding of poetic decorum! Divinity itself is not more entangled in the +necessities of fighting for every step in advance, and maintaining the +ground by eternal preparation for hostility, than is philosophic +criticism; a discipline so little matured, that at this day we possess +in any language nothing but fragments and hints towards its +construction. To dispute in verse has been celebrated as the +accomplishment of Lucretius, of Sir John Davies, of Dryden: but then +this very disputation has always been eclectic; not exhausting even the +_essential_ arguments; but playing gracefully with those only which +could promise a brilliant effect. Such a mimic disputation is like a +histrionic fencing match, where the object of the actor is not in good +earnest to put his antagonist to the sword, but to exhibit a few elegant +passes in _carte_ and _tierce_, not forgetting the secondary object of +displaying to advantage any diamonds and rubies that may chance to +scintillate upon his sword-hand. + +Had Pope, or had Horace, been requested to explain the _rationale_ of +his own poem on Criticism, it is pretty certain that each (and from the +same causes) would have talked nonsense. The very gifts so rare and so +exquisite by which these extraordinary men were adorned--the graceful +negligence, the delicacy of tact, the impassioned _abandon_[48] upon +subjects suited to their _modes_ of geniality, though not absolutely or +irreversibly incompatible with the sterner gifts of energetic attention +and powerful abstraction, were undoubtedly not in alliance with them. +The two sets of gifts did not exert a reciprocal stimulation. As well +might one expect from a man, because he was a capital shot, that he +should write the best essay on the theory of projectiles. Horace and +Pope, therefore, would have talked so absurdly in justifying or +explaining their own works, that we--naturally impatient of nonsense on +the subject of criticism, as our own _métier_--should have said, 'Oh, +dear gentlemen, stand aside for a moment, and we will right you in the +eyes of posterity: at which bar, if either of you should undertake to be +his own advocate, he will have a fool for his client.' + +We do and must concede consideration even to the one-sided pleadings of +an advocate. But it is under the secret assumption of the concurrent +pleadings equally exaggerated on the adverse side. Without this +counterweight, how false would be our final summation of the evidence +upon most of the great state trials! Nay, even with both sides of the +equation before us, how perplexing would be that summation generally, +unless under the moderating guidance of a neutral and indifferent eye; +the eye of the judge in the first instance, and subsequently of the +upright historian--whether watching the case from the station of a +contemporary, or reviewing it from his place in some later generation. + +Now what we wish to observe about Criticism is, that with just the same +temptation to personal partiality and even injustice in extremity, it +offers a much wider latitude to the distortion of things, facts, +grounds, and inferences. In fact, with the very same motives to a +personal bias swerving from the equatorial truth, it makes a much wider +opening for giving effect to those motives. Insincerity in short, and +every mode of contradicting the truth, is far more possible under a +professed devotion to a general principle than any personal expression +could possibly be. + +If the logic of the case be steadily examined, a definition of didactic +poetry will emerge the very opposite to that popularly held: it will +appear that in didactic poetry the teaching is not the _power_, but the +_resistance_. It is difficult to teach even playfully or mimically in +reconciliation with poetic effect: and the object is to wrestle with +this difficulty. It is as when a man selects an absurd or nearly +impracticable subject, his own chin,[49] suppose, for the organ of a new +music: he does not select it as being naturally allied to music, but +for the very opposite reason--as being eminently alien from music, that +his own art will have the greater triumph in taming this reluctancy into +any sort of obedience to a musical purpose. It is a wrestle with all but +physical impossibility. Many arts and mechanic processes in human life +present intermitting aspects of beauty, scattered amongst others that +are utterly without interest of that sort. For instance, in husbandry, +where many essential processes are too mean to allow of any poetic +treatment or transfiguration, others are picturesque, and recommended by +remembrances of childhood to most hearts. How beautiful, for instance, +taken in all its variety of circumstances, the gorgeous summer, the gay +noontide repast, the hiding of children in the hay, the little toy of a +rake in the hands of infancy, is the hay-harvest from first to last! +Such cases wear a Janus aspect, one face connecting them with gross uses +of necessity, another connecting them with the gay or tender sentiments +that accidents of association, or some purpose of Providence, may have +thrown about them as a robe of beauty. Selecting therefore what meets +his own purpose, the poet proceeds by _resisting_ and rejecting all +those parts of the subject which would tend to defeat it. But at least, +it will be said, he does not resist those parts of the subject which he +selects. Yes, he _does_; even those parts he resists utterly in their +real and primary character, viz., as uses indispensable to the machinery +of man's animal life; and adopts them only for a collateral beauty +attached to the accidents of their evolution; a beauty oftentimes not +even guessed by those who are most familiar with them as practical +operations. It is as if a man, having a learned eye, should follow the +track of armies--careless of the political changes which they created, +or of the interests (all neutral as regarded any opinion of _his_) which +they disturbed--but alive to every form of beauty connected with these +else unmeaning hostilities--alive to the beauty of their battle-array, +to the pomp of their manoeuvres, to the awning of smoke-wreaths +surging above the artilleries, to the gleaming of sabres and bayonets at +intervals through loopholes in these gathering smoky masses. This man +would abstract from the politics and doctrines of the hostile armies, as +much as the didactic poet from the doctrinal part of his theme. + +From this attempt to rectify the idea of didactic poetry, it will be +seen at once why Pope failed utterly and inevitably in the 'Essay on +Man.' The subject was too directly and commandingly interesting to +furnish any opening to that secondary and playful interest which arises +from the management by art and the subjugation of an intractable theme. +The ordinary interest of didactic poetry is derived from the _repellent_ +qualities of the subject, and consequently from the dexterities of the +conflict with what is doubtful, indifferent, unpromising. Not only was +there no _resistance_ in the subject to the grandeur of poetry, but, on +the contrary, this subject offered so much grandeur, was so pathetic and +the amplitude of range so vast as to overwhelm the powers of any poet +and any audience, by its exactions. That was a fault in one direction. +But a different fault was--that the subject allowed no power of +selection. In ordinary didactic poetry, as we have just been insisting, +you sustain the interest by ignoring all the parts which will not bear a +steady gaze. Whatever fascinates the eye, or agitates the heart by +mimicry of life is selected and emphasized, and what is felt to be +intractable or repellent is authoritatively set aside. The poet has an +unlimited discretion. But on a theme so great as man he has no +discretion at all. This resource is denied. You _can_ give the truth +only by giving the whole truth. In treating a common didactic theme you +may neglect merely transitional parts with as much ease as benefit, +because they are familiar enough to be pre-supposed, and are besides +essential only in the real process, but not at all in the mimic process +of description; since A and C, that in the _reality_ could reach one +another only through B, may yet be intelligible as regards their beauty +without any intermediation of B. The ellipsis withdraws a deformity, and +does not generally create an obscurity: either the obscurity is none at +all, or is irrelevant to the real purpose of beauty, or may be treated +sufficiently by a line or two of adroit explanation. But in a poem +treating so vast a theme as man's relations to his own race, to his +habitation the world, to God his maker, and to all the commands of the +conscience, to the hopes of the believing heart, and to the eternal +self-conflicts of the intellect, it is clear that the purely +transitional parts, essential to the understanding of the whole, cannot +be omitted or dispensed with at the beck of the fancy or the necessities +of the metre and rhyme. + +There is also an objection to Man (or any other theme of that grandeur) +as the subject of a didactic poem, which is more subtle, and which for +that reason we have reserved to the last. In the ordinary specimens of +didactic poetry, the theme and its sub-divisions wear (as we have +already observed) a double-faced or Janus aspect; one derived from the +direct experience of life, the other from the reflex experience of it. +And the very reason why one face _does_ affect you is because the other +does _not_. Thus a Morland farmyard, a Flemish tavern, or a clean +kitchen in an unpretending house seen by ruddy firelight reflected from +pewter ware, scarcely interests the eye at all in the reality; but for +that very reason it _does_ interest us all in the mimicry. The very fact +of seeing an object framed as it were, insulated, suddenly _relieved_ to +the steady consciousness, which all one's life has been seen _un_framed, +_not_ called into relief, but depressed into the universal level of +subconsciousness, awakens a pleasurable sense of surprise. But now Man +is too great a subject to allow of any unrelieved aspects. What the +reader sees he must see directly and without insulation, else falseness +and partiality are immediately apparent. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] We speak here of Horace in his lyrical character, and of Pope as he +revealed himself in his tender and pathetic sincerities, not in his +false, counterfeit scorn. Horace, a good-natured creature, that laughed +eternally in his satire, was probably sincere. Pope, a benign one, could +not have been sincere in the bitter and stinging personalities of his +satires. Horace seems to be personal, but is not. Neither is Juvenal; +the names he employs are mere allegoric names. _Draco_ is any bloody +fellow; _Favonius_ is any sycophant: but Pope is very different. + +[49] 'His own chin,' chin-chopping, as practised in our days, was not an +original invention; it was simply a restoration from the days of Queen +Anne. + + + + +_XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH_. + + +I take the opportunity of referring to the work of a very eloquent +Frenchman, who has brought the names of Wordsworth and Shakspeare into +connection, partly for the sake of pointing out an important error in +the particular criticism on Wordsworth, but still more as an occasion +for expressing the gratitude due to the French author for the able, +anxious, and oftentimes generous justice which he has rendered to +English literature. It is most gratifying to a thoughtful +Englishman--that precisely from that period when the mighty drama of the +French Revolution, like the Deluge, or like the early growth of +Christianity, or like the Reformation, had been in operation long enough +to form a new and more thoughtful generation in France, has the English +literature been first studied in France, and first appreciated. Since +1810, when the generation moulded by the Revolution was beginning to +come forward on the stage of national action, a continued series of able +writers amongst the French--ardent, noble, profound--have laid aside +their nationality in the most generous spirit for the express purpose of +investigating the great English models of intellectual power, locally so +near to their own native models, and virtually in such polar remoteness. +Chateaubriand's intense enthusiasm for Milton, almost monomaniac in the +opinion of some people, is notorious. This, however, was less +astonishing: the pure marble grandeur of Milton, and his classical +severity, naturally recommended themselves to the French taste, which +can always understand the beauty of proportion and regular or teleologic +tendencies. It was with regard to the anomalous, and to that sort of +vaster harmonies which from moving upon a wider scale are apt at first +sight to pass for discords, that a new taste needed to be created in +France. Here Chateaubriand showed himself a Frenchman of the old leaven. +Milton would always have been estimated in France. He needed only to be +better known. Shakspeare was the _natural_ stone of offence: and with +regard to _him_ Chateaubriand has shown himself eminently blind. His +reference to Shakspeare's _female_ gallery, so divine as that Pantheon +really is, by way of most forcibly expressing his supposed inferiority +to Racine (who strictly speaking has no female pictures at all, but +merely _umrisse_ or outlines in pencil) is the very perfection of human +blindness. But many years ago the writers in _Le Globe_, either by +direct papers on the drama or indirectly by way of references to the +acting of Kean, etc., showed that even as to Shakspeare a new heart was +arising in France. M. Raymond de Véricour, though necessarily called off +to a more special consideration of the Miltonic poetry by the very +promise of his title (_Milton, et la Poésie Epique_: Paris et Londres, +1838), has in various places shown a far more comprehensive sense of +poetic truth than Chateaubriand. His sensibility, being originally +deeper and trained to move upon a larger compass, vibrates equally under +the chords of the Shakspearian music. Even he, however, has made a +serious mistake as to Wordsworth in his relation to Shakspeare. At p. +420 he says: 'Wordsworth qui (de mźme que Byron) sympathise pen +cordialement avec Shakspeare, se prosterne cependant comme Byron devant +le _Paradis perdu_; Milton est la grande idole de Wordsworth; il ne +craint pas quelquefois de se comparer lui-mźme ą son géant;' (never +unless in the single accident of praying for a similar audience--'fit +audience let me find though few'); 'et en vérité ses sonnets ont souvent +le mźme esprit prophétique, la mźme élévation sacrée que ceux de +l'Homčre anglais.' There cannot be graver mistakes than are here brought +into one focus. Lord Byron cared little for the 'Paradise Lost,' and had +studied it not at all. On the other hand, Lord Byron's pretended +disparagement of Shakspeare by comparison with the meagre, hungry and +bloodless Alfieri was a pure stage trick, a momentary device for +expressing his Apemantus misanthropy towards the English people. It +happened at the time he had made himself unpopular by the circumstances +of his private life: these, with a morbid appetite for engaging public +attention, he had done his best to publish and to keep before the public +eye; whilst at the same time he was very angry at the particular style +of comments which they provoked. There was no fixed temper of anger +towards him in the public mind of England: but he believed that there +was. And he took his revenge through every channel by which he fancied +himself to have a chance for reaching and stinging the national pride; +1st, by ridiculing the English pretensions to higher principle and +national morality; but _that_ failing, 2ndly, by disparaging Shakspeare; +3rdly, on the same principle which led Dean Swift to found the first +lunatic hospital in Ireland, viz.: + + 'To shew by one satiric touch + No nation wanted it so much.' + +Lord Byron, without any _sincere_ opinion or care upon the subject one +way or other, directed in his will--that his daughter should not marry +an Englishman: this bullet, he fancied, would take effect, even though +the Shakspeare bullet had failed. Now, as to Wordsworth, he values both +in the highest degree. In a philosophic poem, like the 'Excursion,' he +is naturally led to speak more pointedly of Milton: but his own +affinities are every way more numerous and striking to Shakspeare. For +this reason I have myself been led to group him with Shakspeare. In +those two poets alike is seen the infinite of Painting: in Ęschylus and +Milton alike are seen the simplicities and stern sublimiities of +Sculpture. + + + + +_XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH._ + + +One fault in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' suggested by Coleridge, but +luckily quite beyond all the resources of tinkering open to William +Wordsworth, is--in the choice of a Pedlar as the presiding character who +connects the shifting scenes and persons in the 'Excursion.' Why should +not some man of more authentic station have been complimented with that +place, seeing that the appointment lay altogether in Wordsworth's gift? +But really now who could this have been? Garter King-at-Arms would have +been a great deal too showy for a working hero. A railway-director, +liable at any moment to abscond with the funds of the company, would +have been viewed by all readers with far too much suspicion for the +tranquillity desirable in a philosophic poem. A colonel of Horse Marines +seems quite out of the question: what his proper functions may be, is +still a question for the learned; but no man has supposed them to be +philosophic. Yet on the other hand, argues Coleridge, would not '_any_ +wise and beneficent old man,' without specifying his rank, have met the +necessities of the case? Why, certainly, if it is _our_ opinion that +Coleridge wishes to have, we conceive that such an old gentleman, +advertising in the _Times_ as 'willing to make himself generally +useful,' might have had a chance of dropping a line to William +Wordsworth. But still we don't know. Beneficent old gentlemen are +sometimes great scamps. Men, who give themselves the best of characters +in morning papers, are watched occasionally in a disagreeable manner by +the police. Itinerant philosophers are absolutely not understood in +England. Intruders into private premises, even for grand missionary +purposes, are constantly served with summary notices to quit. Mrs. +Quickly gave a first-rate character to Simple; but for all _that_, Dr. +Caius with too much show of reason demanded, 'Vat shall de honest young +man do in my closet?' And we fear that Coleridge's beneficent old man, +lecturing _gratis_ upon things in general, would be regarded with +illiberal jealousy by the female servants of any establishment, if he +chose to lecture amongst the family linen. 'What shall de wise +beneficent old Monsieur do amongst our washing-tubs?' We are perfectly +confounded by the excessive blindness of Coleridge and nearly all other +critics on this matter. 'Need the rank,' says Coleridge, 'have been at +all particularized, when nothing follows which the knowledge of that +rank is to explain or illustrate?' Nothing to explain or illustrate! +Why, good heavens! it is only by the most distinct and positive +information lodged with the constable as to who and what the vagrant +was, that the leading philosopher in the 'Excursion' could possibly have +saved himself over and over again from passing the night in the village +'lock-up,' and generally speaking in handcuffs, as one having too +probably a design upon the village hen-roosts. In the sixth and seventh +books, where the scene lies in the churchyard amongst the mountains, it +is evident that the philosopher would have been arrested as a +resurrection-man, had he not been known to substantial farmers as a +pedlar 'with some money.' To be clothed therefore with an intelligible +character and a local calling was as indispensable to the free movements +of the Wanderer when out upon a philosophical spree, as a passport is to +each and every traveller in France. Dr. Franklin, who was a very +indifferent philosopher, but very great as a pedlar, and as cunning as +Niccolo Machiavelli (which means as cunning as old Nick), was quite +aware of this necessity as a tax upon travellers; and at every stage, on +halting, he used to stand upright in his stirrups, crying aloud, +'Gentlemen and Ladies, here I am at your service; Benjamin Franklin by +name; once (but _that_ was in boyhood) a devil; viz., in the service of +a printer; next a compositor and reader to the press; at present a +master-printer. My object in this journey is--to arrest a knave who will +else be off to Europe with £200 of my money in his breeches-pocket: that +is my final object: my immediate one is--dinner; which, if there is no +just reason against it, I beg that you will no longer interrupt.' Yet +still, though it is essential to the free circulation of a philosopher +that he should be known for what he is, the reader thinks that at least +the philosopher might be known advantageously as regards his social +standing. No, he could not. And we speak seriously. How _could_ +Coleridge and so many other critics overlook the overruling necessities +of the situation? They argue as though Wordsworth had selected a pedlar +under some abstract regard for his office of buying and selling: in +which case undoubtedly a wholesale man would have a better chance for +doing a 'large stroke of business' in philosophy than this huckstering +retailer. Wordsworth however fixed on a pedlar--not for his commercial +relations--but in spite of them. It was not for the _essential_ of his +calling that a pedlar was promoted to the post of central philosopher in +his philosophic poem, but for an accident indirectly arising out of it. +This accident lay in the natural privilege which a pedlar once had +through all rural districts of common access to rich and poor, and +secondly, in the leisurely nature of his intercourse. Three conditions +there were for fulfilling that ministry of philosophic intercourse which +Wordsworth's plan supposed. First, the philosopher must be clothed with +a _real_ character, known to the actual usages of the land, and not +imaginary: else this postulate of fiction at starting would have +operated with an unrealizing effect upon all that followed. Next, it +must be a character that was naturally fitted to carry the bearer +through a large circuit of districts and villages; else the _arena_ +would be too narrow for the large survey of life and conflict demanded: +lastly, the character must be one recommending itself alike to all ranks +in tracts remote from towns, and procuring an admission ready and +gracious to him who supports that character. Now this supreme advantage +belonged in a degree absolutely unique to the character of pedlar, or +(as Wordsworth euphemistically terms it) of 'wandering merchant.' In +past generations the _materfamilias_, the young ladies, and the visitors +within their gates, were as anxious for his periodic visit as the +humblest of the domestics. They received him therefore with the +condescending kindness of persons in a state of joyous expectation: +young hearts beat with the anticipation of velvets and brocades from +Genoa, lace veils from the Netherlands, jewels and jewelled trinkets; +for you are not to think that, like Autolycus, he carried only one +trinket. They were sincerely kind to him, being sincerely pleased. +Besides, it was politic to assume a gracious manner, since else the +pedlar might take out his revenge in the price of his wares; fifteen per +cent. would be the least he could reasonably clap on as a premium and +_solatium_ to himself for any extra hauteur. This gracious style of +intercourse, already favourable to a tone of conversation more liberal +and unreserved than would else have been conceded to a vagrant huckster, +was further improved by the fact that the pedlar was also the main +retailer of news. Here it was that a real advantage offered itself to +any mind having that philosophic interest in human characters, +struggles, and calamities, which is likely enough to arise amongst a +class of men contemplating long records of chance and change through +their wanderings, and so often left to their own meditations upon them +by long tracts of solitude. The gossip of the neighbouring districts, +whether tragic or comic, would have a natural interest from its +locality. And such records would lead to illustration from other cases +more remote--losing the interest of neighbourhood, but compensating that +loss by their deeper intrinsic hold upon the sensibilities. Ladies of +the highest rank would suffer their reserve to thaw in such interviews; +besides that, before unresisting humility and inferiority too apparent +even haughtiness the most intractable usually abates its fervour. + +Coleridge also allows himself, for the sake of argument, not merely to +assume too hastily, but to magnify too inordinately. Daniel, the poet, +really _was_ called the 'well-languaged' (p. 83, vol. ii.), but by whom? +Not, as Hooker was called the 'judicious,' or Bede the 'venerable,' by +whole generations; but by an individual. And as to the epithet of +'prosaic,' we greatly doubt if so much as one individual ever connected +it with Daniel's name. + +But the whole dispute on Poetic Diction is too deep and too broad for an +occasional or parenthetic notice. It is a dispute which renews itself in +every cultivated language;[50] and even, in its application to different +authors within the same language, as for instance, to Milton, to +Shakspeare, or to Wordsworth, it takes a special and varied aspect. +Declining this, as far too ample a theme, we wish to say one word, but +an urgent word and full of clamorous complaint, upon the other branch. +This dispute, however, is but one of two paths upon which the +Biographical Literature approaches the subject of Wordsworth: the other +lies in the direct critical examination of Wordsworth's poems. As to +this, we wish to utter one word, but a word full of clamorous complaint. +That the criticisms of Coleridge on William Wordsworth were often false, +and that they betrayed fatally the temper of one who never _had_ +sympathized heartily with the most exquisite parts of the Lyrical +Ballads, might have been a record injurious only to Coleridge himself. +But unhappily these perverse criticisms have proved the occasions of +ruin to some admirable poems; and, as if that were not enough, have +memorialized a painful feature of weakness in Wordsworth's judgment. If +ever on this earth there was a man that in his prime, when saluted with +contumely from all quarters, manifested a stern deafness to +criticism--it was William Wordsworth. And we thought the better of him +by much for this haughty defiance to groundless judgments. But the +cloak, which Boreas could not tear away from the traveller's resistance, +oftentimes the too genial Phoebus has filched from his amiable spirit +of compliance. These criticisms of Coleridge, generally so wayward and +one-sided, but sometimes desperately opposed to every mode of truth, +have been the means of exposing in William Wordsworth a weakness of +resistance--almost a criminal facility in surrendering his own +rights--which else would never have been suspected. We will take one of +the worst cases. Readers acquainted with Wordsworth as a poet, are of +course acquainted with his poem (originally so fine) upon Gipseys. To a +poetic mind it is inevitable--that every spectacle, embodying any +remarkable quality in a remarkable excess, should be unusually +impressive, and should seem to justify a poetic record. For instance, +the solitary life of one[51] who should tend a lighthouse could not fail +to move a very deep sympathy with his situation. Here for instance we +read the ground of Wordsworth's 'Glen Almain.' Did he care for torpor +again, lethargic inertia? Such a spectacle as _that_ in the midst of a +nation so morbidly energetic as our own, was calculated to strike some +few chords from the harp of a poet so vigilantly keeping watch over +human life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[50] Valckenaer, in his famous 'Dissertation on the Phoenissę,' notices +such a dispute as having arisen upon the diction of Euripides. The +question is old and familiar as to the quality of the passion in +Euripides, by comparison with that in Sophocles. But there was a +separate dispute far less notorious as to the quality of the _lexis_. + +[51] 'One,' but in the Eddystone or other principal lighthouses on our +coast there are _two_ men resident. True, but these two come upon duty +by alternate watches, and generally are as profoundly separated as if +living leagues apart. + + + + +_XIII._ _WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES._ + +(_An Early Paper._) + + +Of late the two names of Wordsworth and Southey have been coupled +chiefly in the frantic philippics of Jacobins, out of revenge for that +sublime crusade which, among the intellectual powers of Europe, these +two eminent men were foremost (and for a time alone) in awakening +against the brutalizing tyranny of France and its chief agent, Napoleon +Bonaparte: a crusade which they, to their immortal honour, unceasingly +advocated--not (as others did) at a time when the Peninsular victories, +the Russian campaign, and the battle of Leipsic, had broken the charm by +which France fascinated the world and had made Bonaparte mean even in +the eyes of the mean--but (be it remembered!) when by far the major part +of this nation looked upon the cause of liberty as hopeless upon the +Continent, as committed for many ages to the guardianship of England, in +which (or not at all) it was to be saved as in an Ark from the universal +deluge. Painful such remembrances may be to those who are now ashamed of +their idolatry, it must not be forgotten that, from the year 1803 to +1808, Bonaparte was an idol to the greater part of this nation; at no +time, God be thanked! an idol of love, but, to most among us, an idol +of fear. The war was looked upon as essentially a _defensive_ war: many +doubted whether Bonaparte could be successfully opposed: almost all +would have treated it as lunacy to say that he could be conquered. Yet, +even at that period, these two eminent patriots constantly treated it as +a feasible project to march an English army triumphantly into Paris. +Their conversations with various friends--the dates of their own +works--and the dates of some composed under influences emanating from +them (as, for example, the unfinished work of Colonel Pasley of the +Engineers)--are all so many vouchers for this fact. We know not whether +(with the exception of some few Germans such as Arndt, for whose book +Palm was shot) there was at that time in Europe another man of any +eminence who shared in that Machiavellian sagacity which revealed to +them, as with the power and clear insight of the prophetic spirit, the +craziness of the French military despotism when to vulgar politicians it +seemed strongest. For this sagacity, and for the strength of patriotism +to which in part they owed it (for in all cases the _moral_ spirit is a +great illuminator of the _intellect_), they have reaped the most +enviable reward, in the hatred of traitors and Jacobins all over the +world: and in the expressions of that hatred we find their names +frequently coupled. There was a time, however, when these names were +coupled for other purposes: they were coupled as joint supporters of a +supposed new creed in relation to their own art. Mr. Wordsworth, it is +well known to men of letters, did advance a new theory upon two great +questions of art: in some points it might perhaps be objected that his +faith, in relation to that which he attacked, was as the Protestant +faith to the Catholic--_i.e._, not a new one, but a restoration of the +primitive one purified from its modern corruptions. Be this as it may, +however, Mr. Wordsworth's exposition of his theory is beyond all +comparison the subtlest and (not excepting even the best of the German +essays) the most finished and masterly specimen of reasoning which has +in any age or nation been called forth by any one of the fine arts. No +formal attack has yet been made upon it, except by Mr. Coleridge; of +whose arguments we need not say that they furnish so many centres (as it +were) to a great body of metaphysical acuteness; but to our judgment +they fail altogether of overthrowing Mr. Wordsworth's theory. All the +other critics have shown in their casual allusions to this theory that +they have not yet come to understand what is its drift or main thesis. +Such being the state of their acquaintance with the theory itself, we +need not be surprised to find that the accidental connection between Mr. +Wordsworth and the Laureate arising out of friendship and neighbourhood +should have led these blundering critics into the belief that the two +poets were joint supporters of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile +that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey +dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; +dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male +blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent--but +as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long +examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions +dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany +occasionally dissents from Leibnitz. That which Mr. Wordsworth has in +common with all great poets, Mr. Southey cannot but reverence: he has +told us that he does: and, if he had not, his own originality and +splendour of genius would be sufficient pledges that he did. That which +is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey may disapprove: he +may think that it narrows the province of the poet too much in one +part--that, in another part, it impairs the instrument with which he is +to work. Thus far he may disapprove; and, after all, deduct no more from +the merits of Mr. Wordsworth, than he will perhaps deduct from those of +Milton, for having too often allowed a Latin or Hebraic structure of +language to injure the purity of his diction. To whatsoever extent, +however, the disapprobation of Mr. Southey goes, certain it is (for his +own practice shows it) that he does disapprove the _innovations_ of Mr. +Wordsworth's theory--very laughably illustrates the sagacity of modern +English critics: they were told that Mr. Southey held and practised a +certain system of innovations: so far their error was an error of +misinformation: but next they turn to Mr. Southey's works, and there +they fancy that they find in every line an illustration of the erroneous +tenets which their misinformation had led them to expect that they +should find. A more unfortunate blunder, one more confounding to the +most adventurous presumption, can hardly be imagined. A system, which no +man could act upon unless deliberately and with great effort and labour +of composition, is supposed to be exemplified in the works of a poet who +uniformly rejects it: and this ludicrous blunder arises not from any +over-refinements in criticism (such, for instance, as led Warburton to +find in Shakspeare what the poet himself never dreamt of), but from no +more creditable cause than a misreport of some blue-stocking miss either +maliciously or ignorantly palmed upon a critic whose understanding +passively surrendered itself to anything however gross. + +Such are the two modes in which the names of these two eminent men have +been coupled. As true patriots they are deservedly coupled: as poets +their names cannot be justly connected by any stricter bond than that +which connects all men of high creative genius. This distinction, as to +the main grounds of affinity and difference between the two writers, was +open and clear to any unprejudiced mind prepared for such +investigations, and we should at any rate have pointed it out at one +time or other for the sake of exposing the hollowness of those +impostures which offer themselves in our days as criticisms. + + + + +_XIV. PRONUNCIATION._ + + +To _write_ his own language with propriety is the ambition of here and +there an individual; to speak it with propriety is the ambition of +multitudes. Amongst the qualifications for a public writer--the +preliminary one of _leisure_ is granted to about one man in three +thousand; and, this being indispensable, there at once, for most men, +mercifully dies in the very instant of birth the most uneasy and +bewildering of temptations. But _speak_ a man must. Leisure or no +leisure, to _talk_ he is obliged by the necessities of life, or at least +he thinks so; though my own private belief is, that the wisest rule upon +which a man could act in this world (alas! I did not myself act upon it) +would be to seal up his mouth from earliest youth, to simulate the +infirmity of dumbness, and to answer only by signs. This would soon put +an end to the impertinence of questions, to the intolerable labour of +framing and uttering replies through a whole life, and, above all (oh, +foretaste of Paradise!), to the hideous affliction of sustaining these +replies and undertaking for all their possible consequences. That notion +of the negroes in Senegal about monkeys, viz., that they _can_ talk if +they choose, and perhaps with classical elegance, but wisely dissemble +their talent under the fear that the unjust whites would else make them +work in Printing Houses, for instance, as 'readers' and correctors of +the press, this idea, which I dare say is true, shows how much wiser, in +his generation, is a monkey than a man. For, besides the wear and tear +to a man's temper by the irritation of talking, and the corrosion of +one's happiness by the disputes which talking entails, it is really +frightful to think of the mischief caused, if one measures it only by +the fruitless expense of words. Eleven hundred days make up about three +years; consequently, eleven thousand days make up thirty years. But that +day must be a very sulky one, and probably raining cats and dogs, on +which a man throws away so few as two thousand words, not reckoning what +he loses in sleep. A hundred and twenty-five words for every one of +sixteen hours cannot be thought excessive. The result, therefore, is, +that, in one generation of thirty years, he wastes irretrievably upon +the impertinence of answering--of wrangling, and of prosing, not less +than twice eleven thousand times a thousand words; the upshot of which +comes to a matter of twenty-two million words. So that, if the English +language contains (as some curious people say it does) forty thousand +words, he will have used it up not less than five hundred and fifty +times. Poor old battered language! One really pities it. Think of any +language in its old age being forced to work at that rate; kneaded, as +if it were so much dough, every hour of the day into millions of +fantastic shapes by millions of capricious bakers! Being old, however, +and superannuated, you will say that our English language must have got +used to it: as the sea, that once (according to Camoens) was indignant +at having his surface scratched, and his feelings harrowed, by keels, is +now wrinkled and smiling. + +Blessed is the man that is dumb, when speech would have betrayed his +ignorance; and the man that has neither pens nor ink nor crayons, when a +record of his thought would have delivered him over to the derision of +posterity. This, however, the reader will say, is to embroider a large +moral upon a trivial occasion. Possibly the moral may be +disproportionately large; and yet, after all, the occasion may not be so +trivial as it seems. One of the many revolutions worked by the railway +system is, to force men into a much ampler publicity; to throw them at a +distance from home amongst strangers; and at their own homes to throw +strangers amongst _them_. Now, exactly in such situations it is, where +all other gauges of appreciation are wanting, that the two great +external indications of a man's rank, viz., the quality of his manners +and the quality of his pronunciation, come into play for assigning his +place and rating amongst strangers. Not merely pride, but a just and +reasonable self-respect, irritates a man's aspiring sensibilities in +such a case: not only he _is_, but always he _ought_ to be, jealous of +suffering in the estimation of strangers by defects which it is in his +own choice to supply, or by mistakes which a little trouble might +correct. And by the way we British act in this spirit, whether we ought +to do or not, it is noticed as a broad characteristic of us Islanders, +viz., both of the English and the Scotch, that we are morbidly alive to +jealousy under such circumstances, and in a degree to which there is +nothing amongst the two leading peoples of the Continent at all +corresponding.[52] A Scotchman or an Englishman of low rank is anxious +on a Sunday to dress in a style which may mislead the casual observer +into the belief that perhaps he is a gentleman: whereas it is notorious +that the Parisian artisan or labourer of the lower class is proud of +connecting himself conspicuously with his own order, and ostentatiously +acknowledging it, by adopting its usual costume. It is his way of +expressing an _esprit de corps_. The same thing is true very extensively +of Germans. And it sounds pretty, and reads into a sentimental +expression of cheerful contentedness, that such customs should prevail +on a great scale. Meantime I am not quite sure that the worthy Parisian +is not an ass, and the amiable German another, for thus meekly resigning +himself to the tyranny of his accidental situation. What they call the +allotment of Providence is, often enough, the allotment of their own +laziness or defective energy. At any rate, I feel much more inclined to +respect the aspiring Englishman or Scotchman that kicks against these +self-imposed restraints; that rebels in heart against whatever there may +be of degradation in his own particular employment; and, therefore, +though submitting to this degradation as the _sine quā non_ for earning +his daily bread, and submitting also to the external badges and dress of +his trade as frequently a matter of real convenience, yet doggedly +refuses to abet or countersign any such arrangements as tend to lower +him in other men's opinion. And exactly this is what he _would_ be doing +by assuming his professional costume on Sundays; the costume would then +become an exponent of his choice, not of his convenience or his +necessity; and he would thus be proclaiming that he glories in what he +detests. To found a meek and docile nation, the German is the very +architect wanted; but to found a go-ahead nation quite another race is +called for, other blood and other training. And, again, when I hear a +notable housewife exclaiming, 'Many are the poor servant girls that +have been led into temptation and ruin by dressing above their station,' +I feel that she says no more than the truth; and I grieve that it should +be so. Out of tenderness, therefore, and pity towards the poor girls, if +I personally had any power to bias their choice, my influence should be +used in counteraction to their natural propensities. But this has +nothing to do with the philosophic estimate of those propensities. +Perilous they are; but _that_ does not prevent their arising in +fountains that contain elements of possible grandeur, such as would +never be developed by a German Audrey (see 'As You Like It') content to +be treated as a doll by her lover, and viewing it as profane to wear +petticoats less voluminous, or a headdress less frightful than those +inherited from her grandmother. + +Excuse this digression, reader. What I wished to explain was that, if a +man in a humble situation seeks to refine his pronunciation of English, +and finds himself in consequence taxed with pride that will not brook +the necessities of his rank, at all events, he is but _integrating_ his +manifestations of pride. Already in his Sunday's costume he has _begun_ +this manifestation, and, as I contend, rightfully. If a carpenter or a +stonemason goes abroad on a railway excursion, there is no moral +obligation upon him--great or small--to carry about any memento +whatsoever of his calling. I contend that his right to pass himself off +for a gentleman is co-extensive with his power to do so: the right is +limited by the power, and by that only. The man may say justly: "What I +am seeking is a holiday. This is what I pay for; and I pay for it with +money earned painfully enough. I have a right therefore to expect that +the article shall be genuine and complete. Now, a holiday means freedom +from the pains of labour--not from some of those pains, but from all. +Even from the memory of these pains, if _that_ could be bought, and from +the anticipation of their recurrence. Amongst the pains of labour, a +leading one next after the necessity of unintermitting muscular effort, +is the oppression of people's superciliousness or of their affected +condescension in conversing with one whom they know to be a working +mechanic. From this oppression it is, from this oppression whether open +or poorly disguised, that I seek to be delivered. It taints my pleasure: +it spoils my holiday. And if by being dressed handsomely, by courtesy in +manners, and by accuracy in speaking English, I can succeed in obtaining +this deliverance for myself, I have a right to it." Undoubtedly he has. +His real object is not to disconnect himself from an honest calling, but +from that burthen of contempt or of slight consideration which the world +has affixed to his calling. He takes measures for gratifying his +pride--not with a direct or primary view to that pride, but indirectly +as the only means open to him for evading and defeating the unjust +conventional scorn that would settle upon himself _through_ his trade, +if that should happen to become known or suspected. This is what I +should be glad to assist him in; and amongst other points connected with +his object, towards which my experience might furnish him with some +hints, I shall here offer him the very shortest of lessons for his +guidance in the matter of English pronunciation. + +What can be attempted on so wide a field in a paper limited so severely +in dimensions as all papers published by this journal _must_ be limited +in obedience to the transcendent law of variety? To make it possible +that subjects _enough_ should be treated, the Proprietor wisely insists +on a treatment vigorously succinct for each in particular. I myself, it +suddenly strikes me, must have been the chief offender against this +reasonable law: but my offences were committed in pure ignorance and +inattention, faults which henceforth I shall guard against with a +penitential earnestness. Reformation meanwhile must begin, I fear, +simultaneously with this confession of guilt. It would not be possible +(would it?) that, beginning the penitence this month of November, I +should postpone the amendment till the next? No, _that_ would look too +brazen. I must confine myself to the two and a half pages prescribed as +the maximum extent--and of that allowance already perhaps have used up +one half at the least. Shocking! is it not? So much the sterner is the +demand through the remaining ground for exquisite brevity. + +Rushing therefore at once _in medias res_, I observe to the reader that, +although it is thoroughly impossible to give him a guide upon so vast a +wilderness as the total area of our English language, for, if I must +teach him how to pronounce, and upon what learned grounds to pronounce, +40,000 words, and if polemically I must teach him how to dispose of +40,000 objections that have been raised (or that _may_ be raised) +against these pronunciations, then I should require at the least 40,000 +lives (which is quite out of the question, for a cat has but +nine)--seeing and allowing for all this, I may yet offer him some +guidance as to his guide. One sole rule, if he will attend to it, +governs in a paramount sense the total possibilities and compass of +pronunciation. A very famous line of Horace states it. What line? What +is the supreme law in every language for correct pronunciation no less +than for idiomatic propriety? + + '_Usus_, quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi:' + +usage, the established practice, subject to which is all law and normal +standard of correct speaking. Now, in what way does such a rule +interfere with the ordinary prejudice on this subject? The popular error +is that, in pronunciation, as in other things, there is an abstract +right and a wrong. The difficulty, it is supposed, lies in ascertaining +this right and wrong. But by collation of arguments, by learned +investigation, and interchange of _pros_ and _cons_, it is fancied that +ultimately the exact truth of each separate case might be extracted. +Now, in that preconception lies the capital blunder incident to the +question. There _is_ no right, there _is_ no wrong, except what the +prevailing usage creates. The usage, the existing custom, _that_ is the +law: and from that law there is no appeal whatever, nor demur that is +sustainable for a moment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] Amongst the Spaniards there _is_. + + + + +_XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA._ + + +Now, observe what I am going to prove. First A, and as a stepping-stone +to something (B) which is to follow: It is, that the Jewish Scriptures +could not have been composed in any modern ęra. I am earnest in drawing +your attention to the particular point which I have before me, because +one of the enormous faults pervading all argumentative books, so that +rarely indeed do you find an exception, is that, in all the dust and +cloud of contest and of objects, the reader never knows what is the +immediate object before the writer and himself, nor if he were told +would he understand in what relation it stood to the main object of +contest--the main question at stake. Recollect, therefore, that what I +want is to show that these elder Jewish Scriptures must have existed in +very ancient days--how ancient? for ancient is an ambiguous word--could +not have been written as a memorial of tradition within a century or two +of our ęra. To suppose, even for the sake of answering, the case of a +forgery, is too gross and shocking: though a very common practice +amongst writers miscalled religious, but in fact radically, incurably +unspiritual. This might be shown to be abominable even in an +intellectual sense; because no adequate, no rational purpose could be +answered by such a labour. The sole conceivable case would be, that from +the eldest days the Jews had been governed by all the Mosaic +institutions as we now have them, but that the mere copying, the mere +registration on tablets of parchment, wood, leather, brass, had not +occurred till some more modern period. As to this the answer is at once: +Why should they not have been written down? What answer could be given? +Only this: For the same reason that other nations did not commit to +writing their elder institutions. And why did they not? Was it to save +trouble? So far from that, this one privation imposed infinite trouble +that would have been evaded by written copies. For because they did not +write down, therefore, as the sole mode of providing for accurate +remembrance, they were obliged to compose in a very elaborate metre; in +which the mere _pattern_ as it were of the verse, so intricate and so +closely interlocked, always performed thus two services: first, it +assisted the memory in mastering the tenor; but, secondly, it checked +and counterpleaded to the lapses of memory or to the artifices of fraud. +This explanation is well illustrated in the 'Iliad'--a poem elder by a +century, it is rightly argued, than the 'Odyssey,' ergo the eldest of +Pagan literature. Now, when the 'Iliad' had once come down safe to +Pisistratus 555 years B.C., imagine this great man holding out his hands +over the gulf of time to Homer, 1,000 years before, who is chucking or +shying his poems across the gulf. Once landed in those conservative +hands, never trouble yourself more about the safety of the 'Iliad.' +After that it was as safe as the eyes in any Athenian's head. But before +that time there _was_ a great danger; and this danger was at all +surmounted (scholars differ greatly and have sometimes cudgelled one +another with real unfigurative cudgels as to the degree in which it +_did_ surmount the danger) only by the metre and a regular orchestra in +every great city dedicated to this peculiar service of chanting the +'Iliad'; insomuch that a special costume was assigned to the chanters of +the 'Iliad,' viz., scarlet or crimson, and also another special costume +to the chanters of the 'Odyssey,' viz., violet-coloured. Now, this +division of orchestras had one great evil and one great benefit. The +benefit was, that if locally one orchestra went wrong (as it might do +upon local temptations) yet surely all the orchestras would not go +wrong: ninety-nine out of every hundred would check and expose the +fraudulent hundredth. _There_ was the good. But the evil was concurrent. +For by this dispersion of orchestras, and this multiplication, not only +were the ordinary chances of error according to the doctrine of chances +multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold, but also, which was worse, each +separate orchestra was brought by local position under a separate and +peculiar action of some temptation, some horrible temptation, some bribe +that could not be withstood, for falsifying the copy by compliments to +local families; that is, to such as were or such as were not descendants +from the Paladius of Troy. For that, let me say, was for Greece, nay, +for all the Mediterranean world, what for us of Christian ages have been +the Crusades. It was the pinnacle from which hung as a dependency all +the eldest of families. So that they who were of such families thirsted +after what they held aright to be asserted, viz., a Homeric +commemoration; and they who were not thirsted after what had begun to +seem a feasible ambition to be accomplished. It was feasible: for +various attempts are still on record very much like our interpolations +of Church books as to records of birth or marriage. Athens, for +instance, was discontented with Homer's praise; and the case is +interesting, because, though it argues such an attempt to be very +difficult, since even a great city could not fully succeed, yet, at the +same time, it argues that it was not quite hopeless, or else it would +hardly have been attempted. So that here arises one argument for the +main genuineness of the Homeric text. Yet you will say: Perhaps when +Athens tried the trick it was too late in the day: it was too late after +full daylight to be essaying burglaries. But it would have been easy in +elder days. This is true; but remark the restraint which that very state +of the case supposes. Precisely when this difficulty became great, +became enormous, did the desire chiefly become great, become enormous, +for mastering it. And when the difficulty was light, when the forgery +was most a matter of ease, the ambition was least. For you cannot +suppose that families standing near to the Crusades would have cared +much for the reputation. As an act of piety they would prize it; as an +exponent of antiquity they would not prize it at all. For, in fact, it +would argue no such thing, until many centuries had passed. You see, +however, by this sketch the _pros_ and the _cons_ respecting the +difficulty of transmitting the 'Iliad' free from corruption, if at once +it was resigned to mere oral tradition. The alterations were more and +more tempting; but in that ratio were less and less possible. And then, +secondly, there were the changes from chance or from changing language. +Apply all these considerations to the case of the Hebrew Scriptures, and +their great antiquity is demonstrated. + + + + +_XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY._ + + +Look into the Acts of the Apostles, you see the wide dispersion of the +Jews which had then been accomplished; a dispersion long antecedent to +that penal dispersion which occurred subsequently to the Christian era. +But search the pages of the wicked Jew, Josephus,[53] who notices +expressly this universal dispersion of the Jews, and gives up and down +his works the means of tracing them through every country in the +southern belt of the Mediterranean, through every country of the +northern belt, through every country of the connecting belt, in Asia +Minor and Syria--through every island of the Mediterranean. Search +Philo-Judęus, the same result is found. But why? Upon what theory? What +great purpose is working, is fermenting underneath? What principle, what +law can be abstracted from this antagonist or centrifugal motion +outwards now violently beating back as with a conflict of tides the +original centripetal motion inwards? Manifestly this: the incubating +process had been completed: the ideas of God as an ideal of Holiness, +the idea of Sin as the antagonist force--had been perfected; they were +now so inextricably worked into the texture of Jewish minds, or the +Jewish minds were now arrived at their _maximum_ of adhesiveness, or at +their _minimum_ of repulsiveness, in manners and social character, that +this stage was perfect; and now came the five hundred years during which +they were to manure all nations with these preparations for +Christianity. Hence it was that the great globe of Hebraism was now +shivered into fragments; projected 'by one sling of that victorious +arm'--which had brought them up from Egypt. Make ready for Christianity! +Lay the structure, in which everywhere Christianity will strike root. +You, that for yourselves even will reject, will persecute Christianity, +become the pioneers, the bridge-layers, the reception-preparers, by +means of those two inconceivable ideas, for natural man--sin and its +antagonist, holiness. + +In this way a preparation was made. But if Christianity was to benefit +by it, if Christianity was to move with ease, she must have a language. +Accordingly, from the time of Alexander, the strong he-goat, you see a +tendency--sudden, abrupt, beyond all example, swift, perfect--for +uniting all nations by the bond of a single language. You see kings and +nations taking up their positions as regularly, faithfully, solemnly as +a great fleet on going into action, for supporting this chain of +language. + +Yet even that will be insufficient; for fluent motion out of nation into +nation it will be requisite that all nations should be provinces of one +supreme people; so that no hindrances from adverse laws, or from +jealousies of enmity, can possibly impede the fluent passage of the +apostle and the apostle's delegates--inasmuch as the laws are swallowed +up into one single code, and enmity disappears with its consequent +jealousies, where all nationalities are absorbed into unity. + +This last change being made, a signal, it may be supposed, was given as +with a trumpet; now then, move forward, Christianity; the ground is +ready, the obstacles are withdrawn. Enter upon the field which is +manured; try the roads which are cleared; use the language which is +prepared; benefit by the laws which protect and favour your motion; +apply the germinating principles which are beginning to swell in this +great vernal season of Christianity. New heavens and new earth are +forming: do you promote it. + +Such a _complexus_ of favourable tendencies, such a meeting in one +centre of plans--commencing in far different climates and far different +centres, all coming up at the same ęra face to face, and by direct lines +of connection meeting in one centre--the world had never seen before. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] 'The wicked Jew,' Josephus, as once I endeavoured to show, was +perhaps the worst man in all antiquity; it is pleasant to be foremost +upon any path, and Joe might assuredly congratulate himself on +surmounting and cresting all the scoundrels since the flood. What there +might be on the other side the flood, none of us can say. But on _this_ +side, amongst the Cis-diluvians, Joe in a contest for the deanery of +that venerable chapter, would assuredly carry off the prize. Wordsworth, +on a question arising as to _who_ might be the worst man in English +history, vehemently contended for the pre-eminent pretensions of Monk. +And when some of us assigned him only the fifth or sixth place, was +disposed to mourn for him as an ill-used man. But no difficulty of this +kind could arise with regard to the place of Josephus among the +ancients, full knowledge and impartial judgment being presupposed. And +his works do follow him; just look at this: From the ridiculous attempt +of some imbecile Christian to interpolate in Josephus's History a +passage favourable to Christ, it is clear that no adequate idea +prevailed of his intense hatred to the new sect of Nazarenes and +Galilęans. In our own days we have a lively illustration of the use +which may be extracted from the Essenes by sceptics, and an indirect +confirmation of my own allegation, against them, in Dr. Strauss (_Leben +Jesu_). The moment that his attention was directed to that fact of the +Essenes being utterly ignored in the New Testament (a fact so easily +explained by _my_ theory, a fact so _utterly_ unaccountable to _his_) he +conceived an affection for them. Had they been mentioned by St. John, +there was an end to the dislike; but Josephus had, even with this modern +sceptical Biblical critic, done his work and done it well. + + + + +_XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY._ + + +If you are one that upon meditative grounds have come sincerely to +perceive the philosophic value of this faith; if you have become +sensible that as yet Christianity is but in its infant stages--after +eighteen centuries is but beginning to unfold its adaptations to the +long series of human situations, slowly unfolding as time and change +move onwards; and that these self-adapting relations of the religion to +human necessities, this conformity to unforeseen developments, argues a +Leibnitzian pre-establishment of this great system as though it had from +the first been a mysterious substratum laid under 'the dark foundations' +of human nature; holding or admitting such views of the progress +awaiting Christianity--you will thank us for what we are going to say. +You may, possibly for yourself, when reviewing the past history of man, +have chanced to perceive the same--we are not jealous of participation +in a field so ample--but even in such a case, if the remark (on which we +are now going to throw a ray of light) should appeal to you in +particular, with less of absolute novelty, not the less you will feel +thankful to be confirmed in your views by independent testimony. We, for +ourselves, offer the remark as new; but, in an age teeming with so much +agility of thought, it is rare that any remark can have absolutely +evaded all partial glimpses or stray notices of others, even when _aliud +agentes_, men stumble upon truths, to which they are not entitled by any +meritorious or direct studies. However, whether absolutely original or +not, the remark is this--Did it ever strike you, reader, as a most +memorable phenomenon about Christianity, as one of those contradictory +functions which, to a thing of human mechanism, is impossible, but which +are found in _vital_ agencies and in all deep-laid systems of +truth--that the same scheme of belief which is the most settling, +freezing, tranquillizing for one purpose, is the most unbinding, +agitating, revolutionary in another? Christianity is that religion which +most of all settles what is perilous in scepticism; and yet, also, it is +that which most of all unsettles whatever may invite man's intellectual +activity. It is the sole religion which can give any deep anchorage for +man's hopes; and yet, also, in mysterious self-antagonism, it is the +sole religion which opens a pathless ocean to man's useful and blameless +speculations. Whilst all false religions neither as a matter of fact +_have_ produced--nor as a matter of possibility _could_ have produced--a +philosophy, it is a most significant distinction of Christianity, and +one upon which volumes might be written, that simply by means of the +great truths which that faith has fixed when brought afterwards into +collision with the innumerable questions which that faith has left +undetermined (as not essential to her own final purposes), Christianity +has bred, and tempted, and stimulated a vast body of philosophy on +neutral ground; ground religious enough to create an interest in the +questions, yet not so religious as to react upon capital truths by any +errors that may be committed in the discussion. For instance, on that +one sea-like question of free agency, besides the _explicit_ philosophy +that Christianity has bred amongst the Schoolmen, and since their time, +what a number of sects, heresies, orthodox churches have _implicitly_ +couched and diffused some one view or other of this question amongst +their characteristic differences; and without prejudice to the integrity +of their Christian views or the purity of their Christian morals. +Whilst, on the other hand, the very noblest of false religions (the +noblest as having stolen much from Christianity), viz., Islamism, has +foreclosed all philosophy on this subject by the stupid and killing +doctrine of fatalism. This we give as one instance; but in all the rest +it is the same. You might fancy that from a false religion should arise +a false philosophy--false, but still a philosophy. Is it so? On the +contrary: the result of false religion is no philosophy at all. + +Paganism produced none: the Pagans had a philosophy; but it stood in no +sort of relation, real or fancied relation, to their mythology or +worship. And the Mahometans, in times when they had universities and +professors' chairs, drew the whole of their philosophic systems from +Greece, without so much as ever attempting to connect these systems with +their own religious creed. But Christianity, on the other hand, the only +great doctrinal religion, the only religion which ties up--chains--and +imprisons human faith, where it is good for man's peace that he should +be fettered, is also the only religion which places him in perfect +liberty on that vast neutral arena where it is good for him to exercise +his unlimited energies of mind. And it is most remarkable, that whilst +Christianity so far shoots her rays into these neutral questions as to +invest them with grandeur, she keeps herself uncommitted and unpledged +to such philosophic problems in any point where they might ally +themselves with error. For instance, St. Austin's, or Calvin's doctrine +on free agency is so far Christian, that Christian churches have adopted +it into their articles of faith, or have even built upon it as a +foundation. So far it seems connected with Christian truth. Yet, again, +it is so far separate from Christian truth, that no man dares to +pronounce his brother heretical for doubting or denying it. And thus +Christianity has ministered, even in this side-chapel of its great +temple, to two great necessities: it has thrown out a permanent +temptation to human activity of intellect, by connecting itself with +tertiary questions growing out of itself derivatively and yet +indifferent to the main interests of truth. In this way Christianity has +ministered to a necessity which was not religious, but simply human, +through a religious radiation in a descending line. Secondly, it has +kept alive and ventilated through every age the direct religious +interest in its own primary truths, by throwing out secondary truths, +that were doubtfully related to the first, for polemical agitation. +Foolish are they who talk of our Christian disputes as arguments of an +unsound state, or as silent reproaches to the sanity or perfect +development of our religion. Mahometans are united, because the only +points that could disunite them relate generally to fact and _not_ to +doctrinal truths. Their very national heresies turn only on a ridiculous +piece of gossip--Was such a man's son-in-law his legitimate successor? +Upon a point so puerile as this revolves the entire difference between +the heterodoxy of Persia and the orthodoxy of Turkey. Or, if their +differences go deeper, in that case they tend to the utter extinction +of Islamism; they maintain no characteristic or exclusive dogma; as +amongst the modern Sikhs of Hindostan, who have blended the Brahminical +and Mahometan creeds by an incoherent _syncretismus_; or, as amongst +many heretics of Persia and Arabia, who are mere crazy freethinkers, +without any religious determination, without any principle of libration +for the oscillating mind. Whereas _our_ differences, leaving generally +all central truths untouched, arise like our political parties, and +operate like them; they grow out of our sincerity, and they sustain our +sincerity. That interest _must_ be unaffected which leads men into +disputes and permanent factions, and that truth _must_ be diffusive as +life itself, which is found to underlay a vast body of philosophy. It is +the cold petrific annihilation of a moral interest in the subject, by +substituting a meagre interest of historical facts, which stifles all +differences; stifles political differences under a despotism, from utter +despair of winning practical value to men's opinions; stifles religious +differences under a childish creed of facts or anecdotes, from the +impossibility of bringing to bear upon the [Greek: to] positive of an +arbitrary legend, or the mere conventional of a clan history--dead, +inert letters--any moral views this way or that, and any life of +philosophical speculation. Thence comes the soul-killing monotony (unity +one cannot call it) of all false religions. Attached to mere formal +facts, they provoke no hostility in the inner nature. Affirming nothing +as regards the life of truth, why should they tempt any man to +contradict? Lying, indeed, but lying only as a false pedigree lies, or +an old mythological legend, they interest no principle in man's moral +heart; they make no oracular answers, put forth no secret agitation, +they provoke no question. But Christianity, merely by her settlements +and fixing of truths, has disengaged and unfixed a world of other +truths, for sustaining or for tempting an endless activity of the +intellect. And the astonishing result has thus been accomplished--that +round a centre, fixed and motionless as a polar tablet of ice, there has +been in the remote offing a tumbling sea of everlasting agitation. A +central gravitation in the power of Christianity has drawn to one point +and converged into one tendency all capital agencies in all degrees of +remoteness, making them tend to rest and unity; whilst, again, by an +antagonist action, one vast centrifugal force, measured against the +other, has so modified the result as to compel the intellect of man into +divergencies answering to the line of convergence; balancing the central +rest for man's hopes by everlasting motion for his intellect, and the +central unity for man's conscience by everlasting progress for his +efforts. + +Now, the Scholastic philosophy meddled chiefly with those tertiary or +sub-dependent truths; such, viz., as are indifferent to Christianity by +any reaction which they can exert from error in their treatment, but not +indifferent as regards their own original derivation. Many people +connect Scholasticism with a notion of error and even of falsehood, +because they suppose it to have arisen on the incitement of Popery. And +it is undeniable that Popery impressed a bias or _clinamen_ upon its +movement. It is true also that Scholasticism is not only ministerial to +Popery, but in parts is consubstantial with Popery. Popery is not fully +fleshed and developed apart from the commentaries or polemical apologies +of Aquinas. But still we must remember that Popery had not yet taken up +the formal position of hostility to truth, seeing that as yet +Protestantism was only beginning its first infant struggles. Many Popish +errors were hardened and confirmed in the very furnace of the strife. +And though perilous errors had intermingled themselves with Popery, +which would eventually have strangled all the Christian truth which it +involved, yet that truth it was which gave its whole interest to the +Reformation. Had the Reformation fought against mere unmixed error, it +could not have been viewed as a reforming process, but as one entirely +innovating. So that even where it is most exclusively Popish, +Scholasticism has often a golden thread of truth running through its +texture; often it is not Popish in the sense of being Anti-Protestant, +but in the elder sense of being Anti-Pagan. However, generally speaking, +it is upon the neutral ground common to all modes of Christianity that +this philosophy ranges. That being so, there was truth enough of a high +order to sustain the sublimer motives of the Schoolmen; whilst the +consciousness of supporting the mixed interests, secular and spiritual, +of that mighty Christian church which at that time was co-extensive with +Christianity in the West, gave to the Schoolmen a more instant, human, +and impassioned interest in the labours of that mysterious loom which +pursued its aerial web through three centuries. + +As a consequence from all this, we affirm that the parallel is complete +between the situation on the one side of the early Greek authors, the +creators of Greek literature in the age of Pericles, and, on the other +side, of the Christian Schoolmen; (1) the same intense indolence, which +Helvetius fancied to be the most powerful stimulant to the mind under +the reaction of _ennui_; (2) the same tantalizing dearth of books--just +enough to raise a craving, too little to meet it; (3) the same chilling +monotony of daily life and absence of female charities to mould social +intercourse--for the Greeks from false composition of society and +vicious sequestration of women--for the scholastic monks from the +austere asceticism of their founders and the 'rule' of their order; (4) +finally the same (but far different) enthusiasm and permanent elevation +of thought from disinterested participation in forwarding a great +movement of the times--for the one side tending to the unlimited +aggrandisement of their own brilliant country; for the other, +commensurate with what is conceivable in human grandeur. + +This sketch of Christianity as it is mysteriously related to the total +body of Philosophy actual or possible, present or in reversion, may seem +inadequate. In some sense it _is_ so. But call it a note or +'_excursus_,' which is the scholarlike name for notes a little longer +than usual, and all will be made right. What we have in view, is to +explain the situation of the Greeks under Pericles by that of the +Schoolmen. We use the modern or Christian case, which is more striking +from its monastic peculiarity, as a reflex picture of the other. We rely +on the moulding circumstances of Scholasticism, its awakened intellect, +its famishing eagerness from defect of books, its gloom from the exile +of all feminine graces, and its towering participation in an interest +the grandest of the age, as a sort of _camera obscura_ for bringing down +on the table before us a portraiture essentially the same of early Greek +society in the rapturous spring-time of Pericles. + +If the governing circumstances were the same in virtue, then probably +there would be a virtual sameness in some of the results: and amongst +these results would be the prevailing cast of thinking, and therefore to +some extent the prevailing features of style. It may seem strange to +affirm any affinities between the arid forms of Scholastic style and the +free movement of the early Grecian style. They seem rather to be +repelling extremes. But extremes meet more often than is supposed. And +there really _are_ some remarkable features of conformity even as to +this point between the tendencies of Christian monachism and the +unsocial sociality of Paganism. However, it is not with this view that +we have pressed the parallel. Not by way of showing a general affinity +in virtues and latent powers, and thence deducing a probable affinity in +results, but generally for the sake of fixing and illustrating +circumstances which made it _physically_ impossible that the movement +could have been translated by contagion from one country to the others. +Roads were too bad, cities too difficult of access, travellers too rare, +books too incapable of transmission, for any solution which should +explain the chain of coincidences into a chain of natural causations. +No; the solution was, that Christianity had everywhere gone ahead +spontaneously with the same crying necessities for purification, that +is, for progress. One deep, from North to South, called to another; but +the deeps all alike, each separately for itself, were ready with their +voices, ready without collusion to hear and to reverberate the cry to +God. The light, which abides and lodges in Christianity, had everywhere, +by measured steps and by unborrowed strength, kindled into mortal +antagonism with the darkness which had gathered over Christianity from +human corruptions. But in science this result is even more conspicuous. +Not only by their powers and energies the parallel currents of science +in different lands enter into emulations that secure a general +uniformity of progress, run neck and neck against each other, so as to +arrive at any killing rasper of a difficulty pretty nearly about the +same time; not only do they thus make it probable that coincidences of +victory will continually occur through the rivalships of power; but also +through the rivalships of weakness. Most naturally for the same reason +that they worshipped in spirit and in truth, for the same reason that +led them to value such a worship, they valued its distant fountain-head. +Hence their interest in the Messiah. Hence their delegation. + + + + +_XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED._ + + +The Romans, so far from looking with the Jews to the Tigris, looked to +the Jews themselves. Or at least they looked to that whole Syria, of +which the Jews were a section. Consequently, there is a solution of two +points: + +1. The wise men of the East were delegates from the trans-Tigridian +people. + +2. The great man who should arise from the East to govern the world was, +in the sense of that prophecy, _i.e._, in the terms of that prophecy +interpreted according to the sense of all who circulated and partook +in--or were parties to--the belief of that prophecy, was to come from +Syria: _i.e._, from Judea. + +Now take it either way, observe the sublimity and the portentous +significance of this expectation. Every man of imaginative feeling has +been struck with that secret whisper that stirred through France in +1814-15--that a man was to come with the violets. The violets were +symbolically Napoleonic, as being the colour of his livery: it was also +his cognizance: and the time for his return was _March_, from which +commence the ever memorable Hundred days. And the sublimity lies in the +circumstances of: + +1. A whisper running through Christendom: people in remotest quarters +bound together by a tie so aerial. + +2. Of the dread augury enveloped in this little humble but beautiful +flower. + +3. Of the awful revolution at hand: the great earthquake that was mining +and quarrying in the dark chambers beneath the thrones of Europe. + +These and other circumstances throw a memorable sublimity upon this +whisper of conspiracy. But what was this to the awful whisper that +circled round the earth ([Greek: hź oikoumenź]) as to the being that was +coming from Judea? There was no precedent, no antagonist whisper with +which it could enter into any terms of comparison, unless there had by +possibility been heard that mysterious and ineffable sigh which Milton +ascribes to the planet when man accomplished his mysterious rebellion. +The idea of such a sigh, of a whisper circling through the planet, of +the light growing thick with the unimaginable charge, and the purple +eclipse of Death throwing a penumbra; that may, but nothing else ever +can, equal the unutterable sublimity of that buzz--that rumour, that +susurrus passing from mouth to mouth--nobody knew whence coming or +whither tending, and about a being of whom nobody could tell what he +should be--what he should resemble--what he should do, but that all +peoples and languages should have an interest in his appearance. + +Now, on the one hand, suppose this--I mean, suppose the Roman whisper to +be an authorized rumour utterly without root; in that case you would +have a clear intervention of Heaven. But, on the other hand, suppose, +which is to me the more probable idea, that it was not without a root; +that in fact it was the Judęan conception of a Messiah, translated into +Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand, +or with which the world could sympathize, viz., that _rerum +potiretur_. (The plural here indicates only the awful nature, its +indeterminateness.) + +I have, in fact, little doubt that it _was_ a Romanized appropriation or +translation of the Judęan Messiah. One thing only I must warn you +against. You will naturally say: 'Since two writers among the very few +surviving have both refuted this prophecy, and Josephus besides, this +implies that many thousands did so. For if out of a bundle of newspapers +two only had survived quite disconnected, both talking of the same man, +we should argue a great popularity for that man.' And you will say: 'All +these Roman people, did they interpret?' You know already--by Vespasian. +Now whilst, on the one hand, I am far from believing that chance only +was the parent of the ancient [Greek: eustochia], their felicitous +guessing (for it was a higher science), yet, in this new matter, what +coincidence of Pagan prophecy, as doubtless a horrid mistrust in the +oracles, etc., made them 'sagacious from a fear' of the coming peril, +and, as often happens in Jewish prophecies--God when He puts forth His +hand the purposes attained roll one under the other sometimes three deep +even to our eyes. + + + + +_XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS._ + + +Life, naturally the antagonism of Death, must have reacted upon Life +according to its own development. Christianity having so awfully +affected the [Greek: to] + of Death, this + must have reacted on Life. +Hence, therefore, a phenomenon existing broadly to the human sensibility +in these ages which for the Pagans had no existence whatever. If to a +modern spectator a very splendid specimen of animal power, suppose a +horse of three or four years old in the fulness of his energies, that +saith _ha_ to the trumpets and is unable to stand _loco_ if he hears any +exciting music, be brought for exhibition--not one of the spectators, +however dull, but has a dim feeling of excitement added to his +admiration from the lurking antagonism of the fugacious life attached to +this ebullient power, and the awful repulsion between that final +tendency and the meridian development of the strength. Hence, therefore, +the secret rapture in bringing forward tropical life--the shooting of +enormous power from darkness, the kindling in the midst of winter and +sterility of irrepressible, simultaneous, tropical vegetation--the +victorious surmounting of foliage, blossoms, flowers, fruits--burying +and concealing the dreary vestiges of desolation. + +Reply to the fact that Xerxes wept over his forces, by showing that in +kind, like the Jewish, the less ignoble superstition of Persia--which +must in the time of Balaam, if we suppose the Mesotam meant to have been +the tract between the Euphrates and the Tigris, have been almost +coincident with the Jewish as to the unity of God--had always, amidst +barbarism arising from the forces moulding social sentiment, prompted a +chivalry and sensibility far above Grecian. For how else account for the +sole traits of Christian sensibility in regard to women coming forward +in the beautiful tale of the Armenian prince, whose wife when asked for +her opinion of Cyrus the Conqueror, who promised to restore them all to +liberty and favour (an act, by the way, in itself impossible to Greek +feelings, which exhibit no one case of relinquishing such rights over +captives) in one hour, replied that she knew not, had not remarked his +person; for that _her_ attention had been all gathered upon that prince, +meaning her youthful husband, who being asked by the Persian king what +sacrifice he would esteem commensurate to the recovery of his bride, +answered so fervently, that life and all which it contained were too +slight a ransom to pay. Even that answer was wholly impossible to a +Grecian. And again the beautiful catastrophe in the tale of Abradates +and Panthea--the gratitude with which both husband and wife received the +royal gift of restoration to each other's arms, implying a sort of holy +love inconceivable to a state of Polygamy--the consequent reaction of +their thought in testifying this gratitude; and as war unhappily offered +the sole chance for displaying it, the energy of Panthea in adorning +with her own needle the habiliments of her husband--the issuing forth +and parting on the morning of battle--the principle of upright duty and +of immeasurable gratitude in Abradates forming 'a nobler counsellor' +than his wife's 'poor heart'--his prowess--his glorious death--his +bringing home as a corpse--the desolation of Panthea--the visit and +tears of the Persian king to the sorrowing widow stretched upon the +ground by the corpse of her hero--the fine incident of the right hand, +by which Cyrus had endeavoured to renew his pledges of friendship with +the deceased prince, coming away from the corpse and following the royal +touch (this hand having been struck off in the battle)--the burial--and +the subsequent death of Panthea, who refused to be comforted under all +the kind assurances, the kindest protection from the Persian king--these +traits, though surviving in Greek, are undoubtedly Persian. For Xenophon +had less sensibility than any Greek author that survives. And besides, +abstracting from the writer, how is it that Greek records offer no such +story; nothing like it; no love between married people of that chivalric +order--no conjugal fidelity--no capacity of that beautiful reply--that +she saw him not, for that _her_ mind had no leisure for any other +thought than _one_? + + + + +_XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS._ + + +1.--DINNER. + +In London and other great capitals it is well known that new diseases +have manifested themselves of late years: and more would be known about +them, were it not for the tremulous delicacy which waits on the +afflictions of the rich. We do not say this invidiously. It is right +that such forbearance should exist. Medical men, as a body, are as manly +a race as any amongst us, and as little prone to servility. But +obviously the case of exposure under circumstances of humiliating +affliction is a very different thing for the man whose rank and +consideration place him upon a hill conspicuous to a whole city or +nation, and for the unknown labourer whose name excites no feeling +whatever in the reader of his case. Meantime it is precisely amongst the +higher classes, privileged so justly from an exposure pressing so +unequally upon _their_ rank, that these new forms of malady emerge. Any +man who visits London at intervals long enough to make the spectacle of +that great vision impressive to him from novelty and the force of +contrast, more especially if this contrast is deepened by a general +residence in some quiet rural seclusion, will not fail to be struck by +the fever and tumult of London as its primary features. _Struck_ is not +the word: _awed_ is the only adequate expression as applied to the +hurry, the uproar, the strife, the agony of life as it boils along some +of the main arteries among the London streets. About the hour of +equinoctial sunset comes a periodic respite in the shape of dinner. Were +it not for that, were it not for the wine and the lustre of lights, and +the gentle restraints of courtesies, and the soothing of conversation, +through which a daily reaction is obtained, London would perish from +excitement in a year. The effect upon one who like ourselves simply +beholds the vast frenzy attests its power. The mere sympathy, into which +the nerves are forced by the eye, expounds the fury with which it must +act upon those who are acting and suffering participators in the mania. +Rome suffered in the same way, but in a less degree: and the same relief +was wooed daily in a brilliant dinner (_cęna_), but two and a half hours +earlier. + +The same state of things exists proportionately in other +capitals--Edinburgh, Dublin, Naples, Vienna. And doubtless, if the +curtain were raised, the same penalties would be traced as pursuing this +agitated life; the penalties, we mean, that exist in varied shapes of +nervous disease. + + +2.--OMITTED PASSAGES FROM THE REVIEW OF BENNETT'S CEYLON. + +Mr. Bennett personally is that good man who interests us the more +because he seems to be an ill-used one. By the way, here is a +combination which escaped the Roman moralist: _Vir bonus_, says he, +_malā fortunā compositus_, is a spectacle for the gods. Yet what is that +case, the case of a man matched in duel with the enmity of a malicious +fellow-creature--naturally his inferior, but officially having means to +oppress him? No man is naturally or easily roused to anger by a blind +abstraction like Fortune; and therefore he is under no temptation to +lose his self-command. He sustains no trial that can make him worthy of +a divine contemplation. Amongst all the extravagancies of human nature, +never yet did we hear of a person who harboured a sentiment of private +malice against Time for moving too rapidly, or against Space for being +infinitely divisible. Even animated annoyers, if they are without spite +towards ourselves, we regard with no enmity. No man in all history, if +we except the twelfth Cęsar, has nourished a deadly feud against +flies[54]: and if Mrs. Jameson allowed a sentiment of revenge to nestle +in her heart towards the Canadian mosquitoes, it was the race and not +the individual parties to the trespass on herself against whom she +protested. Passions it is, human passions, intermingling with the wrong +itself that envenom the sense of wrong. We have ourselves been caned +severely in passing through a wood by the rebound, the recalcitration we +may call it, of elastic branches which we had displaced. And passing +through the same wood with a Whitehaven dandy of sixty, now in _Hades_, +who happened to wear a beautiful wig from which on account of the heat +he had removed his hat, we saw with these eyes of ours one of those same +thickets which heretofore had been concerned in our own caning, +deliberately lift up, suspend, and keep dangling in the air for the +contempt of the public that auburn wig which was presumed by its wearer +to be simular of native curls. The ugliness of that death's head which +by this means was suddenly exposed to daylight, the hideousness of that +grinning skull so abruptly revealed, may be imagined by poets. Neither +was the affair easily redressed: the wig swung buoyantly in the playful +breezes: to catch it was hard, to release it without injuring the +tresses was a matter of nicety: ladies were heard approaching from Rydal +Mount: the dandy was agitated: he felt himself, if seen in this +condition, to be a mere _memento mori_: for the first time in his life, +as we believe, he blushed on meeting our eye: he muttered something, in +which we could only catch the word 'Absalom': and finally we extricated +ourselves from the cursed thicket barely in time to meet the ladies. +Here were insufferable affronts: greater cannot be imagined: wanton +outrages on two inoffensive men: and for ourselves, who could have +identified and sworn to one of the bushes as an accomplice in _both_ +assaults, it was not easy altogether to dismiss the idea of malice. Yet, +because this malice did not organize and concentrate itself in an eye +looking on and genially enjoying our several mortifications, we both +pocketed the affronts. All this we say to show Mr. Bennett how fully we +do justice to his situation, and allow for the irritation natural to +such cases as his, where the loss is clothed with contumely, and the +wrong is barbed by malice. But, for all _that_, we do not think such +confidential communications of ill-usage properly made to the public. + +In fact, this querulous temper of expostulation, running through the +book, disfigures its literary aspect. And possibly for our own comfort +we might have turned away from a feature of discontent so gloomy and +painful, were it not that we are thus accidentally recalled to a +grievance in our Eastern administrations upon which we desire to enter a +remark. Life is languid, the blood becomes lazy, at the extremities of +our bodily system, as we ourselves know by dolorous experience under the +complaint of _purpura_; and analogously we find the utility of our +supreme government to droop and languish before it reaches the Indian +world. Hence partly it is (for nearer home we see nothing of the kind), +that foreign adventurers receive far too much encouragement from our +British Satraps in the East. To find themselves within 'the regions of +the morn,' and cheek to cheek with famous Sultans far inferior in power +and substantial splendour, makes our great governors naturally proud. +They are transfigured by necessity; and, losing none of their justice or +integrity, they lose a good deal of their civic humility. In such a +state they become capable of flattery, apt for the stratagems of foreign +adulation. We know not certainly that Mr. Bennett's injuries originated +in that source; though we suspect as much from the significant stories +which he tells of interloping foreigners on the pension list in Ceylon. +But this we _do_ know, that, from impulses easily deciphered, foreigners +creep into favour where an Englishman would not; and why? For two +reasons: 1st, because a foreigner _must_ be what is meant by 'an +adventurer,' and in his necessity he is allowed to find his excuse; +2ndly, because an Englishman, attempting to play the adulatory +character, finds an obstacle to his success in the standard of his own +national manners from which it requires a perpetual effort to wean +himself: whereas the oily and fluent obsequiousness found amongst +Italians and Frenchmen makes the transition to a perfect Phrygian +servility not only more easy to the artist, and less extravagantly +palpable, but more agreeable in the result to his employer. This cannot +be denied, and therefore needs no comment. But, as to the other reason, +viz., that a foreigner _must_ be an adventurer, allow us to explain. +Every man is an adventurer, every man is _in sensu strictissimo_ +sometimes a knave. + +You might imagine the situation of an adventurer who had figured +virtually in many lives, to resemble that of the late revered Mr. Prig +Bentham, when sitting like a contrite spider at the centre of his +'panopticon'; all the lines, which meet in a point at his seat, radiate +outwards into chambers still widening as they increase their distance. +This _may_ be an image of an adventurer's mind when open to compunction, +but generally it is exactly reversed; he sees the past sections of his +life, however spacious heretofore, crowding up and narrowing into +vanishing points to his immediate eye. And such also they become for the +public. The villain, who walks, like Ęneas at Carthage, shrouded in +mist, is as little pursued by any bad report for his forgotten misdeeds +as he is usually by remorse. In the process of losing their relation to +any known and visible person, acts of fraud, robbery, murder, lose all +distinct place in the memory. Such acts are remembered only through +persons. And hence it is that many interesting murders, worthy to become +cabinet gems in a museum of such works, have wasted their sweetness on +the desert air even in our time, for no other reason than that the +parties concerned did not amplify their proportions upon the public eye; +the sufferers were perhaps themselves knaves; and the doers had +retreated from all public knowledge into the mighty crowds of London or +Glasgow. + +This excursus, on the case of adventurers who run away from their own +crimes into the pathless wildernesses of vast cities, may appear +disproportionate. But excuse it, reader, for the subject is interesting; +and with relation to our Eastern empire it is peculiarly so. Many are +the anecdotes we could tell, derived from Oriental connections, about +foreign scamps who have first exposed the cloven foot when inextricably +connected with political intrigues or commercial interests, or possibly +with domestic and confidential secrets. The dangerousness of their +characters first began to reveal itself after they had become dangerous +by their present position. + +Mr. Bennett mentions one lively illustration of this in the case of a +foreigner, who had come immediately from the Cape of Good Hope; so far, +but not farther, he could be traced. And what part had he played at the +Cape? The illustrious one of private sentinel, with a distant prospect +perhaps of rising to be a drum-major. This man--possibly a refugee from +the bagnio at Marseilles, or from the Italian galleys--was soon allowed +to seat himself in an office of £1,000 per annum. For what? For which of +his vices? Our English and Scottish brothers, honourable and educated, +must sacrifice country, compass land and sea, face a life of storms, +with often but a slender chance of any result at all from their pains, +whilst a foreign rascal (without any allegation of merit in his favour) +shall at one bound, by planting his servility in the right quarter and +at the fortunate hour, vault into an income of 25,000 francs per +annum; the money, observe, being national money--yours, ours, +everybody's--since at that period Ceylon did not pay her own expenses. +Now, indeed, she does, and furnishes beside, annually, a surplus of +£50,000 sterling. But still, we contend that places of trust, honour, +and profit, won painfully by British blood, are naturally and rightfully +to be held in trust as reversions for the children of the family. To +return, however, and finish the history of our scamp, it happened that +through the regular action of his office, and in part perhaps through +some irregular influence or consideration with which his station +invested him, he became the depositary of many sums saved laboriously +by poor Ceylonese. These sums he embezzled; or, as a sympathizing +countryman observed of a similar offence in similar circumstances, he +'gave an irregular direction to their appropriation.' You see, he could +not forget his old Marseilles tricks. This, however, was coming it too +strong for his patron, who in spite of his taste for adulation was a +just governor. Our poor friend was summoned most peremptorily to account +for the missing dollars; and because it did not occur to him that he +might plead, as another man from Marseilles in another colony had done, +'that the white ants had eaten the dollars,' he saw no help for it but +to cut his throat, and cut his throat he did. This being done, you may +say that he had given such a receipt as he could, and had entitled +himself to a release. Well, we are not unmerciful; and were the case of +the creditors our own, we should not object. But we remark, besides the +private wrong, a posthumous injury to the British nation which this +foreigner was enabled to commit; and it was twofold: he charged the +pension-list of Ceylon with the support of his widow, in prejudice of +other widows left by our meritorious countrymen, some of whom had died +in battle for the State; and he had attainted, through one generation at +least, the good faith of our nation amongst the poor ignorant +Cinghalese, who cannot be expected to distinguish between true +Englishmen and other Europeans whom English governors may think proper +to exalt in the colony. + +Cases such as these, it is well known to the learned in that matter, +have been but too frequent in our Eastern colonies; and we do assert +that any single case of that nature is too much by one. Even where the +question is merely one of courtesy to science or to literature, we +complain heavily, not at all of that courtesy, but that by much too +great a preponderance is allowed to the pretensions of foreigners. +Everybody at Calcutta will recollect the invidious distinctions +(invidious upon contrast) paid by a Governor-General some years ago to a +French _savant_, who came to the East as an itinerant botanist and +geologist on the mission of a Parisian society. The Governor was Lord +William Bentinck. His Excellency was a radical, and, being such, could +swallow 'homage' by the gallon, which homage the Frenchman took care to +administer. In reward he was publicly paraded in the _howdah_ of Lady +William Bentinck, and caressed in a way not witnessed before or since. +Now this Frenchman, after visiting the late king of the Sikhs at Lahore, +and receiving every sort of service and hospitality from the English +through a devious route of seven thousand miles (treatment which in +itself we view with pleasure), finally died of liver complaint through +his own obstinacy. By way of honour to his memory, the record of his +three years' wanderings has been made public. What is the expression of +his gratitude to the English? One service he certainly rendered us: he +disabused, if _that_ were possible, the French of their silly and most +ignorant notions as to our British government in India and Ceylon: he +could do no otherwise, for he had himself been astounded at what he saw +as compared with what he had been taught to expect. Thus far he does us +some justice and therefore some service, urged to it by his bitter +contempt of the French credulity wherever England is slandered. But +otherwise he treats with insolence unbounded all our men of science, +though his own name has made little impression anywhere: and, in his +character of traveller he speaks of himself as of one laying the +foundation-stone of any true knowledge with regard to India. In +particular he dismisses with summary contempt the Travels of Bishop +Heber--not very brilliant perhaps, but undoubtedly superior both in +knowledge and in style to his own. Yet this was the man selected for +_fźting_ by the English Governor-General; as though courtesy to a +Frenchman could not travel on any line which did not pass through a +mortifying slight to Englishmen. + + +3.--GILLMAN'S COLERIDGE. + +Variation on the opening of 'Coleridge and Opium-eating.' + +What is the deadest thing known to philosophers? According to popular +belief, it is a door-nail. For the world says, 'Dead as a door-nail!' +But the world is wrong. Dead may be a door-nail; but deader and most +dead is Gillman's Coleridge. Which fact in Natural History we +demonstrate thus: Up to Waterloo it was the faith of every child that a +sloth took a century for walking across a street. His mother, if she +'knew he was out,' must have had a pretty long spell of uneasiness +before she saw him back again. But Mr. Waterton, Baptist of a new +generation in these mysteries, took that conceit out of Europe: the +sloth, says he, cannot like a snipe or a plover run a race neck and neck +with a first-class railway carriage; but is he, therefore, a slow coach? +By no means: he would go from London to Edinburgh between seedtime and +harvest. Now Gillman's Coleridge, vol. i., has no such speed: it has +taken six years to come up with those whom chiefly it concerned. Some +dozen of us, Blackwood-men and others, are stung furiously in that book +during the early part of 1838; and yet none of us had ever perceived the +nuisance or was aware of the hornet until the wheat-fields of 1844 were +white for the sickle. In August of 1844 we saw Gillman. + + +4.--WHY SCRIPTURE DOES NOT DEAL WITH SCIENCE ('PAGAN ORACLES'). + +The Fathers grant to the Oracles a real power of foresight and prophecy, +but in all cases explain these supernatural functions out of diabolic +inspiration. Van Dale, on the other hand, with all his Vandalish +followers, treats this hypothesis, both as regards the power itself of +looking into the future and as regards the supposed source of that +power, in the light of a contemptible chimera. They discuss it scarcely +with gravity: indeed, the very frontispiece to Van Dale's book already +announces the repulsive spirit of scoffing and mockery in which he means +to dismiss it; men are there represented in the act of juggling and +coarsely exulting over their juggleries by protruding the tongue or +exchanging collusive winks with accomplices. Now, in a grave question +obliquely affecting Christianity and the course of civilization, this +temper of discussion is not becoming, were the result even more +absolutely convincing than it is. Everybody can see at a glance that it +is not this particular agency of evil spirits which Van Dale would have +found so ridiculous, were it not that he had previously addicted himself +to viewing the whole existence of evil spirits as a nursery fable. Now +it is not our intention to enter upon any speculation so mysterious. It +is clear from the first that no man by human researches can any more +add one scintillation of light to the obscure indications of Scripture +upon this dark question, than he can add a cubit to his stature. We do +not know, nor is it possible to know, what is even likely to be the +exact meaning of various Scriptural passages partly, perhaps, adapted to +the erring preconceptions of the Jews; for never let it be forgotten +that upon all questions alike, which concerned no moral interest of man, +all teachers alike who had any heavenly mission, patriarchs or lawgivers +conversing immediately with God, prophets, apostles, or even the Founder +of our religion Himself, never vouchsafe to reveal one ray of +illumination. And to us it seems the strangest oversight amongst all the +oversights of commentators that, in respect to the Jewish errors as to +astronomy, etc., they should not have seen the broad open doctrine which +vindicates the profound Scriptural neglect of errors however gross in +that quality of speculation. The solution of this neglect is not such as +to leave a man under any excuse for apologizing or shuffling. The +solution is technical, precise, and absolute. It is not sufficient to +say, as the best expounders do generally say, that science, that +astronomy for instance, that geology, that physiology, were not the kind +of truth which divine missionaries were sent to teach; that is true, but +is far short of the whole truth. Not only was it negatively no part of +the offices attached to a divine mission that it should extend its +teaching to merely intellectual questions (an argument which still +leaves the student to figure it as a work not indispensable, not +absolutely to be expected, yet in case it _were_ granted as so much of +advantage, as a _lucro ponatur_), but in the most positive and +commanding sense it _was_ the business of revelation to refuse all +light of this kind. According to all the analogies which explain the +meaning of a revelation, it would have been a capital schism in the +counsels of Providence, if in one single instance it had condescended to +gratify human curiosity by anticipation with regard to any subject +whatever, which God had already subjected to human capacity through the +ample faculties of the human intellect. + + +5.--VARIATION ON A FAMOUS PASSAGE IN 'THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON.' + +The evangelist, stepping forward, touched her forehead. 'She is mortal,' +he said; and guessing that she was waiting for some one amongst the +youthful revellers, he groaned heavily; and then, half to himself and +half to _her_, he said, 'O flower too gorgeous, weed too lovely, wert +thou adorned with beauty in such excess, that not Solomon in all his +glory was arrayed like thee, no nor even the lily of the field, only +that thou mightest grieve the Holy Spirit of God?' The woman trembled +exceedingly, and answered, 'Rabbi, what should I do? For, behold! all +men forsake me.' + +Brief had been the path, and few the steps, which had hurried her to +destruction. Her father was a prince amongst the princes of Lebanon; but +proud, stern, and inflexible. + + +THE END. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[54] 'Against flies'--whence he must have merited the anger of +Beelzebub, whom Syrians held to be the tutelary god of flies; meaning +probably by 'flies' all insects whatever, as the Romans meant by +_passer_ and _passerculus_, all little birds of whatsoever family, and +by _malum_ every fruit that took the shape and size of a ball. How +honoured were the race of flies, to have a deity of the first rank for +their protector, a Cęsar for their enemy! Cęsar made war upon them with +his stylus; he is supposed to have massacred openly, or privately and +basely to have assassinated, more than seven millions of that +unfortunate race, who however lost nothing of that indomitable +pertinacity in retaliating all attacks, which Milton has noticed with +honour in 'Paradise Regained.' In reference to this notorious spirit of +persecution in the last prince of the Flavian house, Suetonius records a +capital repartee: 'Is the Emperor alone?' demanded a courtier. 'Quite +alone.' 'Are you sure? Really now is nobody with him?' Answer: '_Ne +musca quidem._' + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De +Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols), by Thomas De Quincey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + +***** This file should be named 25940-8.txt or 25940-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/9/4/25940/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliothčque 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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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. II (2 vols) + +Author: Thomas De Quincey + +Editor: Alexander H. Japp + +Release Date: June 30, 2008 [EBook #25940] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliothčque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h2>THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS</h2> + +<h4>OF</h4> + +<h1>THOMAS DE QUINCEY</h1> + +<h3><i>EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MSS., <br />WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES</i></h3> + +<h5>BY</h5> + +<h3>ALEXANDER H. JAPP LL.D., F.R.S.E.</h3> + +<h3><i>VOLUME II.</i></h3> + +<h3>LONDON<br /> WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1893</h3> + +<h4>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</h4> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h1>CONVERSATION AND COLERIDGE</h1> + +<h3>With Other Essays</h3> + +<h2><i>CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, IMAGINATIVE AND +HUMOROUS</i></h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>THOMAS DE QUINCEY</h2> + +<p class="center"> +LONDON<br /> +WILLIAM HEINEMANN<br /> +1893<br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> + + +<p>All that is needful for me to say by way of Preface is that, as in the +case of the first volume, I have received much aid from Mrs. Baird Smith +and Miss De Quincey, and that Mr. J. R. McIlraith has repeated his +friendly service of reading the proofs.</p> + +<p> +ALEXANDER H. JAPP.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="smcap">London</span>,<br /> +<i>March 1st, 1893.</i><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<p> +CHAPTER <span class="tocnum">PAGE</span><br /> +<br /> +INTRODUCTION <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></span><br /> +<br /> +I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_7'>7</a></span><br /> +<br /> +II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></span><br /> +<br /> +III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_91'>91</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY) <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_95'>95</a></span><br /> +<br /> +V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_157'>157</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_169'>169</a></span><br /> +<br /> +VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_174'>174</a></span><br /> +<br /> +IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_182'>182</a></span><br /> +<br /> +X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_189'>189</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_197'>197</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIII. WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_208'>208</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIV. PRONUNCIATION <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_213'>213</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_221'>221</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_225'>225</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_228'>228</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_238'>238</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></span><br /> +<br /> +XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">1. Dinner <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">2. Omitted Passages from the Review of Bennett's Ceylon <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_246'>246</a></span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">3. Gillman's Coleridge <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_255'>255</a></span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">4. Why Scripture does not Deal with Science ('Pagan Oracles') <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_257'>257</a></span></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">5. Variation on a Famous Passage in 'The Daughter of Lebanon' <span class="tocnum"><a href='#Page_260'>260</a></span></span><br /> +</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>DE QUINCEY'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>INTRODUCTION.</i></h2> + + +<p>All that needs to be said in the way of introduction to this volume will +best take the form of notes on the articles which it contains.</p> + +<p>I. '<i>Conversation and S. T. Coleridge.</i>' This article, which was found +in a tolerably complete condition, may be regarded as an attempt to deal +with the subject in a more critical and searching, and at the same time +more sympathetic and inclusive spirit, than is apparent in any former +essay. It keeps clear entirely of the field of personal reminiscence; +and if it glances at matters on which dissent must be entered to the +views of Coleridge, it is still unvaryingly friendly and reverent +towards the subject. It is evidently of a later date than either the +'Reminiscences of Coleridge' in the 'Recollections of the Lakes' series, +or the article on 'Coleridge and Opium-Eating,' and may be accepted as +De Quincey's supplementary and final deliverance on Coleridge. The +beautiful apostrophe to the name of Coleridge, which we have given as a +kind of motto to the essay, was found attached to one of the sheets;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> +and, in spite of much mutilation and mixing of the pages with those of +other articles, as we originally found them, it was for the most part so +clearly written and carefully punctuated, that there can be no doubt, +when put together, we had it before us very much as De Quincey meant to +publish it had he found a fitting chance to do so. For such an article +as this neither <i>Tait</i> nor <i>Hogg's Instructor</i> afforded exactly the +proper medium, but rather some quarterly review, or magazine such as +<i>Blackwood</i>. We have given, in an appended note to this essay, some +corroboration from the poems of Coleridge of the truth of De Quincey's +words about the fatal effect on a nature like that of Coleridge of the +early and very sudden death of his father, his separation from his +mother, and his transference to Christ's Hospital, London.</p> + +<p>II. <i>Mr. Finlay's</i> '<i>History of Greece</i>.' This essay is totally +different, alike in the advances De Quincey makes to the subject, the +points taken up, and the general method of treatment, from the essay on +Mr. Finlay's volumes which appears in the Collected Works. It would seem +as though De Quincey, in such a topic as this, found it utterly +impossible to exhaust the points that had suggested themselves to him on +a careful reading of such a work, in the limits of one article; and +that, in this case, as in some others, he elaborated a second article, +probably with a view to finding a place for it in a different magazine +or review. In this, however, he either did not succeed, or, on his own +principle of the opium-eater never really finishing anything, retreated +from the practical work of pushing his wares with editors even after he +had finished them. At all events, we can find no trace of this article, +or any part of it, having ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> been published. The Eastern Roman Empire +was a subject on which he might have written, not merely a couple of +review articles, but a volume, as we are sure anyone competent to judge +will, on carefully reading these articles, at once admit. This essay, +too, was found in a very complete condition, when the various pages had +been brought together and arranged. This is true of all save the last +few pages, which existed more in the form of notes, yet are perfectly +clear and intelligible; the leading thoughts being distinctly put, +though not followed out in any detail, or with the illustration which he +could so easily have given them.</p> + +<p>III. '<i>The Assassination of Cæsar</i>.' This was clearly meant to be +inserted at the close of the first section of 'The Cæsars,' but was at +the last moment overlooked, though without it the text there, as it +stands in the Collected Works, is, for De Quincey, perhaps too hurried +and business-like.</p> + +<p>IV. The little article on '<i>Cicero</i>' is evidently meant as a +supplementary note to the article on that eminent man, as it appears in +the Collected Works. Why De Quincey, when preparing these volumes for +the press, did not work it into his text is puzzling, as it develops +happily some points which he has there dwelt on, and presents in a very +effective and compact style the mingled feelings with which the great +Proconsul quitted his office in Cilicia, and his feelings on arriving at +Rome.</p> + +<p>V. <i>Memorial Chronology.</i>—This is a continuation of that already +published under the same title in the Collected Works. In a note from +the publishers, preceding the portion already given in the sixteenth +volume of the original edition, and the fourteenth of Professor Masson's +edition, it is said: 'This article was written<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> about twenty years ago +[1850], and is printed here for the first time from the author's <i>MS</i>. +It was his intention to have continued the subject, but this was never +done.' From the essay we now present it will be seen that this last +statement is only in a modified sense true—the more that the portion +published in the Messrs. Black's editions is, on the whole, merely +introductory, and De Quincey's peculiar <i>technica memoria</i> is not there +even indicated, which it is, with some degree of clearness, in the +following pages, and these may be regarded as presenting at least the +leading outlines of what the whole series would have been.</p> + +<p>De Quincey's method, after having fixed a definite accepted point of +departure, was to link the memory of events to a period made signal by +identity of figures. Thus, he finds the fall of Assyria, the first of +the Olympiads, and the building of Rome to date from about the year 777 +<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> That is his starting-point in definite chronology. Then he takes up +the period from 777 to 555; from 555 to 333, and so on.</p> + +<p>De Quincey was writing professedly for ladies only, and not for +scholars; and that his acknowledged leading obstacle was the +semi-mythical wilderness of all early oriental history is insisted on +with emphasis. The way in which he triumphs over this obstacle is +certainly characteristic and ingenious. Though the latter part is +fragmentary, it is suggestive; and from the whole a fair conception may +be formed of what the finished work would have been had De Quincey been +able to complete it, and of the eloquence with which he would have +relieved the mere succession of dates and figures.</p> + +<p>It is clear that in the original form, though the papers were written +for ladies, the phantasy of a definite 'Charlotte'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> as fair +correspondent had not suggested itself to him; and that he had recourse +to this only in the final rewriting, and would have applied it to the +whole had he been spared to pursue his plan of recast and revision for +the Collected Works, as it was his intention to have done. Mrs. Baird +Smith remembers very clearly her father's many conversations on this +subject and his leading ideas—it was, in fact, a pet scheme of his; and +it is therefore the more to be regretted that his final revision only +embraced a small portion of the matter which he had already written.</p> + +<p>It only needs to be added that, at the time De Quincey wrote, +exploration in Assyria and Egypt, not to speak of discovery in Akkad, +had made but little way compared with what has now been accomplished, +else certain passages in this essay would no doubt have been somewhat +modified.</p> + +<p>VI. The article entitled '<i>Chrysomania; or the Gold Frenzy at its +Present Stage</i>', was evidently written after the two articles which +appeared in <i>Hogg's Instructor</i>. Not improbably it was felt that the +readers of <i>Hogg's Instructor</i> had already had enough on the Gold Craze, +and this it was deemed better not to publish; but it has an interest as +supplementing much that De Quincey had said in these papers, and is a +happy illustration of his style in dealing with such subjects. Evidently +the editor of <i>Hogg's Instructor</i> was hardly so attracted by these +papers as by others of De Quincey's; for we find that he had excised +some of the notes.</p> + +<p>VII. '<i>The Defence of the English Peerage</i>' is printed because, although +it does not pretend to much detail or research, it shows anew De +Quincey's keen interest in the events of English history, and his vivid +appreciation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> of the peerage as a means of quickening and reviving in +the minds of the people the memorable events with which the earlier +bearers of these ancient titles had been connected.</p> + +<p>VIII. The '<i>Anti-Papal Movement</i>' may be taken to attest once more De +Quincey's keen interest in all the topics of the day, political, social, +and ecclesiastical.</p> + +<p>IX. The section on literature more properly will be interesting to many +as exhibiting some new points of contact with Wordsworth and Southey.</p> + +<p>X. The articles on the '<i>Dispersion of the Jews</i>,' and on '<i>Christianity +as the result of a Pre-established Harmony</i>,' will, we think, be found +interesting by theologians as well as by readers generally, as attesting +not only the keen interest of De Quincey in these and allied subjects, +but also his penetration and keen grasp, and his faculty of felicitous +illustration, by which ever and anon he lights up the driest subjects.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE.</i></h2> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Oh name of Coleridge, that hast mixed so much with the +trepidations of our own agitated life, mixed with the +beatings of our love, our gratitude, our trembling hope; +name destined to move so much of reverential sympathy and so +much of ennobling strife in the generations yet to come, of +our England at home, of our other Englands on the St. +Lawrence, on the Mississippi, on the Indus and Ganges, and +on the pastoral solitudes of Austral climes!</p></div> + + +<p>What are the great leading vices of conversation as generally +managed?—vices that are banished from the best society by the +legislation of manners, not by any intellectual legislation, but in +other forms of society, and exactly as it approaches to the character of +vulgarism, disturbing all approaches to elegance in conversation, and +disorganizing it as a thing capable of unity or of progress? These vices +are, first, disputation; secondly, garrulity; thirdly, the spirit of +interruption.</p> + +<p>I. I lay it down as a rule, but still reserving their peculiar rights +and exceptions to young Scotchmen for whom daily disputing is a sort of +daily bread, that the man who disputes is a monster, and that he ought +to be expelled from civilized society. Or could not a compromise be +effected for disputatious people, by allowing a private disputing room +in all hotels, as they have private rooms for smoking? I have heard of +two Englishmen, gentlemanly persons, but having a constitutional <i>furor</i> +for boxing, who quieted their fighting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> instincts in this way. It was +not glory which they desired, but mutual punishment, given and taken +with a hearty goodwill. Yet, as their feelings of refinement revolted +from making themselves into a spectacle of partisanship for the public +to bet on, they retired into a ball-room, and locked the doors, so that +nothing could transpire of the campaigns within except from the +desperate rallies and floorings which were heard, or from the bloody +faces which were seen on their issuing. A limited admission, it was +fancied, might have been allowed to select friends; but the courteous +refusal of both parties was always 'No; the pounding was strictly +confidential.' Now, pray, gentlemen disputers, could you not make your +pounding 'strictly confidential'? My chief reasons for doing so I will +mention:</p> + +<p>1. That disputing is in bad tone; it is vulgar, and essentially the +resource of uncultured people.</p> + +<p>2. It argues want of intellectual power, or, in any case, want of +intellectual development. It is because men find it easier to talk by +disputing than by <i>not</i> disputing that so many people resort to this +coarse expedient for calling the wind into the sails of conversation. To +move along in the key of contradiction is the cheapest of all devices +for purchasing a power that is not your own. You are then carried along +by a towing-line attached to another vessel. There is no free power. +Always your antagonist predetermines the course of your own movement; +and you his. What <i>he</i> says, you unsay. He affirms, you deny. He knits, +you unknit. Always you are servile to <i>him</i>; and he to <i>you</i>. Yet even +that system of motion in reverse of another motion, of mere antistrophe +or dancing backward what the strophe had danced forward, is better after +all, you say, than standing stock<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> still. For instance, it might have +been tedious enough to hear Mr. Cruger disputing every proposition that +Burke advanced on the Bristol hustings; yet even <i>that</i> some people +would prefer to Cruger's single observation, viz., 'I say <i>ditto</i> to Mr. +Burke.' Every man to his taste: I, for one, should have preferred Mr. +Cruger's <i>ditto</i>.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> But why need we have a <i>ditto</i>, a simple <i>affirmo</i>, +because we have <i>not</i> an eternal <i>nego</i>? The proper spirit of +conversation moves in the general key of assent, but still not therefore +of mere iteration, but still each bar of the music is different. Nature +surely does not repeat herself, yet neither does she maintain the +eternal variety of her laughing beauty by constantly contradicting +herself, and quite as little by monotonously repeating herself. Her +samenesses are differences.</p> + +<p>II. Of the evils of garrulity, which, like the ceaseless droppings of +water, will eat into the toughest rock of patience and +self-satisfaction, I have spoken at considerable length elsewhere. Its +evils are so evident that they hardly call for further illustration. The +garrulous man, paradoxical as it may seem to say it, is a kind of +pickpocket without intending to steal anything—nay, rather he is fain +to please you by placing something in your pocket—though too often it +is like the egg of the cuckoo in the nest of another bird.</p> + +<p>III. Now, as to <i>Interruption</i>, what's to be done? It is a question that +I have often considered. For the evil is great, and the remedy occult. I +look upon a man that interrupts another in conversation as a monster +far<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> less excusable than a cannibal; yet cannibals (though, +comparatively with <i>interrupters</i>, valuable members of society) are +rare, and, even where they are <i>not</i> rare, they don't practise as +cannibals every day: it is but on sentimental occasions that the +exhibition of cannibalism becomes general. But the monsters who +interrupt men in the middle of a sentence are to be found everywhere; +and they are always practising. Red-letter days or black-letter days, +festival or fast, makes no difference to <i>them</i>. This enormous nuisance +I feel the more, because it is one which I never retaliate. Interrupted +in every sentence, I still practise the American Indian's politeness of +never interrupting. What, absolutely <i>never</i>? Is there <i>no</i> case in +which I should? If a man's nose, or ear, as sometimes happens in high +latitudes, were suddenly and visibly frost-bitten, so as instantly to +require being rubbed with snow, I conceive it lawful to interrupt that +man in the most pathetic sentence, or even to ruin a whole paragraph of +his prose. You can never indeed give him back the rhetoric which you +have undermined; <i>that</i> is true; but neither could he, in the +alternative case, have given back to himself the nose which you have +saved.</p> + +<p>I contend also, against a great casuist in this matter, that had you +been a friend of Æschylus, and distinctly observed that absurd old +purblind eagle that mistook (or pretended to mistake) the great poet's +bald head—that head which created the Prometheus and the Agamemnon—for +a white tablet of rock, and had you interrupted the poet in his talk at +the very moment when the bird was dropping a lobster on the sacred +cranium, with the view of unshelling the lobster, but unaware that at +the same time he was unshelling a great poet's brain, you would have +been fully justified. An impertinence it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> would certainly have been to +interrupt a sentence as undeniable in its Greek as any which that +gentleman can be supposed to have turned out, but still the eagle's +impertinence was greater.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> That would have been your excuse. Æschylus, +or my friend the casuist, is not to be listened to in his very learned +arguments <i>contra</i>.</p> + +<p>Short of these cases, nothing can justify an interruption; and such +cases surely cannot be common, since how often can we suppose it to +happen that an eagle has a lobster to break just at the moment when a +tragic poet is walking abroad without his hat? What the reader's +experience may have been, of course, is unknown to me; but, for my own +part, I hardly meet with such a case twice in ten years, though I know +an extensive circle of tragic poets, and a reasonable number of bald +heads; eagles certainly not so many—they are but few on my visiting +list; and indeed, if that's their way of going on—cracking literary +skulls without leave asked or warning given—the fewer one knows the +better. If, then, a long life hardly breeds a case in which it is +strictly lawful to interrupt a co-dialogist, what are we to think of +those who move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? +And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. +Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually <i>on the +fret</i> to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are +speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented +before my time, 'non interrumpunt at <i>interrupturiunt</i>.' You can't talk +in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a +right to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> by <i>Magna Charta</i>, it is quite out of the question when a +man is looking in your face all the time with a cruel expression in his +eye amounting to 'Surely, that's enough!' or a pathetic expression which +says, '<i>Have</i> you done?' throwing a dreadful reproach into the <i>Have</i>. +In Cumberland, at a farmhouse where I once had lodgings for a week or +two, a huge dog as high as the dining-table used to plant himself in a +position to watch all my motions at dinner. Being alone, and either +reading or thinking, at first I did not observe him; but as soon as I +did, and noticed that he pursued each rising and descent of my fork as +the poet 'with wistful eyes pursues the setting sun,' that unconsciously +he mimicked and rehearsed all the notes and <i>appoggiaturas</i> that make up +the successive bars in the music of eating one's dinner, I was compelled +to rise, and say, 'My good fellow, I can't stand this; will you do me +the favour to accept anything on my plate at this moment? And to-morrow +I'll endeavour to arrange for your being otherwise employed at this hour +than in watching <i>me</i>.' It seems a weakness, but I really cannot eat +anything under the oppression of an envious <i>surveillance</i> like that +dog's. A man said to me, 'Oh, what need you care about <i>him</i>? He has had +<i>his</i> dinner long ago.' True, at twelve or one o'clock; but at six he +might want another; but, if he thinks so himself, the result is the +same. And that result is what the whole South of Frankistan<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> calls the +<i>evil eye</i>. Wanting<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> dinner, when he sees another person in the very act +of dining, the dog (though otherwise an excellent creature) must be +filled with envy; and envy is so contagiously allied to malice, that in +elder English one word expresses both those dark modifications of +hatred. The dog's eye therefore, without any consciousness on his own +part, becomes in such a case <i>an evil eye</i>: upon me, at least, it fell +with as painful an effect as any established eye of that class could do +upon the most superstitious Portuguese.</p> + +<p>Now, such exactly is the eye of any man that, without actually +interrupting one, threatens by his impatient manner as often as one +begins to speak. It has a blighting effect upon one's spirits. And the +only resource is to say frankly (as I said to the dog), 'Would you +oblige me, sir, by taking the whole of the talk into your own hands? Do +not for ever threaten to do so, but at once boldly lay an interdict upon +any other person's speaking.'</p> + +<p>To those who suffer from nervous irritability, the man that suspends +over our heads his <i>threat</i> of interruption by constant impatience, is +even a more awful person to face than the actual interrupter. Either of +them is insufferable; and in cases where the tone of prevailing manners +is not vigorous enough to put such people down, or where the individual +monster, being not <i>couchant</i> or <i>passant</i>, but (heraldically speaking) +<i>rampant</i>, utterly disregards all restraints that are not enforced by a +constable, the question comes back with greater force than ever, which I +stated at the beginning of this article, 'What's to be done?'</p> + +<p>I really cannot imagine. Despair seizes me 'with her icy fangs,' unless +the reader can suggest something; or unless he can improve on a plan of +my own sketching.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> + +<p>As a talker for effect, as a <i>bravura</i> artist in conversation, no one +has surpassed Coleridge. There is a Spanish proverb, that he who has not +seen Seville, has seen nothing. And I grieve to inform the present +unfortunate generation, born under an evil star, coming, in fact, into +the world a day after the fair, that, not having heard Coleridge, they +have <i>heard</i>—pretty much what the strangers to Seville have <i>seen</i>, +which (you hear from the Spaniards) amounts to nothing. <i>Nothing</i> is +hardly a thing to be proud of, and yet it has its humble advantages. To +have heard Coleridge was a thing to remember with pride as a trophy, but +with pain as a trophy won by some personal sacrifice. To have heard +Coleridge has now indeed become so great a distinction, that if it were +transferable, and a man could sell it by auction, the biddings for it +would run up as fast as for a genuine autograph of Shakespeare. The +story is current under a thousand forms of the man who piqued himself on +an interview which he had once enjoyed with royalty; and, being asked +what he could repeat to the company of his gracious Majesty's remarks, +being an honest fellow he confessed candidly that the King, happening to +be pressed for time, had confined himself to saying, 'Dog, stand out of +my horse's way'; and many persons that might appear as claimants to the +honour of having conversed with Coleridge could perhaps report little +more of personal communication than a courteous request from the great +man not to interrupt him. Inevitably, however, from this character of +the Coleridgean conversation arose certain consequences, which are too +much overlooked by those who bring it forward as a model or as a +splendid variety in the proper art of conversation. And speaking myself +as personally a witness to the unfavourable impression<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> left by these +consequences, I shall not scruple in this place to report them with +frankness.</p> + +<p>At the same time, having been heretofore publicly misrepresented and +possibly because misunderstood as to the temper in which I spoke of +Coleridge, and as though I had violated some duty of friendship in +uttering a truth not flattering after his death, I wish so far to +explain the terms on which we stood as to prevent any similar +misconstruction. It would be impossible in any case for me to attempt a +Plinian panegyric, or a French <i>éloge</i>. Not that I think such forms of +composition false, any more than an advocate's speech, or a political +partisan's: it is understood from the beginning that they are one-sided; +but still true according to the possibilities of truth when caught from +an angular and not a central station. There is even a pleasure as from a +gorgeous display, and a use as from a fulness of unity, in reading a +grand or even pompous laudatory oration upon a man like Leibnitz, or +Newton, which neglects all his errors or blemishes. This abstracting +view I could myself adopt as to a man whom I had learned to know from +books, but not as to one whom I knew also from personal intercourse. His +faults and his greatness are then too much intertwisted. There is still +something unreal in the knowledge of men through books; with which is +compatible a greater flexibility of estimate. But the absolute realities +of life acting upon any mind of deep sincerity do not leave the same +liberty of suppression or concealment. In that case, the reader may +perhaps say, and wherever the relations of the writer to a deceased man +prescribe many restraints of tenderness or delicacy, would it not be +better to forbear speaking at all? Certainly; and I go on therefore to +say that my own relations to Coleridge were not of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> nature. I had +the greatest admiration for his intellectual powers, which in one +direction I thought and think absolutely unrivalled on earth; I had also +that sort of love for him which arises naturally as a rebound from +intense admiration, even where there is little of social congeniality. +But, in any stricter sense of the word, <i>friends</i> we were not. For years +we met at intervals in society; never once estranged by any the +slightest shadow of a quarrel or a coolness. But there were reasons, +arising out of original differences in our dispositions and habits, +which would probably have forever prevented us, certainly <i>did</i> prevent +us, from being confidential friends. Yet, if we had been such, even the +more for that reason the sincerity of my nature would oblige me to speak +freely if I spoke at all of anything which I might regard as amongst his +errors. For the perfection of genial homage, one may say, in the +expression of Petronius Arbiter, <i>Præcipitandus est liber spiritus</i>, the +freedom of the human spirit must be thrown headlong through the whole +realities of the subject, without picking or choosing, without garbling +or disguising. It yet remains as a work of the highest interest, to +estimate (but for that to display) Coleridge in his character of great +philosophic thinker, in which character he united perfections that never +<i>were</i> united but in three persons on this earth, in himself, in Plato +(as many suppose), and in Schelling, viz., the utmost expansion and in +some paths the utmost depths of the searching intellect with the utmost +sensibility to the powers and purposes of Art: whilst, as a creator in +Art, he had pretensions which neither Plato nor Schelling could make. +His powers as a Psychologist (not as a Metaphysician) seem to me +absolutely unrivalled on earth. And had his health been better, so as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +to have sustained the natural cheerfulness towards which his nature +tended, had his pecuniary embarrassments been even moderately lightened +in their pressure, and had his studies been more systematically directed +to one end—my conviction is that he would have left a greater +philosophic monument of his magnificent mind than Aristotle, or Lord +Bacon, or Leibnitz.</p> + +<p>With these feelings as to the pretensions of Coleridge, I am not likely +to underrate anything which he did. But a thing may be very difficult to +do, very splendid when done, and yet false in its principles, useless in +its results, memorable perhaps by its impression at the time, and yet +painful on the whole to a thoughtful retrospect. In dancing it is but +too common that an intricate <i>pas seul</i>, in funambulism that a dangerous +feat of equilibration, in the Grecian art of <i>desultory</i> equitation +(where a single rider governs a plurality of horses by passing from one +to another) that the flying contest with difficulty and peril, may +challenge an anxiety of interest, may bid defiance to the possibility of +inattention, and yet, after all, leave the jaded spectator under a sense +of distressing tension given to his faculties. The sympathy is with the +difficulties attached to the effort and the display, rather than with +any intellectual sense of power and skill genially unfolded under +natural excitements. It would be idle to cite Madame de Staël's remark +on one of these meteoric exhibitions, viz., that Mr. Coleridge possessed +the art of monologue in perfection, but not that of the dialogue; yet it +comes near to hitting the truth from her point of view. The habit of +monologue which Coleridge favoured lies open to three fatal objections: +1. It is antisocial in a case expressly meant by its final cause for the +triumph of sociality; 2. It refuses all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> homage to women on an arena +expressly dedicated to their predominance; 3. It is essentially fertile +in <i>des longueurs</i>. Could there be imagined a trinity of treasons +against the true tone of social intercourse more appalling to a Parisian +taste?</p> + +<p>In a case such as this, where Coleridge was the performer, I myself +enter less profoundly into the brilliant woman's horror, for the reason +that, having originally a necessity almost morbid for the intellectual +pleasures that depend on solitude, I am constitutionally more careless +about the luxuries of conversation. I see them; like them in the rare +cases where they flourish, but do not require them. Not sympathizing, +therefore, with the lady's horror in its intensity, I yet find my +judgment in harmony with hers. The evils of Coleridgean talk, even +managed by a Coleridge, were there, and they fixed themselves +continually on my observation:</p> + +<p>I. It defeats the very end of social meetings. Without the excitement +from a reasonable number of auditors, and some novelty in the +composition of his audience, Coleridge was hardly able to talk his best. +Now, at the end of some hours, it struck secretly on the good sense of +the company. Was it reasonable to have assembled six, ten, or a dozen +persons for the purpose of hearing a prelection? Would not the time have +been turned to more account, even as regarded the object which they had +substituted for <i>social</i> pleasure, in studying one of Coleridge's +printed works?—since there his words were stationary and not flying, so +that notes might be taken down, and questions proposed by way of letter, +on any impenetrable difficulties; whereas in a stream of oral teaching, +which ran like the stream of destiny, impassive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> to all attempts at +interruption, difficulties for ever arose to irritate your nervous +system at the moment, and to vex you permanently by the recollection +that they had prompted a dozen questions, every one of which you had +forgotten through the necessity of continuing to run alongside with the +speaker, and through the impossibility of saying, 'Halt, Mr. Coleridge! +Pull up, I beseech you, if it were but for two minutes, that I may try +to fathom that last sentence.' This in all conversation is one great +evil, viz., the substitution of an alien purpose for the natural and +appropriate purpose. Not to be intellectual in a direct shape, but to be +intellectual through sociality, is the legitimate object of a social +meeting. It may be right, medically speaking, that a man should be +shampooed; but it cannot be right that, having asked him to dine, you +should decline dinner and substitute a shampooing. This a man would be +apt to call by the shorter name of a <i>sham</i>.</p> + +<p>II. It diminishes the power of the talking performer himself. Seeming to +have more, the man has less. For a man is never thrown upon his mettle, +nor are his true resources made known even to himself, until to some +extent he finds himself resisted (or at least modified) by the reaction +of those around him. That day, says Homer, robs a man of half his value +which sees him made a slave. But to be an autocrat is as perilous as to +be a slave. And supposing Homer to have been introduced to Coleridge (a +supposition which a learned man at my elbow pronounces +intolerable—'It's an anachronism, sir, a base anachronism!' Well, but +one may <i>suppose</i> anything, however base), Homer would have observed to +me, as we came away from the <i>soirée</i>, 'In my opinion, our splendid +friend S. T. C. would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> have been the better for a few kicks on the +shins. That day takes away half of a man's talking value which raises +him into an irresponsible dictator to his company.'</p> + +<p>III. It diminishes a man's power in another way less obvious, but not +less certain. I had often occasion to remark how injurious it was to the +impression of Coleridge's finest displays where the minds of the hearers +had been long detained in a state of passiveness. To understand fully, +to sympathise deeply, it was essential that they should react. Absolute +inertia produced inevitable torpor. I am not supposing any indocility, +or unwillingness to listen. Generally it might be said that merely to +find themselves in that presence argued sufficiently in the hearers a +cheerful dedication of themselves to a dutiful patience.</p> + +<p>The mistake, in short, is to suppose that the particular power of talk +Coleridge had was a <i>nuance</i> or modification of what is meant by +conversational power; whereas it was the direct antithesis: it differed +diametrically. So much as he had of his own peculiar power, so much more +alien and remote was he from colloquial power. This remark should be +introduced by observing that Madame de Staël's obvious criticism passes +too little unvalued or unsearched either by herself or others. She +fancied it an accidental inclination or a caprice, or a sort of +self-will or discourtesy or inattention. No; it was a faculty in polar +opposition to the true faculty of conversation.</p> + +<p>Coleridge was copious, and not without great right, upon the subject of +Art. It is a subject upon which we personally are very impatient, and +(as Mrs. Quickly expresses it) peevish, as peevish as Rugby in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +prayers.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Is this because we know too much about Art? Oh, Lord bless +you, no! We know too little about it by far, and our wish is—to know +more. But <i>that</i> is difficult; so many are the teachers, who by accident +had never any time to learn; so general is the dogmatism; and, worse +than all, so inveterate is the hypocrisy, wherever the graces of liberal +habits and association are supposed to be dependent upon a particular +mode of knowledge. To know nothing of theology or medicine has a sort of +credit about it; so far at least it is clear that you are not +professional, and to that extent the chances are narrowed that you get +your bread out of the public pocket. To be sure, it is still possible +that you may be a stay-maker, or a rat-catcher. But these are +out-of-the-way vocations, and nobody adverts to such narrow +possibilities. Now, on the other hand, to be a connoisseur in painting +or in sculpture, supposing always that you are no practising artist, in +other words, supposing that you know nothing about the subject, implies +that you must live amongst <i>comme-il-faut</i> people who possess pictures +and casts to look at; else how the deuce could you have got your +knowledge—or, by the way, your ignorance, which answers just as well +amongst those who are not peevish. We, however, <i>are</i> so, as we have +said already. And what made us peevish, in spite of strong original +<i>stamina</i> for illimitable indulgence to all predestined bores and +nuisances in the way of conversation, was—not the ignorance, not the +nonsense, not the contradictoriness of opinion—no! but the false, +hypocritical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> enthusiasm about objects for which in reality they cared +not the fraction of a straw. To hear these bores talk of educating the +people to an acquaintance with what they call 'high art'! Ah, heavens, +mercifully grant that the earth may gape for us before <i>our</i> name is +placed on any such committee! 'High art,' indeed! First of all, most +excellent bores, would you please to educate the people into the high +and mysterious art of boiling potatoes. We, though really owning no +particular duty or moral obligation of boiling potatoes, really <i>can</i> +boil them very decently in any case arising of public necessity for our +services; and if the art should perish amongst men, which seems likely +enough, so long as <i>we</i> live, the public may rely upon it being +restored. But as to women, as to the wives of poor hard-working men, not +one in fifty can boil a potato into a condition that is not ruinous to +the digestion. And we have reason to know that the Chartists, on their +great meditated outbreak, having hired a six-pounder from a pawnbroker, +meant to give the signal for insurrection at dinner-time, because (as +they truly observed) cannon-balls, hard and hot, would then be plentiful +on every table. God sends potatoes, we all know; but <i>who</i> it is that +sends the boilers of potatoes, out of civility to the female sex, we +decline to say.</p> + +<p>Well, but this (you say) is a digression. Why, true; and a digression is +often the cream of an article. However, as you dislike it, let us +<i>re</i>gress as fast as possible, and scuttle back from the occult art of +boiling potatoes to the much more familiar one of painting in oil. Did +Coleridge really understand this art? Was he a sciolist, was he a +pretender, or did he really judge of it from a station of +heaven-inspired knowledge? A hypocrite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Coleridge never was upon any +subject; he never affected to know when secretly he felt himself +ignorant. And yet, of the topics on which he was wont eloquently to hold +forth, there was none on which he was less satisfactory—none on which +he was more acute, yet none on which he was more prone to excite +contradiction and irritation, if that had been allowed.</p> + +<p>Here, for example, is a passage from one of his lectures on art:</p> + +<p>'It is sufficient that philosophically we understand that in all +imitations two elements must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be +perceived as existing. Those two constituent elements are likeness and +unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations of +art there must be a union of these disparates. The artist may take this +point of view where he pleases, provided that the desired effect be +perceptibly produced, that there be likeness in the difference, +difference in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there +be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is +disgusting, and the more complete the delusion the more loathsome the +effect. Why are such simulations of nature as wax-work figures of men +and women so disagreeable? Because, not finding the motion and the life +all we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance of +detail, which before induced you to be interested, making the distance +from truth more palpable. You set out with a supposed reality, and are +disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst in respect to a +work of genuine imitation you begin with an acknowledged total +difference, and then every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an +approximation to truth.'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>In this exposition there must be some oversight on the part of +Coleridge. He tells us in the beginning that, if there be 'likeness to +nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting.' But +the case of the wax-work, which is meant to illustrate this proposition, +does not at all conform to the conditions; the result is disgusting +certainly, but not from any want of difference to control the sameness, +for, on the contrary, the difference is confessedly too revolting; and +apparently the distinction between the two cases described is simply +this—that in the illegitimate case of the wax-work the likeness comes +first and the unlikeness last, whereas in the other case this order is +reversed. But that distinction will neither account <i>in fact</i> for the +difference of effect; nor, if it <i>did</i>, would it account upon any reason +or ground suggested by Coleridge for such a difference. Let us consider +this case of wax-work a little more vigilantly, and then perhaps we may +find out both why it is that some men unaffectedly <i>are</i> disgusted by +wax-work; and secondly, why it is that, if trained on just principles of +reflective taste, all men <i>would</i> be so affected.</p> + +<p>As a matter not altogether without importance, we may note that even the +frailty of the material operates to some extent in disgusting us with +wax-work. A higher temperature of the atmosphere, it strikes us too +forcibly, would dispose the waxen figures to melt; and in colder seasons +the horny fist of a jolly boatswain would 'pun<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> them into shivers' +like so many ship-biscuits.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> The grandeur of permanence and durability +transfers itself or its expression from the material to the impression +of the artifice which moulds it, and crystallizes itself in the effect. +We see continually very ingenious imitations of objects cut out in paper +filigree; there have been people who showed as much of an artist's eye +in this sort of work, and of an artist's hand, as Miss Linwood of the +last generation in her exquisite needlework; in both cases a trick, a +<i>tour-de-main</i>, was raised into the dignity of a fine art; and yet, +because the slightness of the material too emphatically proclaims the +essential perishableness of the result, nobody views such modes of art +with more even of a momentary interest than the morning wreaths of smoke +ascending so beautifully from a cottage chimney, or cares much to +preserve them. The traceries of hoar frost upon the windows of inhabited +rooms are not only beautiful in the highest degree, but have been shown +in several French memoirs to obey laws of transcendental geometry, and +also to obey physical laws of startling intricacy. These lovely forms of +almighty nature wear the grandeur of mystery, of floral beauty, and of +science (immanent science) not always fathomable.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> They are anything +but capricious.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like <i>them</i>; +and yet, simply because the sad hand of mortality is upon them, because +they are dedicated to death, because on genial days they will have +passed into the oblivion of graves before the morning sun has mounted to +his meridian, we do not so much as honour them with a transient stare +from the breakfast-table. Ah, wretches that we are, the horrid +carnalities of tea and toast, or else the horrid bestialities in morning +journals of Chartists and Cobdenites at home, of Red Ruffians abroad, +draw off our attention from the chonchoids and the cycloids pencilled by +the Eternal Geometrician! and these celestial traceries of the dawn, +which neither Da Vinci nor Raphaello was able to have followed as a +mimic, far less as a rival, we regard as a nuisance claiming the +attentions of the window-cleaner; even as the spider's web, that might +absorb an angel into reverie, is honoured amongst the things banned by +the housemaid. But <i>the</i> reason why the wax-work disgusts is that it +seeks to reproduce in literal detail the traits that should be softened +under a general diffusive impression; the likeness to nature is +presented in what is essentially fleeting and subsidiary, and the 'check +of difference' is found also in this very literality, and not in any +effort of the etherealizing imagination, as it is in all true works of +art; so that the case really stands the exact opposite of that which +Coleridge had given in his definition.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>To pass from art to style. How loose and arbitrary Coleridge not +infrequently was in face of the laws on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> that subject which he had +himself repeatedly laid down! Could it be believed of a man so quick to +feel, so rapid to arrest all phenomena, that in a matter so important as +that of style, he should have nothing loftier to record of his own +merits, services, reformations, or cautions, than that he has always +conscientiously forborne to use the personal genitive <i>whose</i> in +speaking of inanimate things? For example, that he did not say, and +could not have been tempted or tortured into saying, 'The bridge <i>whose</i> +piers could not much longer resist the flood.' Well, as they say in +Scotland, some people are thankful for small mercies. We—that is, you, +the reader, and ourselves—are <i>persons</i>; the bridge, you see, is but a +<i>thing</i>. We pity it, poor thing, and, as far as it is possible to +entertain such a sentiment for a bridge, we feel respect for it. Few +bridges are thoroughly contemptible; and we make a point, in obedience +to an old-world proverb, always to speak well of the bridge that has +carried us over in safety, which the worst of bridges never yet has +refused to do. But still there <i>are</i> such things as social distinctions; +and we conceive that a man and a 'contributor' (an <i>ancient</i> contributor +to <i>Blackwood</i>), must in the herald's college be allowed a permanent +precedency before all bridges whatsoever, without regard to number of +arches, width of span, or any other frivolous pretences. We acknowledge +therefore with gratitude Coleridge's loyalty to his own species in not +listening to any compromise with mere things, that never were nor will +be raised to the peerage of personality, and sternly refusing them the +verbal honours which are sacred to us humans. But what is the principle +of taste upon which Coleridge justifies this rigorous practice? It +is—and we think it a very just principle—that this mechanic mode of +giving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> life to things inanimate ranks 'amongst those worst mimicries of +poetic diction by which imbecile writers fancy they elevate their +prose.' True; but the same spurious artifices for giving a fantastic +elevation to prose reappear in a thousand other forms, from some of +which neither Coleridge nor his accomplished daughter is absolutely +free. For instance, one of the commonest abuses of pure English amongst +our Scottish brethren, unless where they have been educated out of +Scotland, is to use <i>aught</i> for <i>anything</i>, <i>ere</i> for <i>before</i>, +<i>well-nigh</i> for <i>almost</i>, and scores besides. No home-bred, <i>i.e.</i> +Cockney Scotchman, is aware that these are poetic forms, and are as +ludicrously stilted in any ear trained by the daily habits of good +society to the appreciation of pure English—as if, in Spenserian +phrase, he should say, '<i>What time</i> I came home to breakfast,' instead +of '<i>When</i> I came home.' The <i>'tis</i> and <i>'twas</i>, which have been +superannuated for a century in England, except in poetic forms, still +linger in Scotland and in Ireland, and these forms also at intervals +look out from Coleridge's prose. Coleridge is also guilty at odd times +(as is Wordsworth) of that most horrible affectation, the <i>hath</i> and +<i>doth</i> for <i>has</i> and <i>does</i>. This is really criminal. But amongst all +barbarisms known to man, the very worst—and this also, we are sorry to +say, flourishes as rankly as weeds in Scotch prose, and is to be found +in Coleridge's writings—is the use of the <i>thereof</i>, <i>therein</i>, +<i>thereby</i>, <i>thereunto</i>. This monstrous expression of imperfect +civilization, which for one hundred and fifty years has been cashiered +by cultivated Englishmen as <i>attorneys' English</i>, and is absolutely +frightful unless in a lease or conveyance, ought (we do not scruple to +say) to be made indictable at common law, not perhaps as a felony, but +certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> as a misdemeanour, punishable by fine and imprisonment.</p> + +<p>In nothing is the characteristic mode of Coleridge's mind to be seen +more strikingly than in his treatment of some branches of dramatic +literature, though to that subject he had devoted the closest study. He +was almost as distinguished, indeed, for the points he missed as for +those he saw. Look at his position as regards some questions concerning +the French drama and its critics, more particularly the views of +Voltaire, though some explanation may be found in the fact, which I have +noticed elsewhere, that Coleridge's acquaintance with the French +language was not such as to enable him to read it with the easy +familiarity which ensures complete pleasure. But something may also be +due to his deep and absorbed religious feeling, which seemed to +incapacitate him from perceiving the points where Voltaire, despite his +scepticism, had planted his feet on firm ground. Coleridge was aware +that Voltaire, in common with every Frenchman until the present +generation, held it as a point of faith that the French drama was +inapproachable in excellence. From Lessing, and chiefly, from his +<i>Dramaturgie</i>, Coleridge was also aware, on the other hand, upon what +erroneous grounds that imaginary pre-eminence was built. He knew that it +was a total misconception of the Greek unities (excepting only as +regards the unity of fable, or, as Coleridge otherwise calls it, the +<i>unity of interest</i>) which had misled the French. It was a huge blunder. +The case was this: Peculiar embarrassments had arisen to the Athenian +dramatists as to time and place, from the chorus—out of which chorus +had grown the whole drama. The chorus, composed generally of men or +women, could not be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> moved from Susa to Memphis or from one year to +another, as might the spectator. This was a fetter, but, with the +address of great artists, they had turned their fetters into occasions +of ornament. But, in this act of beautifying their narrow field, they +had done nothing to enlarge it. They had submitted gracefully to what, +for <i>them</i>, was a religious necessity. But it was ridiculous that modern +dramatists, under no such necessity (because clogged with no inheritance +of a personal chorus), should voluntarily assume fetters which, having +no ceremonial and hallowed call for a chorus, could have no meaning. So +far Coleridge was kept right by his own sagacity and by his German +guides; but a very trifle of further communication with Voltaire, and +with the writers of whom Voltaire was speaking, would have introduced +him to two facts calculated a little to raise Voltaire in his esteem, +and very much to lower the only French writer (viz., Racine) whom he +ever thought fit to praise. With regard to Voltaire himself he would +have found that, so far from exalting the French poetic literature +<i>generally</i> in proportion to that monstrous pre-eminence which he had +claimed for the French drama, on the contrary, from this very drama, +from the very pre-eminence, he drew an argument for the general +inferiority of the French poetry. The French drama, he argued, was +confessedly exalted amongst the French themselves beyond any other +section of their literature. But why? Why was this? If the drama had +prospered disproportionately under public favour, what caused that +favour? It was, said Voltaire, the social nature of the French, with +their consequent interest in whatever assumed the attire of conversation +or dialogue; and, secondly, it was the peculiar strength of their +language<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> in that one function, which had been nursed and ripened by +this preponderance of social habits. Hence it happened that the drama +obtained at one and the same time a greater <i>interest</i> for the French, +and also (by means of this culture given to conversational forms) most +unhappily for his lordship's critical discernment of flavours, as well +as his Greek literature, happens to be a respectable Joe Miller from the +era of Hierocles, and through <i>him</i> probably it came down from +Pythagoras. Yet still Voltaire was very far indeed from being a +'scribbler.' He had the graceful levity and the graceful gaiety of his +nation in an exalted degree. He had a vast compass of miscellaneous +knowledge; pity that it was so disjointed, <i>arena sine calce</i>; pity that +you could never rely on its accuracy; and, as respected his epic poetry, +'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true, that you are rather +disposed to laugh than to cry when Voltaire solemnly proposes to be +sublime. His <i>Henriade</i> originally appeared in London about 1726, when +the poet was visiting this country as a fugitive before the wrath of +Louis the Well-beloved; and naturally in the opening passage he +determined to astonish the weak minds of us islanders by a flourish on +the tight-rope of sublimity. But to his vexation a native Greek (viz., a +Smyrniot), then by accident in London, called upon him immediately after +the publication, and, laying his finger on a line in the exordium (as it +then stood), said, 'Sare, I am one countryman of Homer's. He write de +Iliad; you write de Henriade; but Homer vos never able in all de total +whole of de Iliad to write de verse like dis.' Upon which the Greek +showed him a certain line.</p> + +<p>Voltaire admired the line itself, but in deference to this Greek irony, +supported by the steady advice of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> English friends, he finally +altered it. It is possible to fail, however, as an epic poet, and very +excusable for a Frenchman to fail, and yet to succeed in many other +walks of literature. But to Coleridge's piety, to Coleridge's earnest +seeking for light, and to Coleridge's profound sense of the necessity +which connects from below all ultimate philosophy with religion, the +scoffing scepticism of Voltaire would form even a stronger repulsion +than his puerile hostility to Shakespeare. Even here, however, there is +something to be pleaded for Voltaire. Much of his irreligion doubtless +arose from a defective and unimpassioned nature, but part of it was +noble, and rested upon his intolerance of cruelty, of bigotry, and of +priestcraft—but still more of these qualities not germinating +spontaneously, but assumed fraudulently as masques. But very little +Coleridge had troubled himself to investigate Voltaire's views, even +where he was supposing himself to be ranged in opposition to them.</p> + +<p>A word or two about those accusations of plagiarism of which far too +much has been made by more than one critic; we ourselves having, +perhaps, been guilty of too wantonly stirring these waters at one time +of our lives; and in the attempt to make matters more clear, only, it +may be, succeeded in muddying them. Stolberg, Matthison, Schiller, +Frederika Brun, Schelling, and others, whom he has been supposed to have +robbed of trifles, he could not expect to lurk<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in darkness, and +particularly as he was actively contributing to disperse the darkness +that yet hung over their names in England. But really for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> such +bagatelles as were concerned in this poetic part of the allegation—even +Bow Street, with the bloodiest Draco of a critical reviewer sitting on +the bench, would not have entertained the charge. Most of us, we +suppose, would be ready enough to run off with a Titian or a Correggio, +provided the coast were clear, and no policemen heaving in sight; but to +be suspected of pocketing a silver spoon, which, after all, would +probably turn out to be made of German silver—faugh!—we not only defy +the fiend and his temptations generally, but we spit in his face for +such an insinuation. With respect to the pretty toy model of Hexameter +and Pentameter from Schiller, we believe the case to have arisen thus: +in talking of metre, and illustrating it (as Coleridge often did at +tea-tables) from Homer, and then from the innumerable wooden and +cast-iron imitations of it among the Germans—he would be very likely to +cite this little ivory bijou from Schiller; upon which the young ladies +would say: 'But, Mr. Coleridge, we do not understand German. Could you +not give us an idea of it in some English version?' Then would he, with +his usual obligingness, write down his mimic English echo of Schiller's +German echo. And of course the young ladies, too happy to possess an +autograph from the 'Ancient Mariner,' and an autograph besides having a +separate interest of its own, would endorse it with the immortal +initials 'S. T. C.,' after which an injunction issuing from the Court of +Chancery would be quite unavailing to arrest its flight through the +journals of the land as the avowed composition of Coleridge. They know +little of Coleridge's habits who suppose that his attention was +disposable for cases of this kind. Alike, whether he were unconsciously +made by the error of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> reporter to rob others, or others to rob him, he +would be little likely to hear of the mistake—or, hearing of it by some +rare accident, to take any pains for its correction. It is probable that +such mistakes sometimes arose with others, but sometimes also with +himself from imperfect recollection; and <i>that</i>, owing chiefly to his +carelessness about the property at issue, so that it seemed not worth +the requisite effort to vindicate the claim if it happened to be <i>his</i>, +or formally to renounce it if it were not. But, however this might be, +his daughter's remark remains true, and is tolerably significant, that +the people whom (through anybody's mistake) he seems to have robbed were +all pretty much in the sunshine of the world's regard; there was no +attempt to benefit by darkness or twilight, and an intentional robber +must have known that the detection was inevitable.</p> + +<p>A second thing to be said in palliation of such plagiarisms, real or +fancied, intentional or not intentional, is this—that at least +Coleridge never insulted or derided those upon whose rights he is +supposed to have meditated an aggression.</p> + +<p>Coleridge has now been dead for more than fifteen years,<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> and he lived +through a painful life of sixty-three years; seventy-eight years it is +since he first drew that troubled air of earth, from which with such +bitter loathing he rose as a phœnix might be supposed to rise, that, +in retribution of some treason to his immortal race, had been compelled +for a secular period to banquet on carrion with ghouls, or on the spoils +of <i>vivisection</i> with vampires. Not with less horror of retrospect than +such<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> a phœnix did Coleridge, when ready to wing his flight from +earth, survey the chambers of suffering through which he had trod his +way from childhood to gray hairs. Perhaps amongst all the populous +nations of the grave not one was ever laid there, through whose bones so +mighty a thrill of shuddering anguish would creep, if by an audible +whisper the sound of earth and the memories of earth could reach his +coffin. Yet why? Was he not himself a child of earth? Yes, and by too +strong a link: <i>that</i> it was which shattered him. For also he was a +child of Paradise, and in the struggle between two natures he could not +support himself erect. That dreadful conflict it was which supplanted +his footing. Had he been gross, fleshly, sensual, being so framed for +voluptuous enjoyment, he would have sunk away silently (as millions +sink) through carnal wrecks into carnal ruin. He would have been +mentioned oftentimes with a sigh of regret as that youthful author who +had enriched the literature of his country with two exquisite poems, +'Love' and the 'Ancient Mariner,' but who for some unknown reason had +not fulfilled his apparent mission on earth. As it was, being most +genial and by his physical impulses most luxurious; yet, on the other +hand, by fiery aspirations of intellect and of spiritual heart being +coerced as if through torments of magical spells into rising heavenwards +for ever, into eternal commerce with the grander regions of his own +nature, he found this strife too much for his daily peace, too imperfect +was the ally which he found in his will; treachery there was in his own +nature, and almost by a necessity he yielded to the dark temptations of +opium. That 'graspless hand,' from which, as already in one of his early +poems (November, 1794) he had complained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Drop friendship's priceless pearls as hour-glass sands,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>was made much <i>more</i> graspless, and in this way the very graces of his +moral nature ministered eventually the heaviest of his curses. Most +unworldly he was, most unmercenary, and (as somebody has remarked) even +to a disease, and, in such a degree as if an organ had been forgotten by +Nature in his composition, disregardful of self. But even in these +qualities lay the baits for his worldly ruin, which subsequently caused +or allowed so much of his misery. Partly from the introversion of his +mind, and its habitual sleep of reverie in relation to all external +interests, partly from his defect in all habits of prudential +forecasting, resting his head always on the pillow of the <i>present</i>—he +had been carried rapidly past all openings that offered towards the +creation of a fortune before he even heard of them, and he first awoke +to the knowledge that such openings had ever existed when he looked back +upon them from a distance, and found them already irrecoverable for +ever.</p> + +<p>Such a case as this, as soon as it became known that the case stood +connected with so much power of intellect and so much of various +erudition, was the very ideal case that challenges aid from the public +purse. Mrs. Coleridge has feelingly noticed the philosophic fact. It was +the case of a man lame in the faculties which apply to the architecture +of a fortune, but lame through the very excess in some other faculties +that qualified him for a public teacher, or (which is even more +requisite) for a public stimulator of powers else dormant.</p> + +<p>A perfect romance it is that settles upon three generations of these +Coleridges; a romance of beauty, of intellectual power, of misfortune +suddenly illuminated from heaven, of prosperity suddenly overcast by the +waywardness<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> of the individual. The grandfather of the present +generation, who for us stands forward as the founder of the family, +viz., the Rev. John Coleridge; even <i>his</i> career wins a secret homage of +tears and smiles in right of its marvellous transitions from gloom to +sudden light, in right of its entire simplicity, and of its eccentric +consistency. Already in early youth, swimming against a heady current of +hindrances almost overwhelming, he had by solitary efforts qualified +himself for any higher situation that might offer. But, just as this +training was finished, the chances that it might ever turn to account +suddenly fell down to zero; for precisely then did domestic misfortunes +oblige his father to dismiss him from his house with one solitary +half-crown and his paternal benediction. What became of the half-crown +is not recorded, but the benediction speedily blossomed into fruit. The +youth had sat down by the roadside under the mere oppression of grief +for his blighted prospects. But gradually and by steps the most +unexpected and providential, he was led to pedagogy and through this to +his true destination—that of a clergyman of the English church—a +position which from his learning, his devotion, and even from his very +failings—failings in businesslike foresight and calculation—his +absence of mind, his charitable feelings, and his true docility of +nature, he was fitted to adorn; and, indeed, but for his eccentricities +and his complete freedom from worldly self-seeking, and indifference to +such considerations as are apt to weigh all too little with his fellows +of the cloth, he might have moved as an equal among the most eminent +scholars and thinkers. Beautiful are the alternate phases of a good +parish priest—now sitting at the bedside of a dying neighbour, and +ministering with guidance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> and consolation to the labouring spirit—now +sitting at midnight under the lamp of his own study, and searching the +holy oracles of inspiration for light inexhaustible. These pictures were +realized in J. Coleridge's life.</p> + +<p>Mr. Wordsworth has done much to place on an elevated pedestal a very +different type of parish priest—Walker of Seathwaite. The contrast +between him and John Coleridge is striking; and not only striking but +apt, from some points of view, to move something of laughter as well as +tears. The strangest thing is that, if some demon of mischief tempts us, +a hurly-burly begins again of laughter and mockery among that ancient +brotherhood of hills, like Handel's chorus in 'l'Allegro' of 'laughter +holding both his sides.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">'Old Skiddaw blows<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On Glaramara, "<i>I say, Walker</i>" rings;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Kirkstone "goes it" from his misty head.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Rev. Walker, of Seathwaite, it is recorded, spent most of his time +in the parish church; but doing what? Why, spinning; <i>always</i> spinning +wool on the steps of the altar, and only <i>sometimes</i> lecturing his +younger parishioners in the spelling-book. So passed his life. And, if +you feel disposed to say, '<i>An innocent life</i>!' you must immediately add +from Mr. Wordsworth's 'Ruth,' '<i>An innocent life, but far astray</i>!' What +time had he for writing sermons? The Rev. John Coleridge wrote an +exegetical work on the Book of Judges; we doubt whether Walker could +have spelt <i>exegetical</i>. And supposing the Bishop of Chester, in whose +diocese his parish lay, had suddenly said, 'Walker, <i>unde derivatur</i> +"<i>exegesis</i>"?' Walker must have been walked off into the corner, as a +punishment for answering absurdly. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> luckily the Bishop's palace +stood ninety and odd miles south of Walker's two spinning-wheels. For, +observe, he had <i>two</i> spinning-wheels, but he hadn't a single Iliad. Mr. +Wordsworth will say that Walker did something besides spinning and +spelling. What was it? Why, he read a little. A <i>very</i> little, I can +assure you. For <i>when</i> did he read? Never but on a Saturday afternoon. +And <i>what</i> did Walker read? Doubtless now it was Hooker, or was it +Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow? No; it was none of these that Walker honoured +by his Saturday studies, but a magazine. Now, we all know what awful +rubbish the magazines of those days carted upon men's premises. It would +have been indictable as a nuisance if a publisher had laid it down +<i>gratis</i> at your door. Had Walker lived in <i>our</i> days, the case would +have been very different. A course of <i>Blackwood</i> would have braced his +constitution; his spinning-wheel would have stopped; his spelling would +have improved into moral philosophy and the best of politics. This very +month, as the public is by this time aware, Walker would have read +something about himself that <i>must</i> have done him good. We might very +truly have put an advertisement into the <i>Times</i> all last month, saying, +'Let Walker look into the next <i>Blackwood</i>, and he will hear of +something greatly to his advantage.' But alas! Walker descended to +Hades, and most ingloriously as <i>we</i> contend, before <i>Blackwood</i> had +dawned upon a benighted earth. We differ therefore by an inexpressible +difference from Wordsworth's estimate of this old fellow. And we close +our account of him by citing two little sallies from his only known +literary productions, viz., two letters, one to a friend, and the other +to the Archbishop of York. In the first of these he introduces a child +of his own under the following flourish of rhetoric,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> viz., as 'a pledge +of conjugal endearment.' We doubt if his correspondent ever read such a +bit of sentiment before. In the other letter, addressed to the +Metropolitan of the province, Walker has the assurance to say that he +trusts the young man, his son (<i>not</i> the aforesaid cub, the pledge of +conjugal endearment) will never disgrace the <i>paternal</i> example, <i>i.e.</i>, +Walker's example. Pretty strong <i>that</i>! And, if exegetically handled, it +must mean that Walker, junr., is to continue spinning and spelling, as +also once a week reading the <i>Town and Country Magazine</i>, all the days +of his life. Oh, Walker, you're a very sad fellow! And the only excuse +for you is, that, like most of your brethren in that mountainous nook of +England, so beautiful but so poor, you never saw the academic bowers of +either Oxford or Cambridge.</p> + +<p>Both in prose and verse, much prose and a short allowance of verse, has +Wordsworth celebrated this man, and he has held him aloft like the +saintly Herbert<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> as a shining model of a rural priest. We are glad, +therefore, for Wordsworth's sake, that no judge from the Consistorial +Court ever happened to meet with Walker when trudging over the Furness +Fells to Ulverston with a <i>long</i> cwt. (120 lb. avoirdupois) of wool on +his back, a thing which he did in all weathers. The wool would have been +condemned as a good prize, and we much fear that Walker's gown would +have been stripped over his head; which is a sad catastrophe for a +pattern priest. Mr. John Coleridge came much nearer to Chaucer's model +of a <i>Parish</i> Priest, whilst at the same time he did honour to the +Academic standard of such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> priest. He loved his poor parishioners as +children confided to his pastoral care, but he also loved his library. +But, on the other hand, as to Walker, if ever <i>he</i> were seen burning the +midnight oil, it was not in a gentleman's study—it was in a horrid +garret or cock-loft at the top of his house, disturbing the 'conjugal +endearments' of roosting fowl, and on a business the least spiritual +that can be imagined. By ancient usage throughout this sequestered +region, which is the Savoy of England (viz., Cumberland, Westmoreland, +and Furness) all accounts are settled annually at Candlemas, which means +the middle of February. From Christmas, therefore, to this period the +reverend pastor was employed in making out bills, receipts, leases and +releases, charges and discharges, wills and codicils to wills for most +of the hardworking householders amongst his flock. This work paid better +than spinning. By this night work, by the summer work of cutting peats +and mowing grass, by the autumnal work of reaping barley and oats, and +the early winter work of taking up potatoes, the reverend gentleman +could average seven shillings a day besides beer. But meantime our +spiritual friend was poaching on the manors of the following people—of +the chamber counsel, of the attorney, of the professional accountant, of +the printer and compositor, of the notary public, of the scrivener, and +sometimes, we fear, of the sheriff's officer in arranging for special +bail. These very uncanonical services one might have fancied sufficient, +with spinning and spelling, for filling up the temporal cares of any one +man's time. But this restless Proteus masqueraded through a score of +other characters—as seedsman, harvester, hedger and ditcher, etc. We +have no doubt that he would have taken a job of paving; he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> would have +contracted for darning old Christopher's silk stockings, or for a mile +of sewerage; or he would have contracted to dispose by night of the +sewage (which the careful reader must not confound with the sewerage, +that being the ship and the sewage the freight). But all this coarse +labour makes a man's hands horny, and, what is worse, the starvation, +or, at least, impoverishment, of his intellect makes his mind horny; +and, what is worst of all in a clergyman, who is stationed as a watchman +on a church-steeple expressly to warn all others against the +all-besetting danger of worldliness, such an incessant preoccupation of +the heart by coarse and petty cares makes the spiritual apprehensiveness +and every organ of spiritual sensibility more horny than the hoofs of a +rhinoceros.</p> + +<p>Kindliness of heart, no doubt, remained to the last with Mr. Walker, +<i>that</i> being secured by the universal spirit of brotherly and social +feeling amongst the dalesmen of the lake district. He was even liberal +and generous, if we may rely upon the few instances reported by W. W. +His life of heroic money-getting had not, it seems, made his heart +narrow in that particular direction, though it must not be forgotten +that the calls upon him were rare and trivial. But however <i>that</i> may +have been, the heart of stone had usurped upon the heart of flesh in all +that regarded the spiritualities of his office. He was conscientious, we +dare say, in what related to the <i>sacramentum militaire</i> (as construed +by himself) of his pastoral soldiership. He would, perhaps, have died +for the doctrines of his church, and we do not like him the worse for +having been something of a bigot, being ourselves the most malignant of +Tories (thank Heaven for all its mercies!). But what tenderness or +pathetic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> breathings of spirituality <i>could</i> that man have, who had no +time beyond a few stray quarters of an hour for thinking of his own +supreme relations to heaven, or to his flock on behalf of heaven? How +could that man cherish or deepen the motions of religious truth within +himself, whose thoughts were habitually turned to the wool market? +Ninety and odd years he lived on earth labouring like a bargeman or a +miner. Assuredly he was not one of the <i>fainéans</i>. And within a narrow +pastoral circle he left behind him a fragrant memory that will, perhaps, +wear as long as most reputations in literature. Nay, he even acquired by +acclamation a sort of title, viz., the posthumous surname of the +<i>wonderful</i>; pointing, however, we fear, much less to anything in +himself than to the unaccountable amount of money which he left behind +him—unaccountable by comparison with any modes of industry which he +practised, all of which were indomitably persevering, but all humble in +their results. Finally, he has had the honour (which, much we fear, men +far more interesting in the same situation, but in a less homely way, +never <i>would</i> have had) of a record from the pen of Wordsworth. We and +others have always remarked it as one of the austere Roman features in +the mind of Wordsworth, that of all poets he has the least sympathy, +effeminate or not effeminate, with romantic disinterestedness. He cannot +bear to hear of a man working by choice for nothing, which certainly +<i>is</i> an infirmity, where at all it arises from want of energy or of just +self-appreciation, but still an amiable one, and in certain directions a +sublime one. Walker had no such infirmity. He laboured in those fields +which ensure instant payment. Verily he <i>had</i> his reward: ten per cent., +at least, beyond all other men,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> without needing to think of reversions, +either above or below. The unearthly was suffocated in <i>him</i> by the +earthly. Let us leave him, and return to a better man, viz., to the Rev. +John Coleridge, author of the <i>Quale-quare-quidditive</i> case—a man equal +in simplicity o£ habits and in humility, but better in the sight of God, +because he laboured in the culture of his higher and not his lower +faculties.</p> + +<p>Mr. John Coleridge married a second time; and we are perplexed to say +<i>when</i>. The difficulty is this: he had by his second wife ten children. +Now, as <i>the</i> Coleridge, the youngest of the flock, was born in 1772, +the space between that year and 1760 seems barely adequate to such a +succession of births. Yet, on the other hand, <i>before</i> 1760 he could not +probably have seen his second wife, unless, indeed, on some casual trip +to Devonshire. Her name was Anne Bowden; and she was of a respectable +family, that had been long stationary in Devonshire, but of a yeomanly +rank; and people of that rank a century back did not often make visits +as far as Southampton. The question is not certainly of any great +importance; and we notice it only to make a parade of our chronologic +acumen. Devilish sly is Josy Bagstock! It is sufficient that her last +child was her illustrious child; and, if S. T. C.'s theory has any +foundation, we must suppose him illustrious <i>because</i> he was the last. +For he imagines that in any long series of children the last will, +according to all experience, have the leonine share of intellect. But +this contradicts our own personal observation; and, besides, it seems to +be unsound upon an <i>à priori</i> ground, viz., that to be the first child +carries a meaning with it: <i>that</i> place in the series has a real +physiologic value; and we have known families in which,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> from generation +to generation, the first-born child had physical advantages denied to +all that followed. But to be the last child must very often be the +result of accident, and has in reality no meaning in any sense known to +nature. The sixth child, let us suppose, is a blockhead. And soon after +the birth of this sixth child, his father, being drunk, breaks his neck. +That accident cannot react upon this child to invest him with the +privileges of absolute juniority. Being a blockhead, he will remain a +blockhead. Yet he is the youngest; but, then, nature is no party to his +being such, and probably she is no party (by means of any physical +change in the parents) once in a thousand births to a case of absolute +and predeterminate juniority.</p> + +<p>Whether with or without the intention of nature, S. T. C. was fated to +be the last of his family. He was the tenth child of the second flock, +and possibly there might have been an eleventh or even a twentieth, but +for the following termination of his father's career, which we give in +the words of his son. 'Towards the latter end of September, 1781, my +father went to Plymouth with my brother Francis, who was to go out as' +(a) 'midshipman under Admiral Graves—a friend of my father's. He +settled Frank as he wished, and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He +arrived at Exeter about six o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there +by the friendly family of the Harts; but he refused, and, to avoid their +entreaties, he told them that he had never been superstitious, but that +the night before he had had a dream, which had made a deep impression on +him. He dreamed that Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly +painted, and had touched him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and +all his family, <i>I</i> excepted,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> were up. He told my mother his dream; but +he was in good health and high spirits; and there was a bowl of punch +made, and my father gave a long and particular account of his travels, +and that he had placed Frank under a religious captain, and so forth. At +length he went to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after +he had lain down, he complained of a pain to which he was subject. My +mother got him some peppermint water, which he took; and after a pause +he said, "I am much better now, my dear!" and lay down again. In a +minute my mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to him; but he +did not answer, and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me, +and I said, "Papa is dead!" I did not know of my father's return, but I +knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his death, I cannot +tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout in the heart; +probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite without guile, +simple, generous; and, taking some Scripture texts in their literal +sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and evil of this +world.'</p> + +<p>This was the account of his father's sudden death in 1781, written by S. +T. Coleridge in 1797. 'Thirty years afterwards' (but after 1781 or after +1797?), says Mr. H. N. Coleridge, 'S. T. C. breathed a wish for such a +death, "if," he added, "like him I were an Israelite without guile!" and +then added, "The image of my father, my revered, kind, learned, +simple-hearted father, is a religion to me."'</p> + +<p>In his ninth year, therefore, thus early and thus suddenly, Coleridge +lost his father; and in the result, though his mother lived for many a +year after, he became essentially an orphan, being thrown upon the +struggles of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> world, and for ever torn from his family, except as a +visitor when equally he and they had changed. Yet such is the world, and +so inevitably does it grow thorns amongst its earliest roses, that even +that dawn of life when he had basked in the smiles of two living +parents, was troubled for <i>him</i> by a dark shadow that followed his steps +or ran before him, obscuring his light upon every path. This was Francis +Coleridge, one year older, that same boy whom his father had in his last +journey upon earth accompanied to Plymouth.</p> + +<p>We shall misconceive the character of Francis if we suppose him to have +been a boy of bad nature. He turned out a gallant young man, and +perished at twenty-one from over exertion in Mysore, during the first +war with Tippoo Sahib. How he came to be transferred from the naval to +the land service, is a romantic story, for which, as it has no relation +to <i>the</i> Coleridge, we cannot find room.</p> + +<p>In that particular relation, viz., to <i>the</i> Coleridge, Francis may seem +at first to have been unamiable, and especially since the little Samuel +was so entirely at the mercy of his superior hardiness and strength; +but, in fact, his violence arose chiefly from the contempt natural to a +bold adventurous nature for a nursery pet, and a contempt irritated by a +counter admiration which he could not always refuse. 'Frank,' says S. T. +C., looking back to these childish days, 'had a violent love of beating +me; but, whenever <i>that</i> was superseded by any humour or circumstances, +he was always very fond of me, and used to regard me with a strange +mixture of admiration and contempt. Strange it was not; for he hated +books, and loved climbing, fighting, playing, robbing orchards, to +distraction.'</p> + +<p>In the latter part of 1778, when S. T. C. was six<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> years old, and +recently admitted to King's School at Ottery, he and his brother George +(that brother to whom his early poems were afterwards dedicated) caught +a putrid fever at the same time. But on this occasion Frank displayed +his courageous kindness; for, in contempt of orders to the contrary, and +in contempt of the danger, he stole up to the bedside of little Samuel +and read Pope's 'Homer' to him. This made it evident that Frank's +partiality for thumping S. T. C. did really arise very much out of a +lurking love for him; since George, though a most amiable boy, and ill +of the same fever in another room, was left to get well in the usual +way, by medicine and slops, without any thumping certainly, but also +without any extra consolations from either Iliad or Odyssey. But what +ministered perpetual fuel to the thumping-mania of Francis Coleridge was +a furor of jealousy—strangely enough not felt by him, but felt <i>for</i> +him by his old privileged nurse. She could not inspire her own passions +into Francis, but she could point his scorn to the infirmities of his +rival. Francis had once reigned paramount in the vicarage as universal +pet. But he had been dethroned by Samuel, who now reigned in his stead. +Samuel felt no triumph at that revolution; Francis no anger. But the +nurse suffered the pangs of a baffled stepmother, and looked with +novercal eyes of hatred and disgust upon little Sam that had stolen away +the hearts of men and women from one that in <i>her</i> eyes was a thousand +times his superior. In that last point nurse was not so entirely wrong, +but that nine-tenths of the world (and therefore, we fear, of our +dearly-beloved readers) would have gone along with her, on which account +it is that we have forborne to call her 'wicked old nurse.' Francis +Coleridge, her own peculiar darling,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> was memorable for his beauty. All +the brothers were handsome—'remarkably handsome,' says S. T. C., 'but +<i>they</i>,' he adds, 'were as inferior to Francis as <i>I</i> am to <i>them</i>.'<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> +<p>Reading this and other descriptions of Frank Coleridge's beauty (in our +Indian army he was known as the <i>handsome Coleridge</i>), we are disposed +to cry out with Juliet,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dove-feathered raven!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>when we find how very nearly his thoughtless violence had hurried poor +S. T. C. into an early death. The story is told circumstantially by +Coleridge himself in one of the letters to Mr. Poole; nor is there any +scene more picturesque than this hasty sketch in Brookes's 'Fool of +Quality.' We must premise that S. T. C. had asked his mother for a +particular indulgence requiring some dexterity to accomplish. The +difficulty, however, through <i>her</i> cautious manipulations, had just been +surmounted, when Samuel left the room for a single instant, and found +upon his return that the beautiful Francis had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> confounded all Mama's +labours, and had defeated his own enjoyment. What followed is thus told +by Samuel nearly twenty years after: 'I returned, saw the exploit, and +flew at Frank. He pretended to have been seriously hurt by my blow, +flung himself upon the ground, and there lay with outstretched limbs.' +This is good comedy: the pugnacious Frank affecting to be an Abel, +killed by a blow from Cain such as doubtless would not have 'made a dint +in a pound of butter.' But wait a little. Samuel was a true penitent as +ever was turned off for fratricide at Newgate. 'I,' says the unhappy +murderer, 'hung over him mourning and in great fright;' but the murdered +Frank by accident came to life again. 'He leaped up, and with a hoarse +laugh gave me a severe blow in the face.' This was too much. To have +your grief flapped back in your face like a wet sheet is bad, but also +and at the same time to have your claret uncorked is unendurable. The +'Ancient Mariner,' then about seven years old, could not stand this. +'With <i>his</i> cross-bow'—no, stop! what are we saying? Nothing better +than a kitchen knife was at hand—and 'this,' says Samuel, 'I seized, +and was running at him, when my mother came in and took me by the arm. I +expected a whipping, and, struggling from her, I ran away to a little +hill or slope, at the bottom of which the Otter flows, about a mile from +Ottery. There I stayed, my rage died away; but my obstinacy vanquished +my fears, and taking out a shilling book, which had at the end morning +and evening prayers, I very devoutly repeated them, thinking at the same +time with a gloomy inward satisfaction how miserable my mother must be. +I distinctly remember my feelings when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the +bridge at about a furlong's distance, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> how I watched the calves in +the fields beyond the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was +towards the end of October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the +cold in my sleep, and dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, +and actually pulled over me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground +near me. In my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill till within +three yards of the river, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the +bottom. I awoke several times, and, finding myself wet and cold and +stiff, closed my eyes again that I might forget it.</p> + +<p>'In the meantime my mother waited about half an hour, expecting my +return when the <i>sulks</i> had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into +the churchyard and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the +boys were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain. My mother was +almost distracted, and at ten o'clock at night I was cried by the crier +in Ottery and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No +one went to bed; indeed, I believe half the town were up all the night. +To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was +broad awake, and attempted to get up and walk, but I could not move. I +saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance and cried, but so faintly +that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might +have lain and died, for I was now almost given over, the ponds, and even +the river (near which I was lying), having been dragged. But +providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night, +resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me +crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when +we met my father and Sir Stafford's servants. I remember, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> never +shall forget, my father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in the +servant's arms—so calm, and the tears stealing down his face, for I was +the child of his old age. My mother, as you may suppose, was outrageous +with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out, "<i>I hope you'll +whip him, Mrs. Coleridge</i>." This woman still lives at Ottery, and +neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the antipathy +which I feel towards her whenever I see her.' So says Samuel. We +ourselves have not yet seen this young lady, and now in 1849, +considering that it is about eighty years from the date of her +wickedness, it seems unlikely that we shall. But <i>our</i> antipathy we +declare to be also, alas! quite unconquerable by the latest supplements +to the Transcendental philosophy that we have yet received from +Deutschland. Whip the Ancient Mariner, indeed! A likely thing <i>that</i>: +and at the very moment when he was coming off such a hard night's duty, +and supporting a character which a classical Roman has pronounced to be +a spectacle for Olympus—viz., that of '<i>Puer bonus cum malâ-fortunâ +compositus</i>' (a virtuous boy matched in duel with adversity)! The sequel +of the adventure is thus reported: 'I was put to bed, and recovered in a +day or so. But I was certainly injured; for I was weakly and subject to +ague for many years after.' Yes; and to a worse thing than ague, as not +so certainly to be cured, viz., rheumatism. More than twenty years after +this cold night's rest, <i>à la belle étoile</i>, we can vouch that Coleridge +found himself obliged to return suddenly from a tour amongst the +Scottish Highlands solely in consequence of that painful rheumatic +affection, which was perhaps traceable to this childish misadventure. +Alas! Francis the beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> scamp, that caused the misadventure, and +probably the bad young lady that prescribed whipping as the orthodox +medicine for curing it, and the poor Ancient Mariner himself—that had +to fight his way through such enemies at the price of ague, rheumatism, +and tears uncounted—are all asleep at present, but in graves how widely +divided! One near London; one near Seringapatam; and the young lady, we +suppose, in Ottery churchyard, but her offence, though beyond the power +of Philosophy to pardon, is not remembered, we trust, in her epitaph!</p> + +<p>We are sorry that S. T. C. having been so much of a darling with his +father, and considering that he looked back to the brief connection +between them as solemnized by its pathetic termination, had not reported +some parts of their graver intercourse. One such fragment he does +report; it is an elementary lesson upon astronomy, which his father gave +him in the course of a walk upon a starry night. This is in keeping with +the grandeur and responsibility of the paternal relation. But really, in +the only other example (which immediately occurs) of Papa's attempt to +bias the filial intellect, we recognise nothing but what is mystical; +and involuntarily we think of him in the modern slang character of +'governor,' rather than as a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' It seems +that one Saturday, about the time when the Rev. Walker in Furness must +have been sitting down to his <i>exegesis</i> of hard sayings in the <i>Town +and Country Magazine</i>, the Rev. Coleridge thought fit to reward S. T. C. +for the most singular act of virtue that we have ever heard imputed to +man or boy—to 'saint, to savage, or to sage'—viz., the act of eating +beans and bacon to a large amount. The stress must be laid on the word +<i>large</i>; because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> simply to masticate beans and bacon, we do not +recollect to have been regarded with special esteem by the learned +vicar; it was the liberal consumption of them that entitled Samuel to +reward. That reward was one penny, so that in degree of merit, after +all, the service may not have ranked high. But what perplexes us is the +<i>kind</i> of merit. Did it bear some mystical or symbolic sense? Was it +held to argue a spirit of general rebellion against Philosophy, that S. +T. C. should so early in life, by one and the same act, proclaim +mutinous disposition towards two of the most memorable amongst earth's +philosophers—Moses and Pythagoras; of whom the latter had set his face +against beans, laying it down for his opinion that to eat beans and to +cut one's father's throat were acts of about equal atrocity; whilst the +other, who tolerated the beans, had expressly forbidden the bacon? We +are really embarrassed; finding the mere fact recorded with no further +declaration of the rev. governor's reasons, than that such an +'attachment' (an <i>attachment</i> to beans and bacon!) 'ought to be +encouraged'; but upon what principle we no more understand than we do +the principle of the <i>Quale-quare-quidditive</i> case.</p> + +<p>The letters in which these early memorabilia of Coleridge's life are +reported did not proceed beyond the fifth. We regret this greatly, for +they would have become instructively interesting as they came more and +more upon the higher ground of his London experience in a mighty world +of seven hundred boys—insulated in a sort of monastic but troubled +seclusion amongst the billowy world of London; a seclusion that in +itself was a wilderness to a home-sick child, but yet looking verdant as +an oasis amongst that other wilderness of the illimitable metropolis.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is good to be mamma's darling; but not, reader, if you are to leave +mamma's arms for a vast public school in childhood. It is good to be the +darling of a kind, pious, and learned father—but not if that father is +to be torn away from you for ever by a death without a moment's warning, +whilst as yet you yourself are but nine years old, and he has not +bestowed a thought on your future establishment in life. Upon poor S. T. +C. the Benjamin of his family, descended first a golden dawn within the +Paradise of his father's and his mother's smiles—descended secondly and +suddenly an overcasting hurricane of separation from both father and +mother for ever. How dreadful, if audibly declared, this sentence to a +poor nerve-shattered child: Behold! thou art commanded, before thy first +decennium is completed, to see father and mother no more, and to throw +thyself into the wilderness of London. Yet <i>that</i> was the destiny of +Coleridge. At nine years old he was precipitated into the stormy arena +of Christ's Hospital. Amongst seven hundred boys he was to fight his way +to distinction; and with no other advantages of favour or tenderness +than would have belonged to the son of a footman. Sublime are these +democratic institutions rising upon the bosom of aristocratic England. +Great is the people amongst whom the foundations of kings <i>can</i> assume +this popular character. But yet amidst the grandeur of a national +triumph is heard, at intervals, the moaning of individuals; and from +many a grave in London rises from time to time, in arches of sorrow +audible to God, the lamentation of many a child seeking to throw itself +round for comfort into some distant grave of the provinces, where rest +the ear and the heart of its mother.</p> + +<p>Concerning this chapter of Coleridge's childhood, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> have therefore at +present no vestige of any record beyond the exquisite sketches of his +schoolfellow, Charles Lamb. The five letters, however, though going over +so narrow a space, go far enough to throw a pathetic light upon +Coleridge's frailties of temperament. They indicate the sort of nervous +agitation arising from contradictory impulses, from love too tender, and +scorn too fretful, by which already in childish days the inner peace had +been broken up, and the nervous system shattered. This revelation, +though so unpretending and simple in manner, of the drama substantially +so fearful, that was constantly proceeding in a quiet and religious +parsonage—the bare possibility that sufferings so durable in their +effects should be sweeping with their eternal storms a heart so +capacious and so passively unresisting—are calculated to startle and to +oppress us with the sense of a fate long prepared, vested in the very +seeds of constitution and character; temperament and the effects of +early experience combining to thwart all the morning promise of +greatness and splendour; the flower unfolding its silken leaves only to +suffer canker and blight; and to hang withering on the stalk, with only +enough of grace and colour left to tell pathetically to all that looked +upon it what it might have been.</p> + + +<h3>EDITOR'S NOTE TO THIS ESSAY.</h3> + +<p>Certainly this idea of De Quincey about the misfortune to Coleridge of +the early loss of his father, separation from his mother, and removal +from Devon to London, is fully borne out by the more personal utterances +to be found in Coleridge's poems. Looking through them with this idea in +view, we are surprised at the deposit left in them by this conscious +experience on Coleridge's part. Not to dwell at all on what might be +very legitimately regarded as <i>indirect</i> expressions of the sentiment, +we shall present here, in order to add emphasis to De Quincey's +position, some of the extracts which have most impressed us. From the +poem in the Early Poems 'To an Infant,' are these lines:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Man's breathing miniature! thou mak'st me sigh—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A babe art thou—and such a thing am I,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To anger rapid and as soon appeased,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Still more emphatic is this passage from the poem, 'Frost at Midnight':</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With tender gladness thus to look at thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And in far other scenes! For I was reared<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By lakes and sandy shores beneath the crags<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mountain crags; so shalt thou see and hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that eternal language, which thy God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Utters, who from eternity doth teach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself in all and all things in Himself.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Great Universal Teacher! he shall mould<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In another place, when speaking of the love of mother for child and that +of child for mother, awakened into life by the very impress of that love +in voice and touch, he concludes with the line:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And, most significant of all, is that Dedication in 1803 of his Early +Poems to his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge of Ottery St. Mary, when +he writes, after having dwelt on the bliss this brother had enjoyed in +never having been really removed from the place of his early nurture:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A different fortune, and more different mind—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Me, from the spot where first I sprang to light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its first domestic loves; and hence, through life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dropped the collected shower: and some most false,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">False and fair-foliaged as the manchineel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have tempted me to slumber in their shade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That I woke poisoned! But (all praise to Him<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who gives us all things) more have yielded me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Permanent shelter: and beside one friend,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath the impervious covert of one oak<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I've raised a lowly shed and know the name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of husband and of father; not unhearing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which from my childhood to maturer years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bright with no fading colours!<br /></span> +<span class="i18">Yet, at times,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still most a stranger, most with naked heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When I remember thee, my earliest friend!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Did'st trace my wanderings with a father's eye;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, boding evil yet still hoping good,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rebuked each fault and over all my woes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sorrowed in silence!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And certainly all this only gains emphasis from the entry we have in the +'Table Talk' under date August 16, 1832, and under the heading, +'Christ's Hospital, Bowyer':</p> + +<p>'The discipline of Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan; all +domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Bowyer saying to +me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays. +"Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! +the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is +your first cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no +more crying!"'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Really now I can't say that. No; I couldn't have stood +Cruger's arguments. 'Ditto to Mr. Burke' is certainly not a very +brilliant observation, but still it's supportable, whereas I must have +found the pains of contradiction insupportable.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> This sublimest of all Greek poets did really die, as some +biographers allege, by so extraordinary and, as one may say, so +insulting a mistake on the part of an eagle.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> <i>Frankistan.</i>—There is no word, but perhaps Frankistan +might come nearest to such a word, for expressing the territory of +Christendom taken jointly with that of those Mahometan nations which +have for a long period been connected with Christians in their +hostilities, whether of arms or of policy. The Arabs and the Moors +belong to these nations, for the circle of their political system has +always been made up in part by a segment from Christendom, their +relations of war being still more involved with such a segment.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act I., Sc. 4. Mrs. Quickly: '... +An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house +withal; and I warrant you no tell-tale, nor no breed-hate; his worst +fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; +but nobody but has his fault—but let that pass.'—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> '<i>Pun them into shivers</i>': Troilus and Cressida, Act II., +Sc. 1. We refer specially to the jolly boatswain, having already noticed +the fact, that sailors as a class, from retaining more of the simplicity +and quick susceptibility belonging to childhood, are unusually fond of +waxen exhibitions. Too much worldly experience indisposes men to the +playfulness and to the <i>toyfulness</i> (if we may invent that word) of +childhood, not less through the ungenial churlishness which it gradually +deposits, than through the expansion of understanding which it +promotes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> '<i>Science not always fathomable.</i>' Several distinguished +Frenchmen have pursued a course of investigations into these fenestral +phenomena, which one might call the <i>Fata Morgana of Frost</i>; and, +amongst these investigators, some—not content with watching, observing, +recording—have experimented on these floral prolusions of nature by +arranging beforehand the circumstances and conditions into which and +under which the Frost Fairy should be allowed to play. But what was the +result? Did they catch the Fairy? Did they chase her into her secret +cells and workshops? Did they throw over the freedom of her motions a +harness of net-work of coercion as the Pagans over their pitiful +Proteus? So far from it, that the more they studied the less they +understood; and all the traps which they laid for the Fairy, did but +multiply her evasions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The passage occurs at p. 354, vol. ii. of the <i>Lectures</i>; +and we now find, on looking to the place, that the illustration is drawn +from 'a dell of lazy Sicily.' The same remark has virtually been +anticipated at p. 181 of the same volume in the rule about 'converting +mere abstractions into persons.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> It is true that Mr. De Quincey <i>did</i> make the mistake of +supposing Coleridge to have 'calculated on' a remark which Mrs. +Coleridge justly characterises as a blind one. It <i>was</i> blind as +compared with the fact resulting from grounds not then known; else it +was <i>not</i> blind as a reasonable inference under the same circumstances.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> If for the words 'more than fifteen years' we say sixteen +or seventeen, as Coleridge died in 1834, this article would be written +in 1850 or 1851.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> 'The Saintly Herbert,' the brother, oddly enough, of the +brilliant but infidel Lord Herbert of Cherbury; which lord was a +versatile man of talent, but not a man of genius like the humble +rustic—his unpretending brother.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> In saying this, Coleridge unduly disparaged his own +personal advantages. In youth, and before sorrow and the labour of +thought had changed him, he must have been of very engaging appearance. +The <i>godlike forehead</i>, which afterwards was ascribed to him, could not +have been wanting at any age. That exquisite passage in Wordsworth's +description of him, +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'And a pale face, that seem'd undoubtedly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if a blooming face it ought to be,'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +had its justification in those early days. If to be blooming was the +natural tendency and right of his face, blooming it then was, as we have +been assured by different women of education and taste, who saw him at +twenty-four in Bristol and Clifton. Two of these were friends of Hannah +More, and had seen all the world. They could judge: that is, they could +judge in conformity to the highest standards of taste; and both said, +with some enthusiasm, that he was a most attractive young man; one +adding, with a smile at the old pastoral name, 'Oh, yes, he was a +perfect Strephon.' Light he was in those days and agile as a feathered +Mercury; whereas he afterwards grew heavy and at times bloated; and at +that gay period of life his animal spirits ran up <i>naturally</i> to the +highest point on the scale; whereas in later life, when most +tempestuous, they seemed most artificial. That this, which was the +ardent testimony of females, was also the true one, might have been +gathered from the appearance of his children. Berkeley died an infant, +and him only we never saw. The sole daughter of Coleridge, as she +inherited so much of her father's intellectual power, inherited also the +diviner part of his features. The upper part of her face, at seventeen, +when last we saw her, seemed to us angelic, and pathetically angelic; +for the whole countenance was suffused by a pensive nun-like beauty too +charming and too affecting ever to be forgotten. Derwent, the youngest +son, we have not seen since boyhood, but at that period he had a +handsome cast of features, and (from all we can gather) the +representative cast of the Coleridge family. But Hartley, the eldest +son, how shall we describe <i>him</i>? He was most intellectual and he was +most eccentric, and his features expressed all that in perfection. +Southey, in his domestic playfulness, used to call him the <i>Knave of +Spades</i>; and he certainly <i>had</i> a resemblance to that well-known young +gentleman. But really we do not know that it would have been at all +better to resemble the knave of hearts. And it must be remembered that +the knave of spades may have a brother very like himself, and yet a +hundred times handsomer. There <i>are</i> such things as handsome likenesses +of very plain people. Some folks pronounced Hartley Coleridge too +Jewish. But to be a Jew is to be an Arab. And our own feeling was, when +we met Hartley at times in solitary or desolate places of Westmoreland +and Cumberland, that here was a son of Ishmael walking in the wilderness +of Edom. The coruscating <i>nimbus</i> of his curling and profuse black hair, +black as erebus, strengthened the Saracen impression of his features and +complexion. He wanted only a turban on his head, and a spear in his +right hand, to be perfect as a Bedouin. But it affected us as all things +are affecting which record great changes, to hear that for a long time +before his death this black hair had become white as the hair of +infancy. Much sorrow and much thought had been the worms that gnawed the +roots of that raven hair; that, in Wordsworth's fine way of expressing +the very same fact as to Mary Queen of Scots: +</p> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Kill'd the bloom before its time,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And blanch'd, without the owner's crime,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The most resplendent hair.'<br /></span> +</div></div> +<p> +Ah, wrecks of once blooming nurseries, that from generation to +generation, from John Coleridge the apostolic to S. T. C. the sunbright, +and from S. T. C. the sunbright to Hartley the starry, lie scattered +upon every shore!</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE.</i></h2> + + +<p>In attempting to appraise Mr. Finlay's work comprehensively, there is +this difficulty. It comes before us in two characters; first, as a +philosophic speculation upon history, to be valued against others +speculating on other histories; secondly, as a guide, practical +altogether and not speculative, to students who are navigating that +great trackless ocean the <i>Eastern</i> Roman history. Now under either +shape, this work traverses so much ground, that by mere multiplicity of +details it denies to us the opportunity of reporting on its merits with +that simplicity of judgment which would have been available in a case of +severer unity. So many separate situations of history, so many critical +continuations of political circumstances, sweep across the field of Mr. +Finlay's telescope whilst sweeping the heavens of four centuries, that +it is naturally impossible to effect any comprehensive abstractions, as +to principles, from cases individual by their nature and separated by +their period not less than by their relations in respect to things and +persons. The mere necessity of the plan in such a work ensures a certain +amount of dissent on the part of every reader; he that most frequently +goes along with the author in his commentary, will repeatedly find +himself diverging from it in one point or demurring to its inferences in +another.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> Such, in fact, is the eternal disadvantage for an author upon +a subject which recalls the remark of Juvenal:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Vester porro labor fecundior, historiarum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scriptores: petit hic plus temporis, atque olei plus:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sic <i>ingens rerum numerus</i> jubet, atque operum lex.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is this <i>ingens rerum numerus</i> that constitutes at once the +attraction of these volumes, and the difficulty of dealing with them in +any adequate or satisfactory manner.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the vistas opened up by Mr. Finlay are infinite; in <i>that</i> sense +it is that he ascribes inexhaustibility to the trackless savannahs of +history. These vast hunting-grounds for the imaginative understanding +are in fact but charts and surveyors' outlines meagre and arid for the +timid or uninspired student. To a grander intellect these historical +delineations are not maps but pictures: they compose a forest +wilderness, veined and threaded by sylvan lawns, 'dark with horrid +shades,' like Milton's haunted desert in the 'Paradise Regained,' at +many a point looking back to the towers of vanishing Jerusalem, and like +Milton's desert, crossed dimly at uncertain intervals by forms doubtful +and (considering the character of such awful deserts) suspicious.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the reader, being rather 'dense,' does not understand, but we +understand ourselves, which is the root of the matter. Let us try again: +these historical delineations are not lifeless facts, bearing no sense +or moral value, but living realities organized into the unity of some +great constructive idea.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we are obscure; and possibly (though it is treason in a writer +to hint such a thing, as tending to produce hatred or disaffection +towards his liege lord who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> is and must be his reader), yet, perhaps, +even the reader—that great character—may be 'dense.' 'Dense' is the +word used by young ladies to indicate a slight shade—a <i>soupçon</i>—of +stupidity; and by the way it stands in close relationship of sound to +<i>Duns</i>, the schoolman, who (it is well known) shared with King Solomon +the glory of furnishing a designation for men weak in the upper +quarters. But, reader, whether the fault be in you or in ourselves, +certain it is that the truth which we wish to communicate is not +trivial; it is the noblest and most creative of truths, if only we are +not a Duns Scholasticus for explanation, nor you (most excellent +reader!) altogether a Solomon for apprehension. Therefore, again lend us +your ears.</p> + +<p>It is not, it has not been, perhaps it never will be, understood—how +vast a thing is combination. We remember that Euler, and some other +profound Prussians, such as Lambert, etc., tax this word <i>combination</i> +with a fault: for, say they, it indicates that composition of things +which proceeds two by two (viz., com-<i>bina</i>); whereas three by three, +ten by ten, fifty by fifty, is combination. It is so. But, once for all, +language is so difficult a structure, being like a mail-coach and four +horses required to turn round Lackington's counter<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a>—required in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> one +syllable to do what oftentimes would require a sentence—that it must +use the artifices of a short-hand. The word <i>bini-æ-a</i> is here but an +exponential or representative word: it stands for any number, for +<i>number</i> in short generally as opposed to unity. And the secret truth +which some years ago we suggested, but which doubtless perished as +pearls to swine, is, that com<i>bina</i>tion, or com<i>terna</i>tion, or +com<i>quaterna</i>tion, or com<i>dena</i>tion, possesses a mysterious virtue quite +unobserved by men. All knowledge is probably within its keeping. What we +mean is, that where A is not capable simply of revealing a truth +(<i>i.e.</i>, by way of direct inference), very possible it is that A viewed +by the light of B (<i>i.e.</i>, in some mode of combination with B) shall be +capable; but again, if A + B cannot unlock the case, these in +combination with C shall do so. And if not A + B + C, then, perhaps, +shall A + B + C combined with D; and so on <i>ad infinitum</i>; or in other +words that pairs, or binaries, ternaries, quaternaries, and in that mode +of progression will furnish keys intricate enough to meet and to +decipher the wards of any lock in nature.</p> + +<p>Now, in studying history, the difficulty is about the delicacy of the +lock, and the mode of applying the key. We doubt not that many readers +will view all this as false refinement. But hardly, if they had much +considered the real experimental cases in history. For instance, suppose +the condition of a people known as respects (1) civilization, as +respects (2) relation to the sovereign, (3) the prevailing mode of its +industry, (4) its special circumstances as to taxation, (5) its physical +conformation and temperament, (6) its local circumstances as to +neighbours warlike or not warlike, (7) the quality and depth of its +religion, (8) the framework of its jurisprudence, (9) the machinery by +which these laws<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> are made to act, (10) the proportion of its towns to +its rural labour, and the particular action of its police; these and +many other items, elements, or secondary features of a people being +known, it yet remains unknown which of these leads, which is inert, and +of those which are not inert in what order they arrange their action. +The <i>principium movendi</i>, the central force which organizes and assigns +its place in the system to all the other forces, these are quite +undetermined by any mere arithmetical recitation of the agencies +concerned. Often these primary principles can be deduced only +tentatively, or by a regress to the steps, historically speaking, +through which they have arisen. Sometimes, for instance, the population, +as to its principle of expansion, and as to its rate, together with the +particular influence socially of the female sex, exercises the most +prodigious influence on the fortunes of a nation, and its movement +backwards or forwards. Sometimes again as in Greece (from the oriental +seclusion of women) these causes limit their own action, until they +become little more than names.</p> + +<p>In such a case it is essential that the leading outlines at least should +be definite; that the coast line and the capes and bays should be +well-marked and clear, whatever may become of the inland waters, and the +separate heights in a continuous chain of mountains.</p> + +<p>But we are not always sure that we understand Mr. Finlay, even in the +particular use which he makes of the words 'Greece' and 'Grecian.' +Sometimes he means beyond a doubt the people of Hellas and the Ægean +islands, as <i>opposed</i> to the mixed population of Constantinople. +Sometimes he means the Grecian element as opposed to the Roman element +<i>in</i> the composition of this mixed Byzantine population. In this case +the Greek<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> does not mean (as in the former case) the non-Byzantine, but +the Byzantine. Sometimes he means by preference that vast and most +diffusive race which throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, the Euxine and +the Euphrates, represented the Græco-Macedonian blood from the time of +Alexander downwards. But why should we limit the case to an origin from +this great Alexandrian æra? Then doubtless (330 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>) it received a +prodigious expansion. But already, in the time of Herodotus (450 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>), +this Grecian race had begun to sow itself broadcast over Asia and +Africa. The region called <i>Cyrenaica</i> (viz., the first region which you +would traverse in passing from the banks of the Nile and the Pyramids to +Carthage and to Mount Atlas, <i>i.e.</i>, Tunis, Algiers, Fez and Morocco, or +what we now call the Barbary States) had been occupied by Grecians +nearly seven hundred years before Christ. In the time of Crœsus (say +560 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>) it is clear that Grecians were swarming over Lydia and the +whole accessible part of Asia Minor. In the time of Cyrus the younger +(say 404 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>) his Grecian allies found their fiercest opponents in +Grecian soldiers of Artaxerxes. In the time of Alexander, just a +septuagint of years from the epoch of this unfortunate Cyrus, the most +considerable troops of Darius were Greeks. The truth is, that, though +Greece was at no time very populous, the prosperity of so many little +republics led to as ample a redundancy of Grecian population as was +compatible with Grecian habits of life; for, deceive not yourself, the +<i>harem</i>, what we are accustomed to think of as a Mahometan institution, +existed more or less perfectly in Greece by seventeen centuries at least +antecedently to Mahometanism. Already before Homer, before Troy, before +the Argonauts, woman was an abject, dependent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> chattel in Greece, and +living in nun-like seclusion. There is so much of <i>intellectual</i> +resemblance between Greece and Rome, shown in the two literatures, the +two religions, and the structure of the two languages, that we are apt +to overlook radical repulsion between their <i>moral</i> systems. But such a +repulsion did exist, and the results of its existence are 'writ large' +in the records, if they are studied with philosophic closeness and +insight, and could be illustrated in many ways had we only time and +space for such an exercise. But we must hurry on to remark that Mr. +Finlay's indefiniteness in the use of the terms 'Greece' and 'Grecian' +is almost equalled by his looseness in dealing with institutions and the +principles which determined their character. He dwells meditatively upon +that tenacity of life which he finds to characterize them—a tenacity +very much dependent upon physical<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> circumstances, and in that respect +so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> memorably inferior to the social economy of Jewish existence, that +we have been led to dwell with some interest upon the following +distinctions as applicable to the political existence of all nations who +are in any degree civilized. It seems to us that three forces, amongst +those which influence the movement of nations, are practically +paramount; viz., first, the <i>legislation</i> of a people; secondly, the +<i>government</i> of a people; thirdly, the <i>administration</i> of a people. By +the quality of its legislation a people is moulded to this or that +character; by the quality of its government a people is applied to this +or that great purpose; by the quality of its administration a people is +made disposable readily and instantly and completely for every purpose +lying within the field of public objects. <i>Legislation</i> it is which +shapes or qualifies a people, endowing them with such qualities as are +more or less fitted for the ends likely to be pursued by a national +policy, and for the ends suggested by local relations when combined with +the new aspects of the times. <i>Government</i> it is which turns these +qualifications to account, guiding them upon the new line of tendencies +opening spontaneously ahead, or (as sometimes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> we see) upon new +tendencies created deliberately and by forethought. But <i>administration</i> +it is which organizes between the capacities of the people on the one +hand, and the enlightened wishes of the government on the other—that +intermediate <i>nexus</i> of social machinery without which both the amplest +powers in a nation and the noblest policy in a government must equally +and continually fall to the ground. A general system of instruments, or +if we may use the word, system of instrumentation and concerted +arrangements—behold the one sole <i>conditio sine qua non</i> for giving a +voice to the national interests, for giving a ratification to the +national will, for giving mobility to the national resources. Amongst +these three categories which we have here assigned as summing up the +relations of the public will in great nations to the total system of +national results, this last category of <i>administration</i> is that which +(beyond the rest) postulates and presupposes vast developments of +civilization. Instincts of nature, under favourable circumstances, as +where the national mind is bold, the temper noble, veracity adorning the +speech, and simplicity the manners, may create and <i>have</i> created good +elementary laws; whilst it is certain that, where any popular freedom +exists, the government must resemble and reflect the people. Hence it +cannot be denied that, even in semi-barbarous times, good legislation +and good government may arise. But good administration is not +conceivable without the aids of high civilization. How often have piracy +by sea, systematic robbery by land, tainted as with a curse the +blessings of life and property in great nations! Witness the state of +the Mediterranean under the Cilicians during the very sunset of Marius; +or, again, of the Caribbean seas, in spite of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> vast Spanish empire, of +Buccaneers and Filibusters. Witness Bagandæ in Roman Spain, or the cloud +of robbers gathering in France through twelve centuries after <i>every</i> +period of war; witness the scourges of public peace in Italy, were it in +papal Rome or amongst the Fra Diavolos of Naples.</p> + +<p>We believe that, so far from possessing any stronger principle of +vitality than the Roman institutions, those of Greece Proper (meaning +those originally and authentically Greek) had any separate advantage +only when applied locally. They were essentially <i>enchorial</i> +institutions, and even <i>physically</i> local (<i>i.e.</i>, requiring the same +place as well as the same people); just as the ordinances of Mahomet +betray his unconscious frailty and ignorance by presuming and +postulating a Southern climate as well as an Oriental temperament. The +Greek usages and traditionary monuments of civilization had adapted +themselves from the first to the singular physical conformation of +Hellas—as a 'nook-shotten'<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> land, nautically accessible and laid +down in seas that were studded with islands systematically adjusted to +the continental circumstances, whilst internally her mountainous +structure had split up almost the whole of her territory into separate +chambers or wards, predetermining from the first that galaxy of little +republics into which her splintered community threw itself by means of +the strong mutual repulsion derived originally from battlements of +hills, and, secondarily, from the existing state of the military art. +Having these advantages to begin with, reposing upon these foundations, +the Greek civil organization sustained itself undoubtedly through an +astonishing tract of time; before the ship <i>Argo</i> it had commenced; +under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> the Ottoman Turks it still survived: for even in the Trojan æra, +and in the pre-Trojan or Argonautic æra, already (and perhaps for many +centuries before) the nominal kingdoms were virtually republics, the +princes being evidently limited in their authority by the 'sensus +communis' of the body politic almost as much as the Kings of Sparta were +from the time of Lycurgus to the extinction of the Peloponnesian +independence.</p> + +<p>Accidents, therefore, although accidents of a permanent order (being +founded in external nature), gave to Greece a very peculiar advantage. +On her own dunghill her own usages had a tenacity of life such as is +seen in certain weeds (couch-grass, for instance). This natural +advantage, by means of intense local adaptation, did certainly prove +available for Greece, under the circumstances of a hostile invasion. +Even had the Persian invasion succeeded, it is possible that Grecian +civilization would still have survived the conquest, and would have +predominated, as actually it did in Ionia, etc.</p> + +<p>So far our views seem to flow in the channel of Mr. Finlay's. But these +three considerations occur:</p> + +<p>1st. That oftentimes Greece escaped the ravages of barbarians, not so +much by any quality of her civil institutions, whether better or worse, +as by her geographical position. It is 'a far cry to Loch Awe'; and had +Timon of Athens together with Apemantus clubbed their misanthropies, +joint and several, there would hardly have arisen an impetus strong +enough to carry an enemy all the way from the Danube to the Ilyssus; yet +so far, at least, every European enemy of Thebes and Athens had to +march. Nay, unless Monsieur le Sauvage happened to possess the mouths of +the Danube, so as to float down 'by the turn of tide' through the +Euxine, Bosphorus,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> Propontis, Hellespont, etc., he would think twice +before he would set off a-gallivanting to the regions of the South, +where certainly much sunshine was to be had of undeniable quality, but +not much of anything else. The Greeks were never absolute paupers, +because, however slender their means, their social usages never led to +any Irish expansion of population; but under no circumstances of +government were they or could they have been rich. Plunder therefore, +that could be worth packing and cording, there was little or none in +Greece. People do not march seven hundred miles to steal old curious +bedsteads, swarming, besides, with fleas. Sculptured plate was the +thing. And, from the times of Sylla, <i>that</i> had a strange gravitation +towards Rome. It is, besides, worth noticing—as a general rule in the +science of robbery—that it makes all the difference in the world which +end of a cone is presented to the robber. Beginning at the apex of a +sugar-loaf, and required to move rapidly onwards to the broad basis +where first he is to halt and seek his booty, the robber locust advances +with hope and cheerfulness. Invert this order, and from the vast base of +the Danube send him on to the promontory of Sunium—a tract perpetually +dwindling in its breadth through 500 miles—and his reversion of booty +grows less valuable at every step. Yet even this feature was not the +most comfortless in the case. That the zone of pillage should narrow +with every step taken towards its proper ground, this surely was a bad +look-out. But it was a worse, that even this poor vintage lay hid and +sheltered under the Ægis of the empire. The whole breadth of the empire +on that side of the Mediterranean was to be traversed before one cluster +of grapes could be plucked from Greece; whereas, upon all the horns of +the Western<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> Empire, plunder commenced from the moment of crossing the +frontier. Here, therefore, lies one objection to the supposed excellence +of Grecian institutions: they are valued, upon Mr. Finlay's scale, by +their quality of elastic rebound from violence and wrong; but, in order +that this quality might be truly tested, they ought to have been equally +and fairly tried: now, by comparison with the Western provinces, that +was a condition not capable of being realized for Greece, having the +position which she had.</p> + +<p>2ndly. The reader will remark that the argument just used is but +negative: it does not positively combat the superiority claimed for the +Greek organization; that superiority may be all that it is described to +be; but it is submitted that perhaps the manifestation of this advantage +was not made on a sufficient breadth of experiment.</p> + +<p>Now let us consider this. Upon the analogy of any possible precedent, +under which Rome could be said to have taken seven centuries in +unfolding her power, our Britain has taken almost fourteen. So long is +the space between the first germination of Anglo-Saxon institutions and +the present expansion of British power over the vast regions of +Hindostan. Most true it is that a very small section of this time and a +very small section of British energies has been applied separately to +the Indian Empire. But precisely the same distinction holds good in the +Roman case. The total expansion of Rome travelled, perhaps, through +eight centuries; but five of these spent themselves upon the mere +<i>domestic</i> growth of Rome; during five she did not so much as attempt +any foreign appropriation. And in the latter three, during which she +did, we must figure to ourselves the separate<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> ramifications of her +influence as each involving a very short cycle indeed of effort or +attention, though collectively involving a long space, separately as +involving a very brief one. If the eye is applied to each conquest +itself, nothing can exhibit less of a slow or gradual expansion than the +Roman system of conquest. It was a shadow which moved so rapidly on the +dial as to be visible and alarming. Had newspapers existed in those +days, or had such a sympathy bound nations together<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a> as could have +supported newspapers, a vast league would have been roused by the +advance of Rome. Such a league <i>was</i> formed where something of this +sympathy existed. The kingdoms formed out of the inheritance of +Alexander being in a sense Grecian kingdoms—Grecian in their language, +Grecian by their princes, Grecian by their armies (in their privileged +sections)—<i>did</i> become alarming to the Greeks. And what followed? The +Achæan league, which, in fact, produced the last heroes of +Greece—Aratus, Philopœmen, Cleomenes. But as to Rome, she was too +obscure, too little advertised as a danger, to be separately observed. +But, partly, this arose from her rapidity. Macedonia was taken +separately from Greece. Sicily, which was the advanced port of Greece to +the West, had early fallen as a sort of appanage to the Punic struggle. +And all the rest followed by insensible degrees. In Syria, and again in +Pontus, and in Macedonia, three great kingdoms which to Greece seemed +related rather as enemies than as friends, and which therefore roused no +spirit of resistance in Greece, through Rome had already withdrawn all +the contingent proper from Greece. Had these powers concerted with Egypt +and with Greece<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> a powerful league, Rome would have been thrown back +upon her Western chambers.</p> + +<p>The reason why the Piratic power arose, we suppose to have been this, +and also the reason why such a power was not viewed as extra-national. +The nautical profession as such flowed in a channel altogether distinct +from the martial profession. It was altogether and exclusively +commercial in its general process. Only, upon peculiar occasions arose a +necessity for a nautical power as amongst the resources of empire. +Carthage reared upon the basis of her navy, as had done Athens, Rhodes, +Tyre, some part of her power: and Rome put forth so much of this power +as sufficed to meet Carthage. But that done, we find no separate +ambition growing up in Rome and directing itself to naval war. +Accidentally, when the war arose between Cæsar and Pompey, it became +evident that for rapidly transferring armies and for feeding these +armies, a navy would be necessary. And Cicero, but for <i>this crisis</i>, +and not as a <i>general</i> remark, said—that 'necesse est qui mare tenuit +rerum potiri.'</p> + +<p>Hence it happened—that as no permanent establishment could arise where +no permanent antagonist could be supposed to exist—oftentimes, and +indeed always, unless when some new crisis arose, the Roman navy went +down. In one of these intervals arose the Cilician piracy. Mr. Finlay +suggests that in part it arose out of the fragments from Alexander's +kingdoms, recombining: partly out of the Isaurian land pirates already +established, and furnished with such astonishing natural fortresses as +existed nowhere else if we except those aërial caves—a sort of mountain +nests on the side of declivities, which Josephus describes as harbouring +Idumean enemies of Herod the Great, against whom he was obliged to +fight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> by taking down warriors in complete panoply ensconced in baskets +suspended by chains; and partly arising on the temptation of rich +booties in the commerce of the Levant, or of rich temples on shore +amidst unwarlike populations. These elements of a warlike form were +required as the means of piracy, these fortresses and Isaurian caves as +the resources of piracy, these notorious cargoes or temples stored with +wealth as temptations to piracy, before a public nuisance could arise +demanding a public chastisement. And yet, because this piracy had a +local settlement and nursery, it seemed hardly consonant to the spirit +of public (or international) law, that all civil rights should be denied +them.</p> + +<p>Not without reason, not without a profound purpose, did Providence +ordain that our two great precedents upon earth should be Greece and +Rome. In all planets, if you could look into them, doubt not (oh, reader +of ours!) that something exists answering to Greece and Rome. Odd it +would be—<i>curioes</i>! as the Germans say—if in Jupiter—or Venus—those +precedents should exist under the same <i>names</i> of Greece and Rome. Yet, +why not? Jovial—and Venereal—people may be better in some things than +our people (which, however, we doubt), but certainly a better language +than the Greek man cannot have invented in either planet. Falling back +from cases so low and so lofty (Venus an inferior, Jupiter a far +superior planet) to our own case, the case of poor mediocre Tellurians, +perhaps the reader thinks that other nations might have served the +purpose of Providentia. Other nations might have furnished those +Providential models which the great drama of earth required. No. +Haughtily and despotically we say it—No. Take France. <i>There</i> is a +noble nation. We honour it exceedingly for that heroic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> courage which on +a morning of battle does not measure the strength of the opposition; +which, when an enemy issues from the darkness of a wood, does not stop +to count noses, but like that noblest of animals, the British bull-dog, +flies at his throat, careless whether a leopard, a buffalo, or a tiger +of Bengal. This we vehemently admire. This we feel to be an echo, an +iteration, of our own leonine courage, concerning which—take you note +of this, oh, chicken-hearted man! (if any such is amongst <i>our</i> +readers)—that God sees it with pleasure, blesses it, and calls it 'very +good!' Next, when we come to think at odd times of that other courage, +the courage of fidelity, which stands for hours under the storm of a +cannonade—British courage, Russian courage—in mere sincerity we cannot +ascribe this to the Gaul. All this is true: we feel that the French is +an imperfect nation. But suppose it <i>not</i> imperfect, would the French +therefore have fulfilled for us the mission of the Greek and the Roman? +Undoubtedly they would not. Far enough are we from admiring either Greek +or Roman in that degree to which the ignorance, but oftener the +hypocrisy, of man has ascended.</p> + +<p>We, reader, are misanthropical—intensely so. No luxury known amongst +men—neither the paws of bears nor the tails of sheep—to us is so sweet +and dear as that of hating (yet much oftener of despising) our excellent +fellow-creatures. Oftentimes we exclaim in our dreams, where excuse us +for expressing our multitude by unity, 'Homo sum; humani nihil mihi +tolerandum puto.' We kick backwards at the human race, we spit upon +them; we void our rheum upon their ugly gaberdines. Consequently we do +not love either Greek or Roman; we regard them in some measure as +humbugs. But although<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> it is no cue of ours to admire them (viz., in any +English sense of that word known to Entick's Dictionary), yet in a +Grecian or Roman sense we may say that θαυμαζομεν, +<i>admiramur</i>, both of these nations: we marvel, we wonder at them +exceedingly. Greece we shall omit, because to talk of the arts, and +Phidias, and Pericles, and '<i>all that</i>,' is the surest way yet +discovered by man for tempting a vindictive succession of kicks. Exposed +to the world, no author of such twaddle could long evade assassination. +But Rome is entitled to some separate notice, even after all that has +been written about her. And the more so in this case, because Mr. Finlay +has scarcely done her justice. He says: 'The Romans were a tribe of +warriors. All their institutions, even those relating to property, were +formed with reference to war.' And he then goes on to this invidious +theory of their history—that, as warriors, they overthrew the local +institutions of all Western nations, these nations being found by the +Romans in a state of civilization much inferior to their own. But +eastwards, when conquering Greece, her institutions they did <i>not</i> +overthrow. And what follows from that memorable difference? Why, that in +after days, when hives of barbarians issued from central Europe, all the +Western provinces (as not cemented by any native and home-bred +institutions, but fighting under the harness of an exotic organization) +sank before them; whereas Greece, falling back on the natural resources +of a system self-evolved and <i>local</i>, or epichorial in its origin, not +only defied these German barbarians for the moment, but actually after +having her throat cut in a manner rose up magnificently (as did the +Lancashire woman after being murdered by the M'Keans of Dumfries)<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a>, +staggered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> along for a considerable distance, and then (as the +Lancashire woman did not) mounted upon skates, and skated away into an +azure infinite of distance (quite forgetting her throat), so as to—do +what? It is really frightful to mention: so as to come safe and sound +into the nineteenth century, leaping into the centre of us all like the +ghost of a patriarch, setting her arms a-kimbo, and crying out: 'Here I +come from a thousand years before Homer.' All this is really true and +undeniable. It is past contradiction, what Mr. Finlay says, that Greece, +having weathered the following peoples, to wit, the Romans; secondly, +the vagabonds who persecuted the Romans for five centuries; thirdly, the +Saracens; fourthly and fifthly, the Ottoman Turks and Venetians; +sixthly, the Latin princes of Constantinople—not to speak seventhly and +eighthly of Albanian or Egyptian Ali Pashas, or ninthly, of Joseph Humes +and Greek loans, is now, viz., in March, 1844, alive and kicking. Think +of a man, reader, at a <i>soirée</i> in the heavenly spring of '44 (for +heavenly it <i>will</i> be), wearing white kid gloves, and descended from +Deucalion or Ogyges!</p> + +<p>Amongst the great changes wrought in every direction by Constantine, it +is not to be supposed that Mr. Finlay could overlook those which applied +a new organization to the army. Rome would not be Rome; even a product +of Rome would not be legitimate; even an offshoot from Rome would be of +suspicious derivation, which <i>could</i> find that great master-wheel of the +state machinery a secondary force in its system. It is wonderful to mark +the martial destiny of all which inherited, or upon any line descended +from Rome in every age of that mighty evolution. War not barbaric, war +exquisitely systematic, war according to the vigour of all science as +yet published to man, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> the talisman by which Rome and the children +of Rome prospered: the S.P.Q.R. on the legionary banners was the sign +set in the rubric of the heavens by which the almighty nation, looking +upwards, read her commission from above: and if ever that sign shall +grow pale, then look for the coming of the end, whispered the prophetic +heart of Rome to herself even from the beginning. But are not all great +kingdoms dependent on their armies? No. Some have always been protected +by their remoteness, many by their adjacencies. Germany, in the first +century from Augustus, retreated into her mighty forests when closely +pressed, and in military phrase 'refused herself' to the pursuer. Persia +sheltered herself under the same tactics for ages;<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> scarcely needed +to fight, unless she pleased, and, when she did so, fought in alliance +with famine—with thirst—and with the confusion of pathless deserts. +Other empires, again, are protected by their infinity; America was found +to have no local existence by ourselves: she was nowhere because she was +everywhere. Russia had the same illimitable ubiquity for Napoleon. And +Spain again is so singularly placed with regard to France, a chamber +within a chamber, that she cannot be approached by any power not +maritime except on French permission. Manifold are the defensive +resources of nations beyond those of military systems. But for the Roman +empire, a ring fence around the Mediterranean lake, and hemmed in upon +every quarter of that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> vast circuit by an <i>indago</i> of martial hunters, +nature and providence had made it the one sole available policy to stand +for ever under arms, eternally 'in procinctu,' and watching from the +specular altitude of her centre upon which radius she should slip her +wolves to the endless circumference.</p> + +<p>Mr. Finlay, in our judgment, not only allows a most disproportionate +weight to vicious taxation, which is but one wheel amongst a vast system +of wheels in the machinery of administration, and which, like many +similar agencies, tends oftentimes to react by many corrections upon its +own derangements; but subsequently he views as through a magnifying +glass even these original exaggerations when measured upon the scale of +moral obligations. Not only does false taxation ruin nations and defeat +the possibility of self-defence—which is much—but it cancels the +duties of allegiance. He tells us (p. 408) that 'amidst the ravages of +the Goths, Huns, and Avars, the imperial tax-gatherers had never failed +to enforce payment of the tribute as long as anything remained +undestroyed; though according to the rules of justice, the Roman +government had really forfeited its right to levy the taxes, as soon as +it failed to perform its duty in defending the population.' We do not +believe that the government succeeded in levying tribute vigorously +under the circumstances supposed; the science and machinery of +administration were far from having realized that degree of exquisite +skill. But, if the government <i>had</i> succeeded, we cannot admit that this +relation of the parties dissolved their connection. To have failed at +any time in defending a province or an outwork against an overwhelming +enemy, <i>that</i> for a prince or for a minister is a great misfortune. +Shocking indeed it were if this misfortune could be lawfully +interpreted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> as his crime, and made the parent of a second misfortune, +ratifying the first by authorizing revolt of the people; and the more +so, as that first calamity would encourage traitors everywhere to +prepare the way for the second as a means of impunity for their own +treason. In the prospect of escaping at once from the burdens of war, +and from the penalties of broken vows to their sovereign, multitudes +would from the first enter into compromise and collusion with an +invader; and in this way they would create the calamity which they +charged upon their rulers as a desertion; they would create the +embarrassments for their government by which they hoped to profit, and +they would do this with an eye to the reversionary benefit anticipated +under the maxim here set up. True, they would often find their heavy +disappointment in the more grievous yoke of that invader whom they had +aided. But the temptation of a momentary gain would always exist for the +improvident many, if such a maxim were received into the law of nations; +and, if it would not always triumph, we should owe it in that case to +the blessing that God has made nations proud. Even in the case where men +had received a license from public law for deserting their sovereign, +thanks be to the celestial pride which is in man, few and anomalous +would be the instances in which they really <i>would</i> do so. In reality it +must be evident that, under such a rule of Publicists, subjects must +stand in perpetual doubt whether the case had emerged or not which law +contemplated as the dissolution of their fealty. No man would say that a +province was licensed to desert, because the central government had lost +a battle. But a whole campaign, or ten campaigns, would stand in the +same predicament as a solitary battle, so long as the struggle was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> +formally renounced by the sovereign. How many years of absolute +abandonment might justify a provincial people in considering themselves +surrendered to their own discretion, is a question standing on the +separate circumstances of each separate case. But generally it may be +said, that a ruler will be presumed justly <i>not</i> to have renounced the +cause of resistance so long as he makes no treaty or compromise with the +enemy, and so long as he desists from open resistance only through +momentary exhaustion, or with a view to more elaborate preparation. +Would ten battles, would a campaign, would ten campaigns lost, furnish +the justifying motive? Certainly it would be a false casuistry that +would say so.</p> + +<p>Why did the Romans conquer the Greeks? By <i>why</i> we mean, Upon what +principle did the children of Romulus overthrow the children of Ion, +Dorus, Æolus? Why did not these overthrow those? We, speak <i>Latino +more</i>—Vellem ostenderes quare <i>hi</i> non profligaverint <i>illos</i>? The +answer is brief: the Romans were <i>one</i>, the Greeks were <i>many</i>. Whilst +no weighty pressure from without had assaulted Greece, it was of +particular service to that little rascally system that they were split +into sections more than ever we <i>have</i> counted or mean to count. They +throve by mutual repulsion, according to the ballad:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When Captain X. kick'd Miss Roe, Miss Roe kick'd Captain X. again.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Internally, for pleasant little domestic quarrels, the principle of +division was excellent; because, as often as the balance tended to +degravitation (a word we learned, as Juliet tells her nurse, 'from one +we danc'd withal'), <i>instanter</i> it was redressed and trimmed by some +renegade going over to the suffering side. People talk of Athens being<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> +beaten by the Spartans in the person of Lysander; and the vulgar notion +is, that the Peloponnesian war closed by an eclipse total and central +for our poor friend Athens. Nonsense! she had life left in her to kick +twenty such donkeys to death; and, if you look a very little ahead, +gazettes tell you, that before the peace of Antalcidas, those villains, +the Spartans (whom may heaven confound!) had been licked almost too +cruelly by the Athenians. And there it is that we insist upon closing +that one great intestine<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> war of the Greeks. So of other cases: +absolute defeat, final overthrow, we hold to be impossible for a Grecian +state, as against a Grecian state, under the conditions which existed +from the year 500 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> But when a foreign enemy came on, the +possibilities might alter. The foreigner, being one, and for the moment +at least united, would surely have a great advantage over the crowd of +little pestilent villains—right and left—that would be disputing the +policy of the case. There lay the original advantage of the Romans; +<i>one</i> they were, and <i>one</i> they were to the end of Roman time. Did you +ever hear of a Roman, unless it were Sertorius, that fought against +Romans? Whereas, scoundrel Greeks were always fighting against their +countrymen. Xenophon, in Persia, Alexander, seventy years later, met +with their chief enemies in Greeks. We may therefore pronounce with +firmness, that unity was one cause of the Roman superiority. What was +the other? Better military institutions. These, if we should go upon the +plan of rehearsing them, are infinite. But let us confine our view to +the separate mode in each people of combining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> their troops. In Greece, +the <i>phalanx</i> was the ideal tactical arrangement; for Rome, the +<i>legion</i>. Everybody knows that Polybius, a Greek, who fled from the +Peloponnesus to Rome a little before the great Carthaginian war, +terminated by Scipio Africanus, has left a most interesting comparison +between the two forms of tactical arrangement: and, waiving the details, +the upshot is this—that the phalanx was a holiday arrangement, a +tournament arrangement, with respect to which you must suppose an excess +of luck if it could be made available, unless by mutual consent, under a +known possibility of transferring the field of battle to some smooth +bowling-green in the neighbourhood. But, on the other hand, the legion +was available everywhere. The <i>phalanx</i> was like the organ, an +instrument almighty indeed where it can be carried; but it cost eight +hundred years to transfer it from Asia Minor to the court of Charlemagne +(<i>i.e.</i>, Western Europe), so that it travelled at the rate of two miles +<i>per annum</i>; but the <i>legion</i> was like the violin, less terrifically +tumultuous, but more infinite than the organ, whilst it is in a perfect +sense portable. Pitch your camp in darkness, on the next morning +everywhere you will find ground for the <i>legion</i>, but for the fastidious +<i>phalanx</i> you need as much choice of ground as for the arena of an opera +stage.</p> + +<p>And the same influence that had tended to keep the Greeks in division, +without a proper unity, operated also to infect the national character +at last with some lack of what may be called self-sufficiency. They were +in their later phases subtle, but compliant, more ready to adapt +themselves to changes than to assert a position and risk all in the +effort to hold it. Hence it came that even the most honourable and +upright amongst a nation far nobler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> in a moral sense (nobler, for +instance, on the scale of capacity for doing and suffering) never rose +to a sentiment of respect for the ordinary Grecian. The Romans viewed +him as essentially framed for ministerial offices. Am I sick? Come, +Greek, and cure me. Am I weary? Amuse me. Am I diffident of power to +succeed? Cheer me with flattery. Am I issuing from a bath? Shampoo me.</p> + +<p>The point of view under which we contemplate the Romans is one which +cannot be dispensed with in that higher or transcendental study of +history now prompted by the vast ferment of the meditative mind. Oh, +feeble appreciators of the public mind, who can imagine even in dreams +that this generation—self-questioned, agitated, haunted beyond any +other by the elementary problems of our human condition, by the awful +<i>whence</i> and the more awful <i>whither</i>, by what the Germans call the +'riddle of the universe,' and oppressed into a rebellious impatience by</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">'The burthen of the mystery<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all this unintelligible world,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—that this, above all generations, is shallow, superficial, unfruitful? +That was a crotchet of the late S. T. Coleridge's; that was a crotchet +of the present W. Wordsworth's, but which we will venture to guess that +he has now somewhat modified since this generation has become just to +himself. No; as to the multitude, in no age can it be other than +superficial. But we do contend, with intolerance and scorn of such +opposition as usually we meet, that the tendencies of this generation +are to the profound; that by all its natural leanings, and even by its +infirmities, it travels upwards on the line of aspiration and downwards +in the direction of the unfathomable.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> These tendencies had been +awakened and quickened by the vast convulsions that marked the close of +the last century. But war is a condition too restless for sustained +meditation. Even the years <i>after</i> war, if that war had gathered too +abundantly the vintages of tears and tragedy and change, still rock and +undulate with the unsubsiding sympathies which wars such as we have +known cannot but have evoked. Besides that war is by too many issues +connected with the practical; the service of war, by the arts which it +requires, and the burthen of war, by the discussions which it prompts, +almost equally tend to alienate the public mind from the speculation +which looks beyond the interests of social life. But when a new +generation has grown up, when the forest trees of the elder generation +amongst us begin to thicken with the intergrowth of a younger shrubbery +that had been mere ground-plants in the æra of war, <i>then</i> it is, viz., +under the heavenly lull and the silence of a long peace, which in its +very uniformity and the solemnity of its silence has something analogous +to the sublime tranquillity of a Zaarrah, that minds formed for the +great inquests of meditation—feeling dimly the great strife which they +did not witness, and feeling it the more deeply because for <i>them</i> an +idealized retrospect, and a retrospect besides being potently contrasted +so deeply with the existing atmosphere, peaceful as if it had never +known a storm—are stimulated preternaturally to those obstinate +questionings which belong of necessity to a complex state of society, +turning up vast phases of human suffering under all varieties, phases +which, having issued from a chaos of agitation, carry with them too +certain a promise of sooner or later revolving into a chaos of equal +sadness, universal strife. It is the relation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> the immediate isthmus +on which we stand ourselves to a past and (prophetically speaking) to a +coming world of calamity, the relation of the smiling and halcyon calm +which we have inherited to that darkness and anarchy out of which it +arose, and towards which too gloomily we augur its return—this relation +it is which enforces the other impulses, whether many or few, connecting +our own transitional stage of society with objects always of the same +interest for man, but not felt to be of the same interest. The sun, the +moon, and still more the starry heavens alien to our own peculiar +system—what a different importance in different ages have they had for +man! To man armed with science and glasses, labyrinths of anxiety and +study; to man ignorant or barbarous less interesting than glittering +points of dew. At present those 'other impulses,' which the permanent +condition of modern society, so multitudinous and feverish, adds to the +meditative impulses of our particular and casual condition as respects a +terrific revolutionary war, are <i>not</i> few, but many, and are all in one +direction, all favouring, none thwarting, the solemn fascinations by +which with spells and witchcraft the shadowy nature of man binds him +down to look for ever into this dim abyss. The earth, whom with +sublimity so awful the poet apostrophized after Waterloo, as 'perturbed' +and restless exceedingly, whom with a harp so melodious and beseeching +he adjured to rest—and again to rest from instincts of war so deep, +haunting the very rivers with blood, and slumbering not through +three-and-twenty years of woe—is again unsealed from slumber by the +mere reaction of the mighty past working together with the too probable +future and with the co-agencies from the unintelligible present. The +fervour and the strife of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> human thought is but the more subtle for +being less derived from immediate action, and more so from hieroglyphic +mysteries or doubts concealed in the very shows of life. The centres of +civilization seethe, as it were, and are ebullient with the agitation of +the self-questioning heart.</p> + +<p>The fervour is universal; the tumult of intellectual man, self-tormented +with unfathomable questions, is contagious everywhere. And both from +what we know, it might be perceived <i>à priori</i>, and from what we see, it +may be known experimentally, that never was the mind of man roused into +activity so intense and almost morbid as in this particular stage of our +progress. And it has added enormously to this result—that it is +redoubled by our own consciousness of our own state so powerfully +enforced by modern inventions, whilst the consciousness again is +reverberated from a secondary mode of consciousness. All studies +prosper; all, with rare exceptions, are advancing only too impetuously. +Talent of every order is almost become a weed amongst us.</p> + +<p>But this would be a most unreasonable ground for charging it upon our +time and country that they are unprogressive and commonplace. Nay, +rather, it is a ground for regarding the soil as more prepared for the +seed that is sown broadcast. And before our England lies an ample +possibility—to outstrip even Rome itself in the extent and the grandeur +of an empire, based on principles of progress and cohesion such as Rome +never knew.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + + +<h3>FURTHER NOTES FOR ARTICLE ON MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY.</h3> + +<p><i>Civilization.</i>—Now about prisoners, strange as this may seem, it +really is not settled whether and how far it is the duty in point of +honour and reasonable forbearance to make prisoners. At Quatre Bras very +few were made by the French, and the bitterness, the frenzy of hatred +which this marked, led of necessity to a reaction.</p> + +<p>But the strangest thing of all is this, that in a matter of such a +nature it should be open to doubt and mystery whether it is or is not +contradictory, absurd, and cancellatory or obligatory to make prisoners. +Look here, the Tartars in the Christian war, not from cruelty—at least, +no such thing is proved—but from mere coercion of what they regarded as +good sense the Tartars thought it all a blank contradiction to take and +not kill enemies. It seemed equal to taking a tiger laboriously and at +much risk in a net, then next day letting him go. Strange it is to say, +but it really requires an express experience to show the true practical +working of the case, and this demonstrates (inconceivable as that would +have been to the Tartars) that the capture is quite equal (quoad damage +to the enemy) to the killing.</p> + +<p>(1.) As to durability, was it so? The Arabs were not strong except +against those who were peculiarly weak; and even in Turkey the Christian +Rajah predominates.</p> + +<p>(2.) As to bigotry and principles of toleration Mr. Finlay says—and we +do not deny that he is right in saying—they arose in the latter stages. +This, however, was only from policy, because it was not safe to be so; +and repressed only from caution.</p> + +<p>(3) About the impetuosity of the Arab assaults. Not what people think.</p> + +<p>(4.) About the permanence or continuance of this Mahometan system—we +confound the religious system with the political. The religious movement +engrafted itself on other nations, translated and inoculated itself upon +other political systems, and thus, viz., as a principle travelling +through or along new machineries, propagated itself. But here is a deep +delusion. What should we Europeans think of an Oriental historian who +should talk of the Christians amongst the Germans, English, French, +Spaniards, as a separate and independent nation? My friend, we should +say, you mistake that matter. The Christians are not a local tribe +having an insulated local<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> situation amongst Germans, French, etc. The +Christians <i>are</i> the English, Germans, etc., or the English, Germans, +French, <i>are</i> the Christians. So do many readers confer upon the Moslems +or Mahometans of history a separate and independent unity.</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) Greek administration had a vicarious support.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) Incapacity of Eastern nations to establish primogeniture.</p> + +<p>(<i>c</i>) Incapacity of Eastern nations to be progressive.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> '<i>Lackington's counter</i>': Lackington, an extensive seller +of old books and a Methodist (see his <i>Confessions</i>) in London, viz., at +the corner of Finsbury Square, about the time of the French Revolution, +feeling painfully that this event drew more attention than himself, +resolved to turn the scale in his own favour by a <i>ruse</i> somewhat +unfair. The French Revolution had no counter; he <i>had</i>, it was circular, +and corresponded to a lighted dome above. Round the counter on a summer +evening, like Phæton round the world, the Edinburgh, the Glasgow, the +Holyhead, the Bristol, the Exeter, and the Salisbury Royal Mails, all +their passengers on board, and canvas spread, swept in, swept round, and +swept out at full gallop; the proximate object being to publish the +grandeur of his premises, the ultimate object to publish himself.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></a> 'Dependent upon <i>physical</i> circumstances,' and, amongst +those physical circumstances, intensely upon climate. The Jewish +ordinances, multiplied and burthensome as they must have been found +under any mitigations, have proved the awfulness (if we may so phrase +it) of the original projectile force which launched them by continuing +to revolve, and to propagate their controlling functions through forty +centuries under all latitudes to which any mode of civilization has +reached. But the <i>Greek</i> machineries of social life were absolutely and +essentially limited by nature to a Grecian latitude. Already from the +earliest stages of their infancy the Greek cities or rural settlements +in the Tauric Chersonese, and along the shores (Northern and Eastern) of +the Black Sea, had been obliged to unrobe themselves of their native +Grecian costumes in a degree which materially disturbed the power of the +Grecian literature as an influence for the popular mind. This effect of +a new climate to modify the influence of a religion or the character of +a literature is noticed by Mr. Finlay. Temples open to the heavens, +theatres for noonday light and large enough for receiving 30,000 +citizens—these could no longer be transplanted from sunny regions of +Hymettus to the churlish atmospheres which overcast with gloom so +perpetual poor Ovid's sketches of his exile. Cherson, it is true, in the +Tauric Chersonese, survived down to the middle of the tenth century; so +much is certain from the evidence of a Byzantine emperor; and Mr. Finlay +is disposed to think that this famous little colonial state retained her +Greek 'municipal organization.' If this could be proved, it would be a +very interesting fact; it is, at any rate, interesting to see this saucy +little outpost of Greek civilization mounting guard, as it were, at so +great a distance from the bulwark of Christianity (the city of +Constantine), under whose mighty shadow she had so long been sheltered, +and maintaining <i>by whatever means</i> her own independence. But, if her +municipal institutions were truly and permanently Greek, then it would +be a fair inference that to a Grecian mechanism of society she had been +indebted for her Grecian tenacity of life. And this is Mr. Finlay's +inference. Otherwise, and for our own parts, we should be inclined to +charge her long tenure of independence upon her strong situation, +rendered for <i>her</i> a thousand times stronger by the two facts of her +commerce in the first place, and secondly, of her commerce being +maritime. Shipping and trade seem to us the two anchors by which she +rode.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></a> 'Nook-shotten,' an epithet applied by Shakspeare to +England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></a> Christianity is a force of unity. But was Paganism such? +No. To be idolatrous is no bond of union.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">[16]</span></a> See Murder as one of the Fine Arts. (Postscript in 1854.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">[17]</span></a> '<i>Under the same tactics</i>'—the tactics of 'refusing' her +columns to the enemy. On this subject we want an elaborate memoir +historico-geographical revising every stage of the Roman warfare in +Pers-Armenia, from Crassus and Ventidius down to Heraclius—a range of +six and a half centuries; and specifically explaining why it was that +almost always the Romans found it mere destruction to attempt a passage +much beyond the Tigris or into central Persia, whilst so soon after +Heraclius the immediate successors of Mahomet overflowed Persia like a +deluge.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">[18]</span></a> 'Intestine war.' Many writers call the Peloponnesian war +(by the way, a very false designation) the great <i>civil</i> war of Greece. +'Civil'!—it might have been such, had the Grecian states had a central +organ which claimed a common obedience.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR.</i></h2> + + +<p>The assassination of Cæsar, we find characterized in one of his latter +works (<i>Farbenlehre</i>, Theil 2, p. 126) by Goethe, as '<i>die +abgeschmackteste That die jemals begangen worden</i>'—<i>the most +outrageously absurd act that ever was committed</i>. Goethe is right, and +more than right. For not only was it an atrocity so absolutely without a +purpose as never to have been examined by one single conspirator with a +view to its probable tendencies—in that sense therefore it was absurd +as pointing to no result—but also in its immediate arrangements and +precautions it had been framed so negligently, with a carelessness so +total as to the natural rebounds and reflex effects of such a tragic +act, that the conspirators had neither organized any resources for +improving their act, nor for securing their own persons from the first +blind motions of panic, nor even for establishing a common rendezvous. +When they had executed their valiant exploit, the very possibility of +which from the first step to the last they owed to the sublime +magnanimity of their victim—well knowing his own continual danger, but +refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust—when they had +gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their +daggers—cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'—they had +come to the end of the play.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> <i>Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite</i>. Not a step +further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they +began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe that no act +so thoroughly womanish, that is, moving under a blind impulse without a +thought of consequences, without a concerted succession of steps, and no +<i>arrière pensée</i> as to its final improvement, ever yet had a place or +rating in the books of Conspiracy, far less was attended (as by accident +this was) with an equipage of earth-shattering changes. Even the poor +deluded followers of the Old Mountain Assassin, though drugged with +bewildering potions, such men as Sir Walter Scott describes in the +person of that little wily fanatic gambolling before the tent of Richard +<i>Coeur-de-lion</i>, had always settled which way they would run when the +work was finished. And how peculiarly this reach of foresight was +required for these anti-Julian conspirators—will appear from one fact. +Is the reader aware, were these boyish men aware, that—besides, what we +all know from Shakespeare, a mob won to Cæsar's side by his very last +codicils of his will; besides a crowd of public magistrates and +dependents charged upon the provinces, etc., for two years deep by +Cæsar's act, though in requital of no services or attachment to himself; +besides a distinct Cæsarian party; finally, besides Antony, the express +representative and assignee of Cæsar, armed at this moment with the +powers of Consul—there was over and above a great military officer of +Cæsar's (Lentulus), then by accident in Rome, holding a most potent +government through the mere favour of Cæsar, and pledged therefore by an +instant interest of self-promotion, backed by a large number of Julian +troops at that instant billeted on a suburb of Rome—veterans, and +fierce fellows that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> would have cut their own fathers' throats 'as soon +as say dumpling' (see Lucan's account of them in Cæsar's harangue before +Pharsalia)? Every man of sense would have predicted ruin to the +conspirators. '<i>You'll tickle it for your concupy</i>' (Thersites in 'Troil +and Cress.') would have been the word of every rational creature to +these wretches when trembling from their tremulous act, and reeking from +their bloody ingratitude. For most remarkable it is that not one +conspirator but was personally indebted to Cæsar for eminent favours; +and many among them had even received that life from their victim which +they employed in filching away <i>his</i>. Yet after that feature of the +case, so notorious as it soon became, historians and biographers are all +ready to notice of the centurion who amputated Cicero's head that, he +had once been defended by Cicero. What if he had, which is more than we +know—must <i>that</i> operate as a perpetual retaining fee on Cicero's +behalf? Put the case that we found ourselves armed with a commission (no +matter whence emanating) for abscinding the head of Mr. Adolphus who now +pleads with so much lustre at the general jail delivery of London and +Middlesex, or the head of Mr. Serjeant Wild, must it bar our claim that +once Mr. Adolphus had defended us on a charge of sheep-stealing, or that +the Serjeant had gone down 'special' in our cause to York? Very well, +but doubtless they had their fees. 'Oh, but Cicero could not receive +fees by law.' Certainly not by law; but by custom many <i>did</i> receive +them at dusk through some postern gate in the shape of a huge cheese, or +a guinea-pig. And, if the 'special retainer' from Popilius Lænas is +somewhat of the doubtfullest, so is the 'pleading' on the part of +Cicero.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>However, it is not impossible but some will see in this desperate game +of hazard a sort of courage on the part of the conspirators which may +redeem their knavery. But the courage of desperation is seldom genuine, +and least of all where the desperation itself was uncalled for. Yet even +this sort of merit the conspirators wanted. The most urgent part of the +danger was that which in all probability they had not heard of, viz., +the casual presence at Rome of Julian soldiers. Pursuing no inquiries at +all, they would hear not; practising no caution, they would keep no +secret. The plot had often been betrayed, we will swear: but Cæsar and +Cæsar's friends would look upon all such stories as the mere expressions +of a permanent case, so much inevitable exposure on <i>their</i> part—so +much possibility of advantage redounding to the other side. And out of +these naked possibilities, as some temptation would continually arise to +use them profitably, much more would arise to use them as delightful +offsets to the sense of security and power.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>[Mommsen is more at one with De Quincey here than Merivale, +who, at p. 478, vol. ii., writes: 'We learn with pleasure +that the conspirators did not venture even to sound Cicero'; +but at vol. iii., p. 9, he has these significant words: +'Cicero, himself, we must believe, was not ashamed to lament +the scruples which had denied him initiation into the plot.' +Forsyth writes of Cicero's views: 'He was more than ever +convinced of the want of foresight shown by the +conspirators. Their deed, he said, was the deed of men, +their counsels were the counsels of children,' 'Life of +Cicero,' 3rd edition, pp. 435-6.—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.]</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY).</i></h2> + + +<p>Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero +as Proconsul of Cilicia.<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> And it surprises us greatly to find a man, +so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf +of a friend. How came it—that he or any man of the world should fancy +any substance or reality in the public enthusiasm for one whose +character belonged to a past generation? Nine out of ten amongst the +Campanians must have been children when Pompey's name was identified +with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to +sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns +knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching +question—Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so +extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more +heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive +privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer who +amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was +well understood to be digesting a large<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> measure of relief to the +hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen, +crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations, +could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators +panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he +beheld—taking the field on the opposite quarter—one, the greatest of +men, who spoke authentically to all classes alike, authorizing all to +hope and to draw their breath in freedom under that general recast of +Roman society which had now become inevitable! As between such +competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally +the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion, +although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed +locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have +gathered about the name of Cæsar. But enough transpired to show which +way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He +acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Cæsar. And Pompey, who +was much more forced into towns and public scenes, had even less +opportunity for deceiving himself. He, who had fancied all Campania +streaming with incense to heaven on his own personal account, now made +the misanthropical discovery—not only that all was hollow, and that his +own name was held in no esteem—but absolutely that the barrier to any +hope of popularity for himself was that very man whom, on other and +previous grounds, he had for some time viewed as his own capital +antagonist.</p> + +<p>Here then, in this schism of the public affections, and in the +mortifying discovery so abruptly made by Pompey, lay the bitter affront +which he could not digest—the injury which he purposed to avenge. What +barbed this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> injury to his feelings, what prepared him for exhausting +its bitterness, was the profound delusion in which he had been +previously laid asleep by flattering friends—the perfect faith in his +own uniform popularity. And now, in the very teeth of all current +representations, we advance this proposition: That the quality of his +meditated revenge and its horrid extent were what originally unveiled to +Cicero's eyes the true character of Pompey and his partisans.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The last letter of the sixth book is written from Athens, which city, +after a voyage of about a fortnight, Cicero reached precisely in the +middle of October, having sailed out of Ephesus on the 1st. He there +found a letter from Atticus, dated from Rome on the 18th of September; +and his answer, which was 'by return of post,' closes with these words: +'Mind that you keep your promise of writing to me fully about my darling +Tullia,' which means of course about her new husband Dolabella; next +about the Commonwealth, which by this time I calculate must be entering +upon its agony; and then about the Censors, etc. Hearken: 'This letter +is dated on the 16th of October; that day on which, by your account, +Cæsar is to reach Placentia with four legions. What, I ask myself for +ever, is to become of us? My own situation at this moment, which is in +the Acropolis of Athens, best meets my idea of what is prudent under the +circumstances.'</p> + +<p>Well it would have been for Cicero's peace of mind if he could seriously +have reconciled himself to abide by that specular station. Had he +pleaded ill-health, he might have done so with decorum. As it was, +thinking his dignity concerned in not absenting himself from the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> public +councils at a season so critical, after a few weeks' repose he sailed +forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with +what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem, +after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his +friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required, +every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution, +individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero +discovered in the end) a principle of despair, and <i>the secret reserve +of a flight operating</i> upon the leaders <i>from the very beginning</i>. The +key to all this is obvious for those who read with their eyes awake. +Pompey and the other consular leaders were ruined for action by age and +by the derangement of their digestive organs. Eating too much and too +luxuriously is far more destructive to the energies of action than +intemperance as to drink. Women everywhere alike are temperate as to +eating; and the only females memorable for ill-health from luxurious +eating have been Frenchwomen or Belgians—witness the Duchess of +Portsmouth, and many others of the two last centuries whom we could +name. But men everywhere commit excesses in this respect, if they have +it in their power. With the Roman nobles it was almost a necessity to do +so. Could any popular man evade the necessity of keeping a splendid +dinner-table? And is there one man in a thousand who can sit at a festal +board laden with all the delicacies of remotest climates, and continue +to practise an abstinence for which he is not sure of any reward? All +his abstinence may be defeated by a premature fate, and in the meantime +he is told, with some show of reason, that a life defrauded of its +genial enjoyments is <i>not</i> life, is at all events a present loss, whilst +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> remuneration is doubtful, except where there happen to be powerful +intellectual activities to reap an <i>instant</i> benefit from such +sacrifices. Certainly it is the last extremity of impertinence to attack +men's habits in this respect. No man, we may be assured, has ever yet +practised any true self-denial in such a case, or ever will. Either he +has been trained under a wholesome poverty to those habits which +intercept the very development of a taste for luxuries, which evade the +very possibility therefore of any; or if this taste has once formed +itself, he would find it as impossible in this as in any other case to +maintain a fight with a temptation recurring <i>daily</i>. Pompey certainly +could not. He was of a slow, torpid nature through life; required a +continual supply of animal stimulation, and, if he had <i>not</i> required +it, was assuredly little framed by nature for standing out against an +<i>artificial</i> battery of temptation. There is proof extant that his +system was giving way under the action of daily dinners. Cicero mentions +the fact of his suffering from an annual illness; what may be called the +<i>etesian</i> counter-current from his intemperance. Probably the liver was +enlarged, and the pylorus was certainly not healthy. Cicero himself was +not free from dyspeptic symptoms. If he had survived the Triumvirate, he +would have died within seven years from some disease of the intestinal +canal. Atticus, we suspect, was troubled with worms. Locke, indeed, than +whom no man ever less was acquainted with Greek or Roman life, pretends +that the ancients seldom used a pocket-handkerchief; knew little of +catarrhs, and even less of what the French consider indigenous to this +rainy island—<i>le catch-cold</i>. Nothing can be more unfounded. Locke was +bred a physician, but his practice had been none; himself and the cat +were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> his chief patients. Else we, who are no physicians, would wish to +ask him—what meant those continual <i>febriculæ</i> to which all Romans of +rank were subject? What meant that <i>fluenter lippire</i>, a symptom so +troublesome to Cicero's eyes, and always arguing a functional, if not +even an organic, derangement of the stomach? Take this rule from us, +that wherever the pure white of the eye is clouded, or is veined with +red streaks, or wherever a continual weeping moistens the eyelashes, +there the digestive organs are touched with some morbid affection, +probably in it's early stages; as also that the inferior viscera, <i>not</i> +the stomach, must be slightly disordered before toothache <i>can</i> be an +obstinate affection. And as to <i>le catch-cold</i>, the-most dangerous shape +in which it has ever been known, resembling the English <i>cholera +morbus</i>, belongs to the modern city of Rome from situation; and probably +therefore to the ancient city from the same cause. Pompey, beyond all +doubt, was a wreck when he commenced the struggle.</p> + +<p>Struggle, conflict, for a man who needed to be in his bed! And struggle +with whom? With that man whom his very enemies viewed as a monster +(τερας is Cicero's own word), as preternaturally endowed, in +this quality of working power. But how then is it consistent with our +view of Roman dinners, that Cæsar should have escaped the universal +scourge? We reply, that one man is often stronger than another; every +man is stronger in some one organ; and secondly, Cæsar had lived away +from Rome through the major part of the last ten years; and thirdly, the +fact that Cæsar <i>had</i> escaped the contagion of dinner luxury, however it +may be accounted for, is attested in the way of an exception to the +general order of experience, and with such a degree of astonishment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> as +at once to prove the general maxim we have asserted, and the special +exemption in favour of Cæsar. He <i>only</i>, said Cato, he, as a +contradiction to all precedents—to the Gracchi, to Marius, to Cinna, to +Sylla, to Catiline—had come in a state of temperance (<i>sobrius</i>) to the +destruction of the state; not meaning to indicate mere superiority to +wine, but to <i>all</i> modes of voluptuous enjoyment. Cæsar practised, it is +true, a refined epicureanism under the guidance of Greek physicians, as +in the case of his emetics; but this was by way of evading any gross +effects from a day of inevitable indulgence, not by way of aiding them. +Besides, Pompey and Cicero were about seven years older than Cæsar. They +stood upon the threshold of their sixtieth year at the <i>opening</i> of the +struggle; Cæsar was a hale young man of fifty-two. And we all know that +Napoleon at forty-two was incapacitated for Borodino by incipient +disease of the stomach; so that from that day he, though junior by +seventeen years to Pompey, yet from Pompey's self-indulgence (not +certainly in splendid sensuality, but in the gross modes belonging to +his obscure youth) was pronounced by all the judicious, superannuated as +regarded the indispensable activity of martial habits. If he cannot face +the toils of military command, said his officers, why does he not +retire? Why does he not make room for others? Neither was the campaign +of 1813 or 1814 any refutation of this. Infinite are the cases in which +the interests of nations or of armies have suffered through the dyspepsy +of those who administered them. And above all nations the Romans laid +themselves open to this order of injuries from a dangerous oversight in +their constitutional arrangements, which placed legal bars on the +youthful side of all public offices, but none on the aged side. Of all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> +nations the Romans had been most indebted to men emphatically young; of +all nations they, by theory, most exclusively sanctioned the pretensions +of old ones. Not before forty-three could a man stand for the +consulship; and we have just noticed a case where a man of pestilent +activity in our own times had already become dyspeptically incapable of +command at forty-two. Besides, after laying down his civil office +(which, by itself, was often in the van of martial perils), the consul +had to pass into some province as military leader, with the prospect by +possibility of many years' campaigning. It is true that some men far +anticipated the legal age in assuming offices, honours, privileges. But +this, being always by infraction of fundamental laws, was no subject of +rejoicing to a patriotic Roman. And the Roman folly at this very crisis, +in trusting one side of the quarrel to an elderly, lethargic invalid, +subject to an annual struggle for his life, was appropriately punished +by that catastrophe which six years after threw them into the hands of a +schoolboy.</p> + +<p>Yet on the other hand it may be asked, by those who carry the proper +spirit of jealousy into their historical reading, was Cicero always +right in these angry comments upon Pompey's strategies? Might it not be, +that where Cicero saw nothing but groundless procrastination, in reality +the obstacle lay in some overwhelming advantage of Cæsar's? That, where +his reports to Atticus read the signs of the time into the mere panic of +a Pompey, some more impartial report would see nothing to wonder at but +the overcharged expectations of a Cicero? Sometimes undoubtedly this is +the plain truth. Pompey's disadvantages were considerable; he had no +troops upon which he could rely; that part which had seen service<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> +happened to be a detachment from Cæsar's army, sent home as a pledge for +his civic intentions at an earlier period, and their affection was still +lively to their original leader. The rest were raw levies. And it is a +remarkable fact, that the insufficiency of such troops was only now +becoming matter of notoriety. In foreign service, where the Roman +recruits were incorporated with veterans, as the natives in our Eastern +army, with a small proportion of British to steady them, they often +behaved well, and especially because they seldom acted against an enemy +that was not as raw as themselves. But now, in civil service against +their own legions, it was found that the mere novice was worth nothing +at all; a fact which had not been fully brought out in the strife of +Marius and Sylla, where Pompey had himself played a conspicuous and +cruel part, from the tumultuary nature of the contest; besides which the +old legions were then by accident as much concentrated on Italian ground +as now they were dispersed in transmarine provinces. Of the present +Roman army, ten legions at least were scattered over Macedonia, Achaia, +Cilicia, and Syria; five were in Spain; and six were with Cæsar, or +coming up from the rear. To say nothing of the forces locked up in +Sicily, Africa, Numidia, etc. It was held quite unadvisable by Pompey's +party to strip the distant provinces of their troops, or the great +provincial cities of their garrisons. All these were accounted as so +many reversionary chances against Cæsar. But certainly a bolder game was +likely to have prospered better; had large drafts from all these distant +armies been ordered home, even Cæsar's talents might have been +perplexed, and his immediate policy must have been so far baffled as to +force him back upon Transalpine Gaul. Yet if such a plan were eligible, +it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> does not appear that Cicero had ever thought of it; and certainly it +was not Pompey, amongst so many senatorial heads, who could be blamed +for neglecting it. Neglect he did; but Pompey had the powers of a +commander-in-chief for the immediate arrangements; but in the general +scheme of the war he, whose game was to call himself the servant of the +Senate, counted but for one amongst many concurrent authorities. +Combining therefore his limited authority with his defective materials, +we cannot go along with Cicero in the whole bitterness of his censure. +The fact is, no cautious scheme whatever, no practicable scheme could +have kept pace with Cicero's burning hatred to Cæsar. 'Forward, forward! +crush the monster; stone him, stab him, hurl him into the sea!' This was +the war-song of Cicero for ever; and men like Domitius, who shared in +his hatreds, as well as in his unseasonable temerity, by precipitating +upon Cæsar troops that were unqualified for the contest, lost the very +<i>élite</i> of the Italian army at Corfinium; and such men were soon found +to have been embarked upon the ludicrous enterprise of 'catching a +Tartar;' following and seeking those</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i16">'Quos opimus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fallere et effugere est triumphus.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR CICERO.</h3> + + +<h4>I.</h4> + +<p>Bribery was it? which had been so organized as the sole means of +succeeding at elections, and which, once rendered necessary as the organ +of assertion for each man's birthright, became legitimate; in which +Cicero himself declared privately that there was 'εξοχη in +nullo,' no sort of pre-eminence, one as bad as another, <i>pecunia +exaequet omnium dignitatem</i>. Money was the universal leveller. Was it +gladiators bought for fighting with? These were bought by his friend +Milo as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> well as his enemy Clodius, by Sextus Pompey on one side as much +as by Cæsar on the other. Was it neglect of <i>obnunciatio</i>? And so far as +regards treating, Cicero himself publicly justified it against the +miserable theatrical Cato. How ridiculous to urge that against a popular +man as a crime, when it was sometimes enjoined by the Senate with +menaces as a duty! Was it the attacking all obnoxious citizens' houses? +That was done by one side quite as much as by the other, and signifies +little, for the attack always fell on some leading man in wealth; and +such a man's house was a fortress. Was it accepting provinces from the +people? Cicero would persuade us that this was an unheard of crime in +Clodius. But how came it that so many others did the same thing? Nay, +that the Senate abetted them in doing it; saying to such a person, 'Oh, +X., we perceive that you have extorted from the people.'</p> + + +<h4>II.</h4> + +<p>Then his being recalled; what if a man should say that his nephew was +for it, and all his little nieces, not to mention his creditors? The +Senate were for it. But why not? Had the Senate exiled him? And, +besides, he was their agent.</p> + + +<h4>III.</h4> + +<p>It was 'an impious bargain' are the words of Middleton, and Deiotarus +who broke it was a prince of noble character. What was he noble for? We +never heard of anything very noble that he did; and we doubt whether Dr. +Conyers knew more about him than we. But we happen to know why he calls +him noble. Cicero, who long afterwards came to know this king personally +and gave him a good dinner, says now upon hearsay (for he had then never +been near him, and could have no accounts of him but from the wretched +Quintus) that <i>in eo multa regia fuerunt</i>. Why yes, amputating heads was +in those parts a very regal act. But what he chiefly had in his eye, +comes out immediately after. Speaking to Clodius, he says that the visit +of this king was so bright, <i>maxime quod tibi nullum nummum dedit</i>.</p> + + +<h4>IV.</h4> + +<p>Wicked Middleton says that Cicero followed his conscience in following +Pompey and the cause approved by what in the odious slang of his own +days he calls 'the honest men.' But be it known unto him that he tells a +foul falsehood. He followed his personal gratitude. This<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> he is careful +to say over and over again. Some months before he had followed what he +deemed the cause of the Commonwealth and of the <i>boni</i>. The <i>boni</i> were +vanished, he sought them and found only a heap of selfish nobles, half +crazy with fear and half crazy with pride. These were gone, but Pompey +the man remained that he clung to. And in his heart of hearts was +another feeling—hatred to Cæsar.</p> + + +<h4>V.</h4> + +<p>403. 'Cicero had only stept aside' was the technical phrase for lurking +from creditors. So Bishop Burnet of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, it was +thought he might have stept aside for debt.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">[19]</span></a> Cicero entered on the office of Proconsul of Cilicia on +the last day of July, 703 <span class="smcap">a.u.c.</span>; he resigned it on the last day but one +of July, 704.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span></p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY.</i></h2> + + +<p>I. <i>The Main Subject Opened.</i> What is Chronology, and how am I to teach +it? The <i>what</i> is poorly appreciated, and chiefly through the defects of +the <i>how</i>. Because it is so ill-taught, therefore in part it is that +Chronology is so unattractive and degraded. Chronology is represented to +be the handmaid of history. But unless the machinery for exhibiting this +is judicious, the functions, by being obscured, absolutely lose all +their value, flexibility, and attraction. Chronology is not meant only +to enable us to refer each event to its own particular era—that may be +but trivial knowledge, of little value and of slight significance in its +application; but chronology has higher functions. It teaches not only +when A happened, but also with what other events, B, C, or D, it was +associated. It may be little to know that B happened 500 years before +Christ, but it may be a most important fact that A and B happened +concurrently with D, that both B and D were prepared by X, and that +through their concurrent operation arose the ultimate possibility of Z. +The mere coincidences or consecutions, mere accidents of simultaneity or +succession, of precession or succession, maybe less than nothing. But +the co-operation towards a common result, or the relation backwards to a +common cause, may be so important as to make the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> entire difference +between a story book, on the one hand, and a philosophic history, on the +other, of man as a creature.</p> + +<p>History is not an anarchy; man is not an accident. The very motions of +the heavenly bodies for many a century were thought blind and without +law. Now we have advanced so far into the light as to perceive the +elaborate principles of their order, the original reason of their +appearing, the stupendous equipoise of their attraction and repulsion, +the divine artifice of their compensations, the original ground of their +apparent disorder, the enormous system of their reactions, the almost +infinite intricacy of their movements. In these very anomalies lies the +principle of their order. A curve is long in showing its elements of +fluxion; we must watch long in order to compute them; we must wait in +order to know the law of their relations and the music of the deep +mathematical principles which they obey. A piece of music, again, from +the great hand of Mozart or Beethoven, which seems a mere anarchy to the +dull, material mind, to the ear which is instructed by a deep +sensibility reveals a law of controlling power, determining its +movements, its actions and reactions, such as cannot be altogether +hidden, even when as yet it is but dimly perceived.</p> + +<p>So it is in history, though the area of its interest is yet wider, and +the depths to which it reaches more profound; all its contradictory +phenomena move under one embracing law, and all its contraries shall +finally be solved in the clear perception of this law.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Reading and study ill-conducted run to waste, and all reading and study +are ill-conducted which do not plant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> the result as well as the fact or +date in the memory. With no form of knowledge is this more frequently +the case than with history. Such is the ill-arranged way of telling all +stories, and so perfectly without organization is the record of history, +that of what is of little significance there is much, and of what is of +deep and permanent signification there is little or nothing.</p> + +<p>The first step in breaking ground upon this almost impracticable +subject, is—to show the student a true map of the field in which his +labours are to lie. Most people have a vague preconception, peopling the +fancy with innumerable shadows, of some vast wilderness or Bilidulgerid +of trackless time, over which are strewed the wrecks of events without +order, and persons without limit. <i>Omne ignotum</i>, says Tacitus, <i>pro +magnifico</i>; that is, everything which lies amongst the shades and +darkness of the indefinite, and everything which is in the last degree +confused, seems infinite. But the gloom of uncertainty seems far greater +than it really is.</p> + +<p>One short distribution and circumscription of historical ages will soon +place matters in a more hopeful aspect. Fabulous history ceases, and +authentic history commences, just three-quarters of a millennium before +Jesus Christ; that is, just 750 years. Let us call this space of time, +viz., the whole interval from the year 750 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> up to the Incarnation of +Christ, the first chamber of history. I do not mean that precisely 750 +years before our Saviour's birth, fabulous and mythological history +started like some guilty thing at the sound of a cock-crowing, and +vanished as with the sound of harpies' wings. It vanished as the natural +darkness of night vanishes. A stealthy twilight first began to divide +and give shape to the formless shadows: what previously had been one +blank mass<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> of darkness began to break into separate forms: outlines +became perceptible, groups of figures started forward into relief; chaos +began to shape and organize its gloomy masses. Next, and by degrees, +came on the earliest dawn. This ripened imperceptibly into a rosy aurora +that gave notice of some mightier power approaching. And at length, but +not until the age of Cyrus, five centuries and a half before Christ, +precisely one century later, the golden daylight of authentic history +sprang above the horizon and was finally established. Since that time, +whatever want of light we may have to lament is due to the <i>loss</i> of +records, not to their original <i>absence</i>; due to the victorious +destructions of time, not<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> to the error of the human mind confounding +the provinces of Fable and of History.</p> + +<p>Let the first chamber of history therefore be that which stretches from +the year 750 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> to the era of His Incarnation. I say 750 for the +present, because it would be quite idle, in dealing with intervals of +time so vast, to take notice of any little excess or defect by which the +actual period differed from the ideal; strictly speaking, the period of +authentic history commences sixteen or seventeen years earlier. But for +the present let us say in round numbers that this period commenced 750<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> +years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> And let the first chamber of history be of that duration.</p> + +<p>B. Next let us take an equal space <i>after</i> Christ. This will be the +second chamber of history. Starting from the birth of our Saviour, it +will terminate in the middle of the eighth century, or in the early +years of Charlemagne. These surely are most remarkable eras.</p> + +<p>C. Then passing for the present without explanation to the year 1100 for +the first Crusade, let us there fix one foot of our 'golden compasses,' +and with the other mark off an equal period of 750 years. This carries +us up nearly to the reign of George III, of England. And this will be +the third great chamber of history.</p> + +<p>D. Fourthly, there will now remain a period just equal to one-half of +such a chamber, viz.: 350 years between Charlemagne's cradle and the +first Crusade, the terminal era of the second chamber and the inaugural +era of the third. This we will call the ante-chamber of No. 3.</p> + +<p>Now, upon reviewing these chambers and antechambers, the first important +remark for the student is, that the second chamber is nearly empty of +all incidents. Take away the migrations and invasions of the several +Northern nations who overran the Western Empire, broke it up, and laid +the foundations of the great nations of Christendom—England, France, +Spain—and take away the rise of Mahommedanism, and there would remain +scarcely anything memorable.</p> + +<p>From all this we draw the following inference: that memory is, in +certain cases, connected with great effort, in others, with no effort at +all. Of one class we may say, that the facts absolutely deposit +themselves in the memory; they settle in our memories as a sediment or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +deposition from a liquor settles in a glass; of another we may say that +the facts cannot maintain their place in the memory without continued +exertion, and with something like violence to natural tendencies. Now, +beyond all other facts, the facts of dates are the most severely of this +latter class. Oftentimes the very actions or sufferings of a man, +empire, army, are hard to be remembered because they are +non-significant, non-characteristic: they belong by no more natural or +intellectual right to that man, empire, army, than to any other man, +empire, army. We remember, for instance, the simple diplomacy of Greece, +when she summoned all States to the grand duty of exterminating the +barbarian from her limits, and throwing back the tides of barbarism +within its natural limits; for this appealed to what was noblest in +human nature. We forget the elaborate intrigues which preceded the +Peloponnesian war, for these appealed only to vulgar and ordinary +motives of self-aggrandisement. We remember the trumpet voice which +summoned Christendom to deliver Christ's sepulchre from Pagan insults, +for that was the great romance of religious sentiment. But we forget the +treaties by which this or that Crusading king delivered his army from +Mahometan victors, because these proceeded on the common principles of +fear and self-interest; principles having no peculiar relation to those +from which the Crusades had arisen.</p> + +<p>Now, if even actions themselves are easily dropped from the memory, +because they stand in no logical relation to the central interest +concerned, how much more and how universally must dates be liable to +oblivion—dates which really have no more discoverable connection with +any name of man or place or event, than the letters<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> or syllables of +that name have with the great cause or principles with which it may +happen to have been associated. Why should Themistocles or Aristides +have flourished 500 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, rather than 250, 120, or any other number of +years? No conceivable relation—hardly so much as any fanciful +relation—can be established between the man and his era. And in this +one (to all appearance insuperable) difficulty, in this absolute defect +of all connection between the two objects that are to be linked together +in the memory, lies the startling task of Chronology. Chronology is +required to chain together—and so that one shall inevitably recall the +other—a name and an era which with regard to each other are like two +clouds, aerial, insulated, mutually repulsive, and throwing out no +points for grappling or locking on, neither offering any natural +indications of interconnection, nor apparently by art, contrivance,<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> +or fiction, susceptible of any.</p> + +<p>II. <i>Jewish as compared with other records.</i>—Let us open our review +with the annals of Judea; and for two reasons: first, because in the +order of time it <i>was</i> the inaugural chapter, so that the order of our +rehearsal does but conform to the order of the facts; secondly, because +on another principle of arrangement, viz., its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> relation to the capital +interests of human nature, it stands first in another sense by a degree +which cannot be measured.</p> + +<p>These are two advantages, in comparison with all other history whatever, +which have crowned the Jewish History with mysterious glory, and of +these the pupil should be warned in her introductory lesson. The first +is: that the Jewish annals open by one whole millennium before all other +human records. Full a thousand years had the chronicles of the Hebrew +nation been in motion and unfolding that sublime story, fitter for the +lyre and the tumultuous organ, than for unimpassioned recitation, before +the earliest whispers of the historic muse began to stir in any other +land. Amongst Pagan nations, Greece was the very foremost to attempt +that almost impracticable object under an imperfect civilization—the +art of fixing in forms not perishable, and of transmitting to distant +generations, her social revolutions.<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> She wanted paper through her +earlier periods, she wanted typographic art, she wanted, above all, +other resources for such a purpose—the art of reading as a national +accomplishment. How could people record freely and fervently, with +Hebrew rapture, those events which must be painfully chiselled out in +marble, or expensively ploughed and furrowed into brazen tablets? What +freedom to the motions of human passion, where an <i>extra</i> word or two of +description must be purchased by a day's labour? But, above all, what +motive could exist for the accumulation or the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> adequate diffusion of +records, howsoever inscribed, on slabs of marble or of bronze, on +leather, or plates of wood, whilst as yet no general machinery of +education had popularized the art of reading? Until the age of Pericles +each separate Grecian city could hardly have furnished three citizens on +an average able to read. Amongst a people so illiterate, how could +manuscripts or manu<i>sculpts</i> excite the interest which is necessary to +their conservation? Of what value would a shipload of harps prove to a +people unacquainted with the science or the practical art of music? Too +much or too little interest alike defeat this primary purpose of the +record. Records must be <i>self</i>-conservative before they can be applied +to the conservation of events. Amongst ourselves the <i>black-letter</i> +records of English heroes by Grafton and Hollinshed, of English voyagers +by Hakluyt, of English martyrs by Fox, perished in a very unusual +proportion by excessive use through successive generations of readers: +but amongst the Greeks they would have perished by neglect. The too much +of the English usage and the too little of the Grecian would have tended +to the same result. Books and the art of reading must ever be powerful +re-agents—each upon the other: until books were multiplied, there could +be no general accomplishment of reading. Until the accomplishment was +taken up into the system of education, books insculptured by painful +elaboration upon costly substances must be too much regarded as +jewellery to obtain a domestic value for the mass.</p> + +<p>The problem, therefore, was a hard one for Greece—to devise any art, +power or machinery for fixing and propagating the great memorials of +things and persons. Each generation as it succeeded would more and more +furnish<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> subjects for the recording pen of History, yet each in turn was +compelled to see them slipping away like pearls from a fractured +necklace. It seems easy, but in practice it must be nearly impossible, +to take aim, as it were, at a remote generation—to send a sealed letter +down to a posterity two centuries removed—or by any human resources, +under the Grecian conditions of the case, to have a chance of clearing +that vast bridgeless gulf which separates the present from the far-off +ages of perfect civilization. Maddening it must have been to know by +their own experience, derived from the far-off past, that no monuments +had much chance of duration, except precisely those small ones of medals +and sculptured gems, which, if durable by metallic substance and +interesting by intrinsic value, were in the same degree more liable to +loss by shipwreck, fire, or other accidents applying to portable things, +but above all furnished no field for more than an intense +abstractiveness. The Iliad arose, as we shall say, a thousand years +before Christ, consequently it bisected precisely the Hebrew history +which arose two thousand years before the same era. Now the Iliad was +the very first historic record of the Greeks, and it was followed at +intervals by many other such sections of history, in the shape of +<i>Nostoi</i>, poems on the homeward adventures of the Greek heroes returning +from Troy, or of Cyclical Poems taking a more comprehensive range of +action from the same times, filling up the interspace of 555 years +between this memorable record of the one great Pagan Crusade<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> at the +one limit,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> and the first Greek prose history—that of Herodotus—at the +lower limit. Even through a space of 555 years <i>subsequent</i> to the +Iliad, which has the triple honour of being the earliest Greek book, the +earliest Greek poem, the earliest Greek history, we see the Grecian +annals but imperfectly sustained; legends treated with a legendary +variety; romances embroidered with romantic embellishments; poems, +which, if Greek narrative poetry allowed of but little fiction and +sternly rejected all pure invention, yet originally rested upon +semi-fabulous and mythological marvels, and were thus far poetic in the +basis, that when they durst not invent they could still garble by +poetical selection where they chose; and thus far lying—that if they +were compelled to conform themselves to the popular traditions which +must naturally rest upon a pedestal of fact, it was fact as seen through +an atmosphere of superstition, and imperceptibly modified by priestly +arts.</p> + +<p>The sum, therefore, of our review is, that one thousand [1,000] years +<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> did the earliest Grecian record appear, being also the earliest +Greek poem, and this poem being the earliest Greek book; secondly, that +for the five-hundred-and-fifty-five [555] years subsequent to the +earliest record, did the same legendary form of historic composition +continue to subsist. On the other hand, as a striking antithesis to this +Grecian condition of history, we find amongst the Hebrews a +circumstantial deduction of their annals from the very nativity of their +nation—that is, from the birth of the Patriarch Isaac, or, more +strictly, of his son the Patriarch Jacob—down to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> captivity of the +two tribes, their restoration by Cyrus, and the dedication of the Second +Temple. This Second Temple brings us abreast of Herodotus, the first +Greek historian. Fable with the Greeks is not yet distinguished from +fact, but a sense of the distinction is becoming clearer.</p> + +<p>The privileged use of the word Crusade, which we have ventured to make +with reference to the first great outburst of Greek enthusiasm, suggests +a grand distinction, which may not unreasonably claim some illustration, +so deep does it reach in exhibiting the contrast between the character +of the early annals of the Hebrews and those of every other early +nation.</p> + +<p>Galilee and Joppa, and Nazareth, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives—what +a host of phantoms, what a resurrection from the graves of twelve and +thirteen centuries for the least reflecting of the army, had his mission +connected him no further with these objects than as a traveller passing +amongst them. But when the nature of his service was considered, the +purposes with which he allied himself, and the vindicating which he +supported, many times as a volunteer—the dullest natures must have been +penetrated, the lowest exalted.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> +<p>To this grand passion of religious enthusiasm stands opposed, according +to the general persuasion, the passion, equally exalted, or equally open +to exaltation, of love. 'So the whole ear of Denmark is abused.' Love, +chivalrous love, love in its noblest forms, was a passion unknown to the +Greeks; as we may well suppose in a country where woman was not +honoured, not esteemed, not treated with the confidence which is the +basis of all female dignity. However, this subject I shall leave +untouched: simply reminding the reader that even conceding for a moment +so monstrous an impossibility as that pure chivalrous love, as it exists +under Christian institutions, could have had an existence in the Greece +of 1000 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>; the more elevated, the more tender it was, the less fitted +it could be for the coarse air of a camp. The holy sepulchre would +command reverence, and the expression of reverence, from the lowest +sutler of the camp; but we may easily imagine what coarse jests would +eternally surround the name of Helen amongst the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Greek soldiery, and +everything connected with the cause which drew them into the field.</p> + +<p>Yet even this coarse travesty of a noble passion was a higher motive +than the Greeks really obeyed in the war with Troy. England, it has been +sometimes said, went to war with Spain, during George II.'s reign, on +account of Capt. Jenkins's ears, which a brutal Spanish officer, in the +cowardly abuse of his power, had nailed to the mast. And if she did, the +cause was a noble one, however unsuitably expounded by its outward +heraldry. There the cause was noble, though the outward sign was below +its dignity. But in the Iliad, if we may give that name to the total +expedition against Troy and the Troad, the relations were precisely +inverted. Its outward sign, its ostensible purpose, was noble: for it +was woman. <i>But the real and sincere motive which collected fifty +thousand Grecians under one common banner, was</i> (I am well assured upon +meditation) <i>money—money, and money's worth</i>. No less motive in that +age was adequate to the effect. Helen was, assuredly, no such prize +considering her damaged reputation and other circumstances. Revenge +might intermingle in a very small proportion with the general principle +of the war; as to the oath and its obligation, which is supposed to have +bound over the princes of Greece: that I suppose to be mere cant; for +how many princes were present in the field that never could have been +suitors to Helen, nor parties to the oath? Do we suppose old Nestor to +have been one? A young gentleman 'rising' 99, as the horse-jockeys say; +or by some reckonings, 113! No, plunder was the object.</p> + +<p>The truth was this—the plain historic truth for any man not wilfully +blind—Greece was miserably poor; that we know by what we find five +centuries after, when she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> must, like other people who find little else +to do, have somewhat bettered her condition. Troy and the Troad were +redundantly rich; it was their great crime to be so. Already the western +coast of Asia Minor was probably studded with Greek colonies, standing +in close connection with the great capitals on the Euphrates or the +Tigris, and sharing in the luxurious wealth of the great capitals on the +Euphrates or the Tigris. Mitford most justly explained the secret +history of Cæsar's expedition to England out of his wish to find a new +slave country.<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> And after all the romantic views of the Grecian +expedition to the Troad, I am satisfied we should look for its true +solution in the Greek poverty and the wealth—both <i>locally +concentrated</i> and <i>portable</i>—of the Trojans. Land or cities were things +too much diffused: and even the son of Peleus or of Telamon could not +put them into his pocket. But golden tripods, purple hangings or robes, +fine horses, and beautiful female slaves could be found over the +Hellespont. Helen, the <i>materia litis</i>, the subject of quarrel on its +earliest pretence, could not be much improved by a ten years' blockade. +But thousands of more youthful Helens were doubtless carried back to +Greece. And in this prospect of booty most assuredly lay the unromantic +motive of the sole romantic expedition amongst the Greeks.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p> +<p>III. <i>Oriental History.</i>—We here set aside the earlier tangle of legend +and fact which is called Oriental History, and for these reasons: (1) +instead of promoting the solution of chronological problems, Oriental +history is itself the most perplexing of those problems; (2) the +perpetual straining after a high fabulous antiquity amongst the nations +of the east, vitiates all the records; (3) the vast empires into which +the plains of Asia moulded the eastern nations, allowed of no such +rivalship as could serve to check their legends by collateral +statements; and (4) were all this otherwise, still the great permanent +schism of religion and manners has so effectually barred all coalition +between Europe and Asia, from the oldest times, that of necessity their +histories have flowed apart with little more reciprocal reference or +relationship, than exists between the Rhine and the Danube—rivers, +which almost meeting in their sources, ever after are continually +widening their distance until they fall into different seas two thousand +miles apart. Asia never, at any time, much acted upon Europe; and when +later ages had forced them into artificial connections, it was always +Europe that acted upon Asia; never Asia, upon any commensurate scale, +that acted upon Europe.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> +<p>Not, therefore, in Asia can the first footsteps of chronology be sought; +not in Africa, because, <i>first</i>, the records of Egypt, so far as any +have survived, are intensely Asiatic; liable to the same charge of +hieroglyphic ambiguity combined with the exaggerations of outrageous +nationality; because, <i>secondly</i>, the separate records of the adjacent +State of Cyrene have perished; because, <i>thirdly</i>, the separate records +of the next State, Carthage, have perished; because, <i>fourthly</i>, the +learned labours of Mauritania<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> have also perished.</p> + +<p>Thus the pupil is satisfied that of mere necessity the chronologer must +resort to Europe for his earliest monuments and his earliest +authentications—for the facts to be attested, and for the evidences +which are to attest them. But if to Europe, next, to what part of +Europe? Two great nations—great in a different sense, the one by +dazzling brilliancy of intellect, the other by weight and dignity of +moral grandeur—divide between them the honours of history through the +centuries immediately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> preceding the birth of Christ. To which of these, +the pupil asks, am I to address myself? On the one hand, the greater +refinement and earlier civilization of Greece would naturally converge +all eyes upon her; but then, on the other hand, we cannot forget the +'<i>levitas levissimæ gentis</i>'—the want of stability, the want of all +that we call moral dignity, and by direct consequence, the puerile +credulity of that clever, sparkling, but very foolish people, the +Greeks. That quality which, beyond all others, the Romans imputed to the +Grecian character; that quality which, in the very blaze of admiration, +challenged by the Grecian intellect, still overhung with deep shadows +their rational pretensions and degraded them to a Roman eye, was the +essential <i>levitas</i>—the defect of any principle that could have given +steadiness and gravity—which constituted the original sin of the Greek +character. By <i>levitas</i> was meant the passive obedience to casual, +random, or contradictory impulses, the absence of all determining +principle. Now this <i>levitas</i> was the precise anti-pole of the Roman +character; which was as massy, self-supported, and filled with +resistance to chance impulses, as the Greek character was windy, vain, +and servile to such impulses. Both nations, it is true, were +superstitious, because all nations, in those ages were intensely +superstitious; and each, after a fashion of its own, intensely +credulous. But the Roman superstition was coloured by something of a +noble pride; the Grecian by vanity. The Greek superstition was fickle +and self-contradicting, and liable to sudden changes; the Roman, +together with the gloom, had the unity and the perseverance of bigotry. +No Christian, even, purified and enlightened by his sublime faith, could +more utterly despise the base crawling adorations of Egypt, than did the +Roman polytheist, out of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> mere dignity of mind, while to the frivolous +Athenian they were simply objects of curiosity. In the Greek it was a +vulgar sentiment of clannish vanity.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> Even the national +self-consequence of a Roman and a Greek were sentiments of different +origin, and almost opposite quality; in the Roman it was a sublime and +imaginative idea of Rome, of her self-desired grandeur, and, above all, +of her divine <i>destiny</i>, over which last idea brooded a cloud of +indefinite expectation, not so entirely unlike the exalting expectations +of the Jews, looking for ever to some unknown 'Elias' that should come.</p> + +<p>Thus perplexed by the very different claims upon his respect in these +two exclusive authorities of the ancient world—carried to the Roman by +his <i>moral</i> feelings, to the Grecian by his intellectual—the student is +suddenly delivered from his doubts by the discovery that these two +principal streams of history flow absolutely apart through the elder +centuries of historical light.</p> + + +<p>IV. <i>777 and its Three Great Landmarks.</i>—In this perplexity, we say, +the youthful pupil is suddenly delighted to hear that there is no call +upon her to choose between Grecian and Roman guides. Fortunately, and as +if expressly to save her from any of those fierce disputes which have +risen up between the true Scriptural chronology and the chronology of +the mendacious Septuagint, it is laid down that the Greek and Roman +history, soon after both had formally commenced, flowed apart for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> +centuries; nor did they so much as hear of each other (unless as we +moderns heard of Prester John in Abyssinia, or of the Great Mogul in +India), until the Greek colonies in Calabria, etc., began to have a +personal meaning for a Roman ear, or until Sicily (as the common field +for Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian) began to have a dangerous meaning +for all three. As to the Romans, the very grandeur of their +self-reliance and the sublime faith which they had in the destinies<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> +of Rome, inclined them to carelessness about all but their nearest +neighbours, and sustained for ages their illiterate propensities. +Illiterate they were, because incurious; and incurious because too +haughtily self-confident. The Greeks, on the other hand, amongst the +other infirmities attached to their national levity, had curiosity in +abundance. But it flowed in other channels. There was nothing to direct +their curiosity upon the Romans. Generally speaking, there is good +reason for thinking that as, at this day, the privilege of a man to +present himself at any court of Christendom is recognised upon his +producing a ticket signed by a Lord Chamberlain of some other court, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> +the effect that 'the Bearer is known at St. James's,' or 'known at the +Tuileries,' etc.; so, after the final establishment of the Olympic +games, the Greeks looked upon a man's appearance at that great national +congress as the criterion and ratification of his being a known or +knowable person. Unknown, unannounced personally or by proxy at the +great periodic Congress of Greece, even a prince was a <i>homo +ignorabilis</i>; one whose existence nobody was bound to take notice of. A +Persian, indeed, was allowably absent; because, as a permanent public +enemy, he could not safely be present. But as to all others, and +therefore as to Romans, the rule of law held—that 'to those not coming +forward and those not in existence, the same line of argument applies.' +[<i>De non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio.</i>]</p> + +<p>Had this been otherwise—had the two nations met freely before the light +of history had strengthened into broad daylight—it is certain that the +controversies upon chronology would have been far more and more +intricate than they are. This profound<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> separation, therefore, has +been beneficial to the student in one direction. But in another it has +increased his duties; or, if not increased, at all events it serves to +remind him of a separate chapter in his chronological researches. Had +Rome stood in as close a relation to Greece as Persia did, one single +chronology would have sufficed for both. Hardly one event in Persian +history has survived for our memory, which is not taken up by the looms +of Greece and interwoven with the general arras and texture of Grecian<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> +history. And from the era of the Consul Paulus Emilius, something of the +same sort takes place between Greece and Rome; and in a partial sense +the same result is renewed as often as the successive assaults occur of +the Roman-destroying power applied to the several members of the +Græco-Macedonian Empire. But these did not commence until Rome had +existed for half-a-thousand years. And through all that long period, +two-thirds of the entire Roman history up to the Christian era, the two +Chronologies flow absolutely apart.</p> + +<p>Consequently, because all chronology is thrown back upon Europe, and +because the pre-Christian Europe is split into two collateral bodies, +and because each of these separate bodies must have a separate head—it +follows that chronology, as a pre-Christian chronology, will, like the +Imperial eagle, be two-headed. Now this accident of chronology, on a +first glance, seems but too likely to confuse and perplex the young +student.</p> + +<p>How fortunate, then, it must be thought, and what a duty it imposes upon +the teacher, not to defeat this bounty of accident by false and pedantic +rigour of calculation, that these two heads of the eagle—that head +which looks westward for Roman Chronology, that which looks eastward for +Grecian Chronology—do absolutely coincide as to their nativity. The +birthday of Grecian authentic history everybody agrees to look upon as +fixed to the establishment [the <i>final</i> establishment] of the Olympic +games. And when was <i>that</i>? Generally, chronologers have placed this +event just 776 years before Christ. Now will any teacher be so 'peevish' +[as hostess Quickly calls it]—so perversely unaccommodating—as not to +lend herself to the very trivial alteration of one year, just putting +the clock back to 7 instead<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> of 6, even if the absolute certainty of the +6 were made out? But if she <i>will</i> break with her chronologer, 'her +guide, philosopher and friend,' upon so slight a consideration as one +year in three-quarters of a millennium, it then becomes my duty to tell +her that there is no such certainty in the contested number as she +chooses to suppose. Even the era of our Saviour's birth oscillates +through an entire Olympiad, or period of four years; to that extent it +is unsettled: and in fifty other ways I could easily make out a title to +a much more considerable change. In reality, when the object is—not to +secure an attorney-like<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> accuracy—but to promote the <i>liberal</i> +pursuit of chronology, a teacher of good sense would at once direct her +pupil to record the date in round terms as just reaching the +three-quarters of a thousand years; she would freely sacrifice the +entire twenty-six years' difference between 776 and 750, were it not +that the same purpose, viz., the purpose of consulting the powers or +convenience and capacity of the memory, in neglect and defiance of +useless and superstitious arithmetic punctilios, may be much better +attained by a more trifling sacrifice. Three-quarters of a millennium, +that is three parts in four of a thousand years, is a period easily +remembered; but a triple repetition of the number 7, simply saying +'<i>Seven seven seven</i>' is remembered even <i>more</i> easily.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p><p>Suppose this point then settled, for anything would be remarkable and +highly rememberable which comes near to a common familiar fraction of so +vast a period in human affairs as a millennium [a term consecrated to +our Christian ears, (1) by its use in the Apocalypse; (2) by its +symbolic use in representing the long Sabbath of rest from sin and +misery, and finally (3) even to the profane ear by the fact of its being +the largest period which we employ in our historical estimates]. But a +triple iteration of the number 7, simply saying '<i>Seven seven seven</i>,' +would be even more rememberable. And, lastly, were it still necessary to +add anything by way of reconciling the teacher to the supposed +inaccuracy (though, if a real<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> and demonstrated inaccuracy, yet, be +it remembered, the very least which <i>can</i> occur, viz., an error of a +single unit), I will—and once for all, as applying to many similar +cases, as often as they present themselves—put this stringent question +to every woman of good sense: is it not better,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> is it not more +agreeable to your views for the service of your pupils, that they should +find offered to their acceptance some close approximation to the truth +which they can very easily remember, than an absolute conformity to the +very letter of the truth which no human memory, though it were the +memory of Mithridates, could retain? Good sense is shown, above all +things, in seeking the practicable which is within our power, by +preference to a more exquisite ideal which is unattainable. Not, I +grant, in moral or religious things. Then I willingly allow, we are +forbidden to sit down contented with imperfect attempts, or to make +deliberate compromises with the slightest known evil in principle. To +this doctrine I heartily subscribe. But surely in matters <i>not</i> moral, +in questions of erudition or of antiquarian speculation, or of +historical research, we are under a different rule. Here, and in similar +cases, it is our business, I conceive with Solon legislating for the +Athenians, to contemplate, not what is best in an abstract sense, but +what is best under the circumstances of the case. Now the most important +circumstances of this case are—that the memory of young ladies must be +assumed as a faculty of average power, both as to its apprehensiveness +and as to its tenacity; its power of mastering for the moment, and its +power of retaining faithfully; that this faculty will not endure the +oppression of mere blank facts having no organization or life of logical +relation running through them; that by 'not enduring' I mean that it +cannot support this harassing and persecution with impunity<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a>; that +the fine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> edge of the higher intellectual powers will be taken off by +this laborious straining, which is not only dull, but the cause of +dulness; that finally, the memory, supposing it in a given and rare case +powerful enough to contend successfully with such tasks, must even as +regards this time required, hold itself disposable for many other +applications; and therefore, as the inference from the whole, that not +any slight or hasty, but a most intense and determinate effort should be +made to substitute some technical artifices for blank pulls against a +dead weight of facts, to substitute fictions, or artificial imitations +of logical arrangement, wherever that is possible, for blind +arrangements of chance; and finally, in a process which requires every +assistance from compromise and accommodation constantly to surrender the +rigour of superstitious accuracy, (which, after all its magnificent +pretensions, <i>must</i> fail in the performance), to humbler probability of +a reasonable success.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p><p>I have dwelt upon this point longer than would else have been right, +because in effect here lies the sole practical obstacle to the +realization of a very beautiful framework of chronology, and because I +consider myself as now speaking <i>once for all</i>. Let us now move forward. +I now go on to the other head of the eagle—the head which looks +westward.</p> + +<p>Here it will be objected that the Foundation of Rome is usually laid +down in the year 753 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>; and therefore that it differs from the +foundation of the Olympiads by as much as 23 or 24 years; and can I have +the conscience to ask my fair friends that they should <i>put the clock +back</i> so far as that? Why, really there is no knowing; perhaps if I were +hard pressed by some chronological enemy, I might ask as great a favour +even as that. But at present it is not requisite; neither do I mean to +play any jugglers' tricks, as perhaps lawfully I might, with the +different computations of Varro, of the Capitoline Marbles, etc. All +that need be said in this place is simply—that Rome is not Romulus. And +let Rome have been founded when she pleases, and let her secret name +have been what it might—though really, in default of a better, Rome +itself is as decent and <i>'sponsible</i> a name as a man would wish—still I +presume that Romulus must have been a little older than Rome, the +builder a little anterior to what he built. Varro and the Capitoline +Tables and Mr. Hook will all agree to that postulate. And whatever some +of them may say as to the youth of Romulus, when he first began to wield +the trowel, at least, I suppose, he was come to years of discretion; +and, if we say twenty-three or twenty-four, which I am as much entitled +to say as they to deny it, then we are all right. 'All right behind,' as +the mail guards say, 'drive on.' And so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> I feel entitled to lay my hand +upon my heart and assure my fair pupils that Romulus himself and the +Olympiads did absolutely start together; and for anything known to the +contrary, perhaps in the same identical moment or bisection of a moment. +Possibly his first little wolfish howl (for it would be monstrous to +think that he or even Remus condescended to a <i>vagitus</i> or cry such as a +young tailor or rat-catcher might emit) may have symphonized with the +ear-shattering trumpet that proclaimed the inauguration of the first +Olympic contest, or which blew to the four winds the appellation of the +first Olympic victor.</p> + +<p>That point, therefore, is settled, and so far, at least, 'all's right +behind.' And it is a great relief to my mind that so much is +accomplished. Two great arrow-headed nails at least are driven 'home' to +the great dome of Chronology from which my whole golden chain of +historical dependencies is to swing. And even that will suffice. Careful +navigators, indeed, like to ride by three anchors; but I am content with +what I have achieved, even if my next attempt should be less +satisfactory.</p> + +<p>It is certainly a very striking fact to the imagination that great +revolutions seldom come as solitary cases. It never rains but it pours. +At times there <i>is</i> some dark sympathy, which runs underground, +connecting remote events like a ground-swell in the ocean, or like the +long careering<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> of an earthquake before it makes its explosion.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> +<i>Abyssus abyssum invocat</i>—'One deep calleth to another.' And in some +incomprehensible way, powers not having the slightest <i>apparent</i> +interconnexion, no links through which any <i>casual</i> influence could +rationally be transmitted, do, nevertheless, in fact, betray either a +blind nexus—an undiscoverable web of dependency upon each other, or +else a dependency upon some common cause equally undiscoverable. What +possible, what remote connexion could the dissolution of the Assyrian +empire have with the Olympiads or with the building of Rome? Certainly +none at all that we can see; and yet these great events so nearly +synchronize that even the latest of them seems but a more distant +undulation of the same vast swell in the ocean, running along from west +to east, from the Tiber to the Tigris. Some great ferment of revolution +was then abroad. The overthrew of Nineveh as the capital of the Assyrian +empire, the ruin of the dynasty ending in Sardanapalus, and the +subsequent dismemberment of the Assyrian empire, took place, according +to most chronologers, 747 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, just 30 years, therefore, after +the two great events which I have assigned to 777. These two events are +in the strictest and most capital sense the inaugural events of history, +the very pillars of Hercules which indicate a <i>ne plus ultra</i> in that +direction; namely, that all beyond is no longer history but romance. I +am exceedingly anxious to bring this Assyrian revolution also to the +same great frontier line of columns. In a gross general way it might +certainly be argued that in such a great period, thirty years, or one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> +generation, can be viewed as nothing more than a trifling quantity. But +it must also be considered that the exact time, and even the exact +personality,<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> of Sardanapalus in all his relations are not known. All +are vast phantoms in the Assyrian empire; I do not say fictions, but +undefined, unmeasured, immeasurable realities; far gone down into the +mighty gulf of shadows, and for us irrecoverable. All that is known +about the Assyrian empire is its termination under Sardanapalus. It was +then coming within Grecian twilight; and it will be best to say that, +generally speaking, Sardanapalus coincided with Romulus and the Greek +Olympiad. To affect any nearer accuracy than this would be the grossest +reliance on the mere jingle of syllables. History would be made to rest +on something less than a pun; for such as <i>Palus</i> and <i>Pul</i>, which is +all that learned archbishops can plead as their vouchers in the matter +of Assyria, there is not so much as the argument of a child or the wit +of a punster.</p> + +<p>Upon the whole, the teacher will make the following remarks to her +pupils, after having read what precedes; remarks partly upon the new +mode of delivering chronology, and partly upon the things delivered:</p> + +<p>I. She will notice it—as some improvement—that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> three great +leading events, which compose the opening of history not fabulous, are +here, for the first time, placed under the eye in their true relations +of time, viz., as about contemporary. For without again touching on the +question—do they, or do they not, vary from each other in point of time +by twenty-three and by thirty years—it will be admitted by everybody +that, at any rate, the three events stand equally upon the frontier line +of authentic history. A frontier or debateable land is always of some +breadth. They form its inauguration. And they would do so even if +divided by a much wider interval. Now, it is very possible to know of A, +B, and C, separately, that each happened in such a year, say 1800; and +yet never to have noticed them consciously <i>as</i> contemporary. We read of +many a man (L, M, N, suppose), that he was born in 1564, or that he died +in 1616. And we may happen separately to know that these were the years +in which Shakespeare was born and died. Yet, for all that, we may never +happen consciously to notice with respect to any one of the men, L, M, +N, that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare's. Now, this was the case +with regard to the three great events, Greek, Roman, and Assyrian. No +chronologer failed to observe of each in its separate place that it +occurred somewhere about 750 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> But every chronologer had failed +to notice this coincident time of each <i>as</i> coincident. And, +accordingly, all failed to converge these three events into one focus as +the solemn and formal opening of history. It is good to have a +beginning, a starting post, from which to date all possible historical +events that are worthy to be regarded as such. But it is better still to +find that by the rarest of accidents, by a good luck that could never +have been looked for, the three separate starting posts—which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +historical truth obliges us to assume for the three great fields of +history, Roman, Grecian, and Asiatic<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a>—all closely coincide in point +of time; or, to use the Greek technical term, all closely synchronize.</p> + +<p>II. With respect to Greece and the Olympiad in particular, she will +inform her pupil that the Olympic games, celebrated near the town of +Olympia, recurred every fifth year; that is to say, there was a clear +interval of four years between each revolution of the games. Each +Olympiad, therefore, containing four years, it is usual in citing the +particular Olympiad in which an event happened, to cite also the year, +should that be known, or, being known, should that be of importance. +Thus Olymp. CX. 3 would mean that such a thing, say X, occurred in the +third year of the 110th Olympiad; that is, four times 110 will be 440; +and this, deducted from 777 (the era of the Olympiads), leaves 337 years +<span class="smcap">b.c.</span> as the era when X occurred. Only that, upon reviewing the case, we +find that the 110th Olympiad was not absolutely completed, not by one +year; which, subtracted from the 337, leaves 336 <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> as the true date. +If her pupil should say, 'But were there no great events in Greece +before the Olympiads?' the teacher will answer, 'Yes, a few, but not +many of a rank sufficient to be called Grecian.' They are merely local +events; events of Thessaly, suppose; events of Argos; but much too +obscure, both as to the facts, as to the meaning of the facts, and as to +the dates, to be worth any student's serious attention. There were, +however, three<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> events worthy to be called <i>Grecian</i>; partly because +they interested more States than one of Greece; and partly because they +have since occupied the Athenian stage, and received a sort of +consecration from the great masters of Grecian tragedy. These three +events were the fatal story of the house of Œdipus; a story +stretching through three generations; and in which the war against the +Seven Gates of Thebes was but an episode. Secondly, the Argonautic +expedition (voyage of the ship <i>Argo</i>, and of the sailors in that ship, +<i>i.e.</i>, the Argonauts), which is consecrated as the first voyage of any +extent undertaken by Greeks. Both these events are as full of heroic +marvels, and of supernatural marvels, as the legends of King Arthur, +Merlin, and the Fairy Morgana. Later than these absolute romances comes +the semi-romance of the Iliad, or expedition against Troy. This, the +most famous of all Pagan romances, we know by two separate criteria to +be later in date than either of the two others; first, because the +actors in the Iliad are the descendants of those who figured as actors +in the others; secondly, from the subdued tone of the romantic<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> which +prevails<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> throughout the Iliad. Now, with respect to these three events +in Grecian history, anterior to the Olympiads, which are all that a +young student ought to notice, it is sufficient if generally she is made +aware of the order in which they stand to each other, or, at least, that +the Iliad comes last in the series, and if as to this last and greatest +of the series, she fixes its era precisely to one thousand years before +Christ. Chronologers, indeed, sometimes bring it down to something +lower. But one millennium, the clear unembarrassed cyphers of 1,000, +whether in counting guineas or years, is a far simpler and a far more +rememberable era than any qualifications of this round number; which +qualifications, let it not for a moment be forgotten, are not at all +better warranted than the simpler expression. One only amongst all +chronologers has anything to stand upon that is not as unsubstantial as +a cloud; and this is Sir Isaac Newton. And the way in which he proceeded +it may be well to explain, in order that the young pupil may see what +sort of evidences we have <i>prior to the Olympiads</i> for any chronological +fact. Sir Isaac endeavoured by calculating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> backwards to ascertain the +exact time of some celestial phenomenon—as, suppose, an eclipse of the +sun, or such and such positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to +each other. This phenomenon, whatever it were, call X. Then if (upon +looking into the Argonautic Expedition or any other romance of those +elder times) he finds X actually noticed as co-existing with any part of +the adventures, in that case he has fixed by absolute observation, as it +were, what we may call the latitude and longitude of that one historical +event; and then using this, as we use our modern meridian of Greenwich, +as a point of starting, he can deduce the distances of all subsequent +events by tracing them through the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons +of the several actors concerned. The great question which will then +remain to be settled is, how many years to allow for a generation; and, +secondly, in monarchies, how much to allow for a reign, since often two +successive reigns will not be two successive generations, because whilst +the two reigns are distinct quantities, the two lives are coincident +through a great part of their duration. Now, of course, Sir Isaac is +very often open to serious criticism, or to overpowering doubts. That is +inevitable. But on the whole he treads upon something like a firm +footing. Others, as regards that era, tread upon mere clouds, and their +authority goes for nothing at all.</p> + +<p>Such being the state of the case, let the pupil never trouble her memory +for one moment with so idle an effort as that of minutely fixing or +retaining dates that, after all, are more doubtful, and for us +irrecoverable, than the path of some obscure trading ship in some past +generation through the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, it will be quite near +enough to the truth if she places upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> the meridian of 1000 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> +the three Romances—Argonautic, Theban, Trojan; and she will then have +the satisfaction of finding that, as at the opening of authentic +history, she found the Roman, the Greek, and the Asiatic inaugural +events coinciding in the same exact focus, so in these semi-fabulous or +ante-Olympian events, she finds that one and the same effort of memory +serves to register <i>them</i>, and also the most splendid of the Jewish +eras—that of David and Solomon. The round sum of 1000 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, so +easily remembered, without distinction, without modification, '<i>sans +phrase</i>' (to quote a brutal regicide), serves alike for the Seven-gated +Thebes,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> for Troy, and for Jerusalem in its most palmy days.</p> + +<p>V. <i>A Perplexity Cleared Up.</i>—Before passing onward here, it is highly +important to notice a sort of episode in history, which fills up the +interval between 777 and 555, but which is constantly confounded and +perplexed with what took place before 777.</p> + +<p>The word <i>Assyria</i> is that by which the perplexity is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> maintained. The +Assyrian empire, as the pupil is told, was destroyed in the person of +Sardanapalus. Yet, in her Bible, she reads of Sennacherib, King of +Assyria. 'Was Sennacherib, then, before Sardanapalus?' she will ask; and +her teacher will inform her that he was not.</p> + +<p>Such things puzzle her. They seem palpable contradictions. But now let +her understand that out of the Assyrian empire split off three separate +kingdoms, of which one was called the Assyrian, not empire, but kingdom; +there lurks the secret of the error. And to this kingdom of Assyria it +was that Sennacherib belonged. Or, in order to represent by a sensible +image this derivation of kingdoms from the stock of the old +superannuated Assyrian empire (to which belonged Nimrod, Ninus, and +Semiramis—those mighty phantoms, with their incredible armies); let her +figure to herself some vast river, like the Nile or the Ganges, with the +form assumed by its mouths. Often it will happen, where such a river is +not hemmed in between rocks, or confined to the bed of a particular +valley, that, perhaps, a hundred or two of miles before reaching the +sea, upon coming into a soft, alluvial soil, it will force several +different channels for itself. As these must make angles to each other, +in order to form different roads, the land towards the disemboguing of +the river will take the arrangement of a triangle. And as that happens +to be the form of a Greek capital D (in the Greek alphabet called +Delta), it has been usual to call such an arrangement of a great river's +mouth a Delta.</p> + +<p>Now, then, let her think of the Assyrian empire under the notion of the +Nile, descending from far distant regions, and from fountains that were +concealed for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> ages, if even now discovered. Then, when it approaches +the sea, and splits up its streams, so as to form a Delta, let her +regard that Delta as the final state of the Assyrian power, the kingdom +state lasting for about two centuries until swallowed up altogether, and +remoulded into unity by the Persian empire.</p> + +<p>The Delta, therefore, or the Nile dividing into three streams, will +represent the three kingdoms formed out of the ruins of the Assyrian +empire, when falling to pieces by the death of Sardanapalus. One of +these three kingdoms is often called the Median; one the Chaldæan; and +the third is called the Assyrian kingdom. But the most rememberable +shape in which they can be recalled is, perhaps, by the names of their +capitals. The capital cities were as follows: of the first, <i>Ecbatana</i>, +which is the modern <i>Hamadan</i>; of the second, <i>Babylon</i>, on the +Euphrates, of which the ruins have been fully ascertained in our own +times; at present, nothing remains <i>but</i> ruins, and these ruins are +dangerous to visit, both from human marauders prowling in that +neighbourhood, and from wild beasts of the most formidable class, which +are so little disturbed in their awful lairs, that they bask at noon-day +amongst the huge hills of half-vitrified bricks. Finally, of the third +kingdom, which still retained the name of Assyria, the metropolis was +<i>Nineveh</i>, on the Tigris, revealed by Layard.</p> + +<p>These three kingdoms had some internal wars and revolutions during the +two centuries which elapsed from the great period 777 (the period of +Sardanapalus), until the days of Cyrus, the Persian. By that time the +three had become two, the kingdom of Nineveh had been swallowed up, and +Cyrus, who was destined to form<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> the Persian empire upon their ruins, +found one change less to be effected than might have been looked for. Of +the two which remained, he conquered one, and the other came to him by +maternal descent. Thus he gained all three, and moulded them into one, +called Persia.</p> + +<p>VI. <i>Five and Five and Five.</i>—The crowning action in which Cyrus +figures is, therefore, that of conqueror of Babylon, and all the details +of his career point forward, like markings on the dial, towards that +great event, as full of interest for the imagination as any of the +events of pre-Christian history. I would fain for once by the aid of +metre, fix more firmly in the mind of the reader the grandeur and +imposing significance of this event:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thus in Five and Five and Five did Cyrus the Great of Elam,<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">On a festal night break in with roar of the fierce alalagmos.<a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over Babylonian walls, over tower and turret of entrance,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over helmèd heads, and over the carnage of armies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Idle the spearsman's spear, Assyrian scymitar idle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Broken the bow-string lay of the Mesopotamian archer;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Ride to the halls of Belshazzar, ride through the murderous uproar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ride to the halls of Belshazzar!' commanded Cyrus of Elam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They rode to the halls of Belshazzar. Oh, merciful, merciful angels!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That prompt sweet tears to men, hang veils, hang drapery darkest,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If any may hide or may pall this night's tempestuous horror.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like a deluge the army poured in on their snorting Bactrian horses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rattled the Parthian quivers, rang the Parthian harness of iron,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">High upon spears rode the torches, and from them in showery blazes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rained splendour lurid and fierce on the dreamlike ruinous uproar,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as delusions often from fever's fierce vertical ardour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Show through the long-chambered halls and corridors endless,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blazing with cruel light—show to the brain of the stricken man;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such as the angel of dreams sometimes sends to the guilty.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such light lay in open front, but palpable ebony blackness,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sealed every far-off street in deep and awful abysses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of which rose like phantoms, rose and sank as a sea-bird<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rises and sinks on the waves of a dim, tumultuous ocean,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Faces dabbled in blood, phantasmagory direful and scenic.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"> * * * *</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But where is Belshazzar the Lord? Has he fled? Has he found an asylum?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or still does he pace in his palace, blind-seeming or moonstruck?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Still does he tread proudly the palace, fancy-deluded,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prophets of falsehood trusting, or false Babylonian idols,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Defying the odious truth from the summit of empire!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lo! at his palace gates the fierce Apollyon's great army,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With maces uplifted, stand to make way for great Cyrus of Elam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Watching for signal from him whose truncheon this way or that bids:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Strike!' said Cyrus the King. 'Strike!' said the princes of Elam;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the brazen gates at the word, like flax that is broken asunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By fire from earth or from heaven, snapped as a bulrush,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Snapped as a reed, as a wand, as the tiny toy of an infant.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Marvellous the sight that followed! Oh, most august revelation!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mile-long were the halls that appeared, and open spaces enormous;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Areas fit to hold armies on the day of muster for battle;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hosts upon either side, for amplest castrametation.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Depth behind depth, and dim labyrinthine apartments.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Golden galleries above running high into darkening vistas,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Staircases soaring and climbing, till sight grew dizzy with effort<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of chasing the corridors up to their whispering gloomy recesses.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nations were ranged in the halls, nations ranged at a banquet,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Even then lightly proceeding with timbrel, dulcimer, hautboy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gong and loud kettledrum and fierce-blown tempestuous organ.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Banners floated in air, colossal embroidery tissues<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Tyrian looms, scarlet, black, violet and amber,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or the perfectest cunning of trained Babylonian artist,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or massy embossed, from the volant shuttle of Phrygian.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Banners suspended in shade, or in the full glare of the lamplight,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mid cressets and chandeliers by jewelly chains swinging pendant.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span><span class="i0"> * * * * *</span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Draw a veil o'er the rout when advances great Cyrus of Elam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dusky-browed archers behind him, and spearmen before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When he cries 'Strike!' and the gorgeously inlaid pavements<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Run ruddy with blood of the festive Assyrians there.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>VII.—<i>Greece and Rome.</i>—My female readers, whom only I contemplate in +every line of this little work, and who would have a right to consider +it disrespectful if I were to leave a single word of Latin or Greek +unexplained, must understand that the Greeks, according to that +universal habit of viewing remote objects in a relation of ascent or +descent with respect to the observer, whence the 'going up to +Jerusalem,' and our own 'going up to London,' always figured a journey +eastwards, that is, directed towards the Euphrates or Tigris, or to any +part of Asia from Greece as tending <i>upwards</i>. In this mode of +conceiving their relations to the East, they were governed +semi-consciously by the sense of a vast presence beyond the +Tigris—glorified by grandeur and by distance—the golden city of Susa, +and the throne of the great king. Accordingly, the expedition therefore +of Cyrus the younger against his brother Artaxerxes was called by +Xenophon, when recording it, the Anabasis, or going up of Cyrus; and, +from the accident of its celebrity, this title has adhered to that +expedition; and to that book—as if either could claim it by some +exclusive title; whereas, on the contrary, the Katabasis, or going down, +furnishes by much the larger and the more interesting part of the work. +And, in any case, the title is open to all Asiatic expeditions +whatsoever; to the Trojan that just crossed the water, to the Macedonian +that went beyond the Indus. The word Anàbăsis must have its accent on +the syllable <i>ab</i>, not on the penultimate syllable <i>as</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> + +<p>In coming to the history of Imperial Rome, one is fortunately made +sensible at once of a vast advantage, which is this—that one is not +throwing away one's labour. Sad it is, after ploughing a stiff and +difficult clay, to find all at once that the whole is a task of so +little promise that perhaps, on the whole, one might as well have left +it untouched.</p> + +<p>X. Yes, I remember that my cousin, Cecilia Dinbury, took the pains to +master—or perhaps one ought to say to <i>mistress</i>—the history.</p> + +<p>L. No, to <i>miss</i> it, is what one ought to say.</p> + +<p>X. Fie, my dear second cousin—Fie, fie, if you please. To <i>miss</i> it, +indeed! Ah, how we wished that we <i>had</i> missed it. But we had no such +luck. There were we broiling through a hot, hot August, broiling away at +this intolerable stew of Iskis and Fuskis, and all to no end or use. +Granted that too often it is, or it may be so. But here we are safe. Who +can fancy or feel so much as the shadow of a demur, when peregrinating +Rome, that we might be losing our toil?</p> + +<p>Now, then, in the highest spirits, let us open our studies. And first +let us map out a chart of the <i>personnel</i> for pretty nearly a century. +Twelve Cæsars—the twelve first—should clearly of themselves make more +than a century. For I am sure all of you, except our two new friends, +know so much of arithmetic as that multiplication and division are a +great menace upon addition and subtraction. It is, therefore, a thing +most desirable to set up compound modes—short devices for abridging +these. Now 10 is the earliest number written with two digits: and the +higher the multiplier, so much harder, apparently, the process. Yet here +at least a great simplification offers. To multiply by 10, all you have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> +to do is to put a cipher after the multiplicand. Twenty-seven soldiers +are to have 10 guineas each, how much is required to pay all +twenty-seven? Why, 27 into 10 is 27 with a cipher at the end—27 ∶ 0, <i>i.e.</i>, 270. +<i>Ergo</i>, twelve Cæsars, supposing +each to reign ten years, would make, no, <i>should</i> make, with anything +like great lives—12 ∶ 0, <i>i.e.</i>, 120 years. And when +you consider that one of the twelve, viz., Augustus, singly, for <i>his</i> +share, contributed fifty and odd years, if the other eleven had given +ten each that would be 11 ∶ 0; this would make a +total of about 170.</p> + +<p>VIII.—<i>Beginning of Modern Era.</i>—From the period of Justinian +commences a new era—an era of unusual transition. This is the broad +principle of change. Old things are decaying, new things are forming and +gathering. The lines of decay and of resurrection are moving visibly and +palpably to every eye in counteracting agency for one result—life and a +new truth for humanity. All the great armies of generous barbarians, +showing, by contrast with Rome and Greece, the opulence of teeming +nature as against the powers of form in utter superannuation, were now, +therefore, no longer moving, roaming, seeking—they had taken up their +ground; they were in a general process of castrametation, marking out +their alignments and deploying into open order upon ground now +permanently taken up for their settlement. The early trumpets, the +morning <i>réveillé</i> of the great Christian nations—England, France, +Spain, Lombardy—were sounding to quarters. Franks had knit into one the +rudiments of a great kingdom upon the soil of France; the Saxons and +Angles, with some Vandals, had, through a whole century, been defiling +by vast trains into the great island which they were called by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> +Providence to occupy and to ennoble; the Vandals had seated themselves, +though in this case only with no definite hopes, along the extreme +region of the Barbary States. Vandals might and did survive for a +considerable period in ineffective fragments, but not as a power. The +Visigoths had quartered themselves on Spain, there soon to begin a +conflict for the Cross, and to maintain it for eight hundred years, and +finally to prevail. And lastly, the Lombards had thrown a network of +colonization over Italy, which, as much by the cohesions which it shook +loose and broke asunder as by the new one which it bred, exhibited a +power like that of the coral insects, and gave promise of a new empire +built out of floating dust and fragments.</p> + +<p>The movements which formerly had resembled those gigantic pillars of +sand that mould themselves continually under the action of sun and wind +in the great deserts—suddenly showing themselves upon the remote +horizon, rear themselves silently and swiftly, then stalking forward +towards the affected caravan like a phantom phantasmagoria, approach, +manœuvre, overshadow, and then as suddenly recede, collapse, +fluctuate, again to remould into other combinations and to alarm other +travellers—have passed. This vast structure of Central Europe had been +abandoned by all the greater tribes; they had crossed the vast barriers +of Western Europe—the Alps, the Vosges, the Pyrenees, the ocean—these +were now the wards within which they had committed their hopes and the +graves of their fathers. Social developments tended to the same, and no +longer either wishing or finding it possible to roam, they were all now, +through an entire century, taking up their ground and making good their +tumultuous irruptions; with the power of moving<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> had been conjoined a +propensity to move. Rustic life, which must essentially have been +maintained on the great area of German vagrancy, was more and more +confirmed.</p> + +<p>With this physical impossibility of roaming, and with the reciprocal +compression of each exercised on the other, coincided the new instincts +of civilization. They were no longer barbarous by a brutal and animal +barbarism. The deep soil of their powerful natures had long been budding +into nobler capacities, and had expanded into nobler perceptions. +Reverence for female dignity, a sentiment never found before in any +nation, gave a vernal promise of some higher humanity, on a wider scale +than had yet been exhibited. Strong sympathies, magnetic affinities, +prepared this great encampment of nations for Christianity. Their +nobility needed such a field for its expansion; Christianity needed such +a human nature for its evolution. The strong and deep nature of the +Teutonic tribes could not have been evolved, completed, without +Christianity. Christianity in a soil so shallow and unracy as the +Græco-Latin, could not have struck those roots which are immovable. The +ultimate conditions of the soil and the capacities of the culture must +have corresponded. The motions of Barbaria had hitherto indicated only +change; change without hope; confusion without tendencies; strife +without principle of advance; new births in each successive age without +principle of regeneration; momentary gain balanced by momentary loss; +the tumult of a tossing ocean which tends to none but momentary rest. +But now the currents are united, enclosed, and run in one direction, and +that is definite and combined.</p> + +<p>Now truly began that modern era, of which we happily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> reap the harvest: +then were laid the first foundations of social order and the first +effective hint of that sense of mutual aid and dependence which has, +century by century, been creating such a balance and harmony of adjusted +operations—of agencies working night and day, which no man sees, for +services which no man creates: the agencies are like Ezekiel's +wheels—self-sustained; the services in which they labour have grown up +imperceptibly as the growth of a yew, and from a period as far removed +from cognizance. One man dies every hour out of myriads, his place is +silently supplied, and the mysterious economy thus propagates itself in +silence, like the motion of the planets, from age to age. Hands +innumerable are every moment writing summonses, returns, reports, +figures—records that would stretch out to the crack of doom, as yet +every year accumulated, written by professional men, corrected by +correctors, checked by controllers, and afterwards read by corresponding +men, re-read by corresponding controllers, passed and ratified by +corresponding ratifiers; and through this almighty pomp of wheels, whose +very whirling would be heard into other planets, did not the very +velocity of their motion seem to sleep on their soft axle, is the +business of this great nation, judicial, fixed, penal, deliberative, +statistical, commercial, all carried on without confusion, never +distracting one man by its might, nor molesting one man by its noise.</p> + +<p>Now, in the semi-fabulous times of Egypt and Assyria, things were not so +managed. Ours are the ages of intellectual powers, of working by +equivalents and substitutions; but theirs were done by efforts of brute +power, possible only in the lowest condition of animal man, when all +wills converged absolutely in one, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> human life, cheap as dog's, +had left man in no higher a state of requirement, and had given up human +power to be applied at will—without art or skill.</p> + +<p>Then the armies of a Semiramis even were in this canine state. It was +her curse to have subjects that had no elevation, swarming by myriads +like flies; mere animal life, the mere animal armies which she needed; +what she wanted was exactly what they would yield. To such cattle all +cares beyond that of mere provender were thrown away. Surgical care and +the ambulance, such as the elevation of man's condition, and the +solemnity of his rights, seen by the awful eye of Christianity, will +always require, were simply ridiculous. As well raise hospitals for +decayed butterflies. Provender was all: not <i>panem et circenses</i>—bread +and theatrical shows—but simply bread, and that wretched of its kind. +Drink was an ideal luxury. Was there not the Euphrates, was there not +the Tigris, the Aranes? The Roman armies carried <i>posca</i> by way of such +luxury, a drink composed of vinegar and water. But as to Semiramis—what +need of the vinegar? And why carry the water? Could it not be found in +the Euphrates, etc.? Let the dogs lap at the Euphrates, and stay for +their next draught till they come to the Tigris or the Aranes. Or, if +they drank a river or so dry, and a million or two should die, what of +that? Let them go on to the Tigris, and thence to the Aranes, the Oxus, +or Indus. Clothes were dispensable from the climate, food only of the +lowest quality, and finally the whole were summoned only for one +campaign, and usually this was merely a sort of partisan camisade upon a +colossal scale, in which the superfluous population of one vast nation +threw themselves upon another. Mere momentum turned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the scale; one +nuisance of superfluous humanity was discharged upon such another +nuisance, the one exterminating the other, or, if both by accident +should be exterminated, what mattered it? The major part of the two +nuisances, like algebraical quantities of plus and minus, extinguished +each other. And, in any case, the result, whatever it might be, of that +one campaign, which was rather a journey terminating in a bad battle of +mobs, than anything artificial enough to deserve the title of camp, +terminated the whole war. Here, at least, we see the determining impulse +of political economy intervening, coming round upon them, if it had not +been perceived before. If the two nations began their warfare, and +planned it in defiance of all common laws and exchequers, at any rate +the time it lasted was governed by that only. The same thing recurred in +the policy of the feudal ages; the bumpkins, the vassals, were compelled +to follow the standard, but their service was limited to a certain +number of weeks. Afterwards, by law, as well as by custom, they +dissolved for the autumnal labour of the harvest. And thus it was, until +the princes would allow of mercenary armies, no system of connecting +politics grew up in Europe, or could grow up; having no means of +fighting each other, they were like leopards in Africa gnawing at a +leopard in Asia; they fumed apart like planets that could not cross; a +vast revolution, which Robertson ascribes to the reign of Francis I., +but which I, upon far better grounds and on speculations much more +exclusively pursued, date from the age of Louis XI. Differing in +everything, and by infinite degrees for the worse from these early +centuries, the age of Semiramis agreed in this—that if the non-culture +of the human race allowed them to break out into war with little or no +preparation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> but what each man personally could make, and if thus far +political economy did not greatly control the policy of nations, yet in +the reaction these same violated laws vindicated their force by sad +retributions. Famines, at all events dire exhaustion, invariably put an +end to such tumultuary wars, if they did not much control their +beginnings,<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a> and periodically expressed their long retributory +convulsions.</p> + +<p>Not, therefore, because political economy was of little avail, but +because the details are lost in the wilderness of years, must we +disregard the political economy in the early Assyrian combinations of +the human race. The details are lost for political economy as a cause, +and the details are equally lost of the wars and the revolutions which +were its effects. But in coming more within the light of authentic +history, I contend that political economy is better known, and that in +that proportion it explains much of what ought to be known. For example, +I contend that the condition of Athens, for herself and for the rest of +the Greek confederacy, nay, the entire course of the Athenian wars, of +all that Athens did or forbore to do, her actions alike, and her +omissions, are to be accounted for, and lie involved in the statistics +of her fiscal condition.</p> + +<p>IX.—<i>Geography.</i>—Look next at geography. The consideration of this +alone throws a new light on history. Every country that is now or will +be, has had some of its primary determinations impressed upon its policy +and institutions; nay, upon its feeling and character, which is the well +of its policy, by its geographical position: that is,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> by its position +as respects climate in the first place, secondly, as respects neighbours +(<i>i.e.</i>, enemies), whether divided by mountains, rivers, deserts, or the +great desert of the sea—or divided only by great belts of land—a +passable solitude. Thirdly, as respects its own facilities and +conveniences for raising food, clothing, luxuries. Indeed, not only is +it so moulded and determined as to its character and aspects, but +oftentimes even as to its very existence.</p> + +<p>Many have noticed wisely and truly in the physical aspect of Asia and +the South of Caucasus, that very destiny of slavery and of partition +into great empires, which has always hung over them. The great plains of +Asia fit it for the action of cavalry and vast armies—by which the fate +of generations is decided in a day; and at the same time fit it for the +support of those infinite myriads without object, which make human life +cheap and degraded. That this was so is evident from what Xenophon +tells.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, many have seen in the conformation of Greece +revolving round a nucleus able to protect in case of invasion, yet cut +up into so many little chambers, of which each was sacred from the +intrusion of the rest during the infancy of growth, the solution of all +the marvels which Grecian history unfolds.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">[20]</span></a> This distinction is of some consequence. Else the student +would be puzzled at finding [which is really the truth] that, after the +Twelve Cæsars and the five patriotic emperors who succeeded them, we +know less of the Roman princes through centuries after the Christian +era, than of the Roman Consuls through a space of three centuries +preceding the Christian era. In fact, except for a few gossiping and +merely <i>personal</i> anecdotes communicated by the Augustan History and a +few other authorities, we really know little of the most illustrious +amongst the Roman emperors of the West, beyond the fact (all but +invariable) that they perished by assassination. But still this darkness +is not of the same nature, nor owing to the same causes, as the Grecian +darkness prior to the Olympiads.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">[21]</span></a> Except, indeed, by the barbarous contrivance of cutting +away some letters from a name, and then filling up their place with +other letters which, by previous agreement, have been rendered +significant of arithmetic numbers. This is the idea on which the +<i>Memoria Technica</i> of Dr. Grey proceeds. More appropriately it might +have been named <i>Memoria Barbarica</i>, for the dreadful violence done to +the most beautiful, rhythmical, and melodious names would, at any rate, +have remained as a repulsive expression of barbarism to all musical +ears, had the practical benefits of this machinery been all that they +profess to be. Meantime these benefits are really none at all. They +offer us a mere mockery, defeating with one hand what they accomplish +with the other.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">[22]</span></a> It is all but an impossible problem for a nation in the +situation of Greece to send down a record to a posterity distant by five +centuries, to overlap the gulf of years between the point of +starting—the absolute now of commencement and the remote generation at +which you take aim. Trust to tradition, not to the counsel of one man. +But tradition is buoyant.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">[23]</span></a> <i>Crusade.</i>—There seems a contradiction in the very terms +of Pagan—that is, non-Christian, and Crusade—that is, warfare +symbolically Christian. But, by a license not greater than is often +practised in corresponding circumstances, the word Crusade may be used +to express any martial expedition amongst a large body of confederate +nations having or representing an imaginative (not imaginary) interest +or purpose with no direct profession of separate or mercenary object for +each nation apart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">[24]</span></a> The truths of Scripture are of too vast a compass, too +much like the Author of those truths—illimitable and incapable of +verbal circumscription, and, besides, are too much diffused through many +collateral truths, too deeply echoed and reverberated by trains of +correspondences and affinities laid deep in nature, and above all, too +affectingly transcribed in the human heart, ever to come within the +compass or material influence of a few words this way or that; any more +than all eternity can be really and locally confined within a little +golden ring which is assumed for its symbol. The same thing, I repeat, +may be said of chronology and its accidents. The chronologies of +Scripture, its prophetic weeks of Daniel, and its mysterious æons of the +Apocalypse, are too awful in their realities, too vast in their sweep +and range of application, to be controlled or affected by the very +utmost errors that could arise from lapse of time or transcription +unrevised. And the more so, because errors that by the supposition are +errors of accident, cannot all point in one direction: one would be +likely in many cases to compensate another. But, finally, I would make +this frank acknowledgment to a young pupil without fear that it could +affect her reverence for Scripture. It is of the very grandeur of +Scripture that she can afford to be negligent of her chronology. Suppose +this case: suppose the Scriptures protected by no special care or +providence; suppose no security, no barrier to further errors, to have +arisen from the discovery of printing—suppose the Scriptures to be in +consequence transcribed for thousands of years—even in that case the +final result would be this: it would be (and in part perhaps it really +is) true or not true as to its minor or petty chronology—not true, as +having been altered insensibly like any human composition where the +internal sense was not of a nature to maintain its integrity. True, even +as to trifles, in that sense which the majestic simplicity and +self-conformity of truth in a tale originally true would guarantee, it +might yet be, because of the grandeur of the main aim, and the sense of +deeper relations and the perception of verisimilitude.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">[25]</span></a> '<i>A New Slave Country</i>'—and this for more reasons than +one. Slaves were growing dearer in Rome; secondly, a practice had been +for some time increasing amongst the richest of the noble families in +Rome, of growing household bodies of gladiators, by whose aid they +fought the civic battles of ambition; and thirdly, as to Cæsar in +particular, he had raised and equipped a whole legion out of his own +private funds, and, of course, for his own private service; so that he +probably looked to Britain as a new quarry from which he might obtain +the human materials of his future armies, and also as an arena or pocket +theatre, in which he could organize and discipline these armies secure +from jealous observation.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">[26]</span></a> Here the pupil will naturally object—was not Judæa an +Asiatic land? And did not Judæa act upon Europe? Doubtless; and in the +sublimest way by which it is possible for man to act upon man; not only +through the highest and noblest part of man's nature, but (as most truly +it may be affirmed) literally creating, in a practical sense, that +nature. For, to say nothing of the sublime idea of Redemption as +mystically involved in the types and prophecies of Jewish prophets, and +in the very ceremonies of the Jewish religion, what was the very highest +ideal of God which man—philosophic man even—had attained, compared +with that of the very meanest Jew? It is false to say that amongst the +philosophers of Greece or Rome the Polytheistic creed was rejected. No +Pagan philosopher ever adopted, ever even conceived, the sublime of the +Jewish God—as a being not merely of essential unity, but as deriving +from that unity the moral relations of a governor and a retributive +judge towards human creatures. So that Judæa bore an office for the +human race of a most awful and mysterious sanctity. But (and partly for +that reason) the civil and social relations of Judæa to the human race +were less than nothing. And thence arose the intolerant scorn of such +writers as Tacitus for the Christians, whom, of course, they viewed as +Jews, and nothing <i>but</i> Jews. Thus far they were right—that, as a +nation, valued upon the only scale known to politicians, the Jews +brought nothing at all to the common fund of knowledge or civilization. +One element of knowledge, however, the Jews did bring, though at that +time unknown, and long after, for want of historic criticism in the +history of chronologic researches, viz., a chronology far superior to +that of the Septuagint, as will be shown farther on, and far superior to +the main guides of Paganism. But the reason why this superiority of +chronology will, after all, but little avail the general student is, +that it relates merely to the Assyrian or Persian princes in their +intercourse with the courts of Jerusalem or of Samaria.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">[27]</span></a> Juba, King of Mauritania, during the struggle of Cæsar and +Pompey.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">[28]</span></a> Which clannish feeling, be it observed, always depends for +its life and intensity upon the comparison with others; as they are +despised, in that ratio rises the clannish self-estimation. Whereas the +nobler pride of a Roman patriotism is αυταρκης and independent +of external relations. Nothing is more essentially opposed, though often +confounded under the common name of patriotism, than the love of country +in a Roman or English sense, and the spirit of clannish jealousy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">[29]</span></a> This it was (a circumstance overlooked by many who have +written on the Roman literature), this destiny announced and protected +by early auguries, which made the idea of Rome a great and imaginative +idea. The patriotism of the Grecian was, as indicated in an earlier +note, a mean, clannish feeling, always courting support to itself, and +needing support from imaginary 'barbarism' in its enemies, and raising +itself into greatness by means of <i>their</i> littleness. But with the +nobler Roman patriotism was a very different thing. The august destiny +of his own eternal city [observe—'<i>eternal</i>,' not in virtue of history, +but of prophecy, not upon the retrospect and the analogies of any +possible experience, but by the necessity of an aboriginal doom], a city +that was to be the centre of an empire whose circumference is +everywhere, did not depend for any part of its majesty upon the meanness +of its enemies; on the contrary, in the very grandeur of those enemies +lay, by a rebound of the feelings inevitable to a Roman mind, the +paramount grandeur of that awful Republic which had swallowed them all +up.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">[30]</span></a> I do not mean to deny the casual intercourse between Rome +and particular cities of Greece, which sometimes flash upon us for a +moment in the earliest parts of the Roman annals: what I am insisting +upon, is the absence of all national or effectual intercourse.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">[31]</span></a> Even an attorney, however [according to an old story, +which I much fear is a Joe Miller, but which ought to be fact], is not +so rigorous as to allow of no latitude, for, having occasion to send a +challenge with the stipulation of fighting at twelve paces, upon +'engrossing' this challenge the attorney directed his clerk to +add—'Twelve paces, be the same more or less.' And so I say of the +Olympiad—'777 years, be the same more or less.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">[32]</span></a> And finally, were it necessary to add one word by way of +reconciling the student to the substitution of 777 for 776, it might be +sufficient to remind him that, even in the rigour of the minutest +calculus, when the 776 years are fully accomplished—to prove which +accomplishment we must suppose some little time over and above the 776 +to have elapsed—then this surplus, were it but a single hour, throws us +at once into the 777th year. This was, in fact, the oversight which +misled a class of disputants, whom I hope the reader is too young to +remember, but whom I, alas! remember too well in the year 1800. They +imagined and argued that the eighteenth century closed upon the first +day of the year 1800. New Year's Day of the year 1799, they understood +as the birthday of the Christian Church, proclaiming it to be then 1799 +years old, not as commencing its 1799th year. And so on. Pye, the Poet +Laureate of that day, in an elaborate preface to a secular ode, argued +the point very keenly. It is certain (though not evident at first sight) +that in the year 1839 the Christian period of time is not, as children +say, '<i>going of</i>' 1840, but going of 1839: whereas the other party +contend that it is in its 1840th year, tending in short to become that +which it will actually be on its birthday, <i>i.e.</i>, on the calends of +January, or <i>le Jour de l'an</i>, or New Year's Day of 1840.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">[33]</span></a> See note immediately preceding on previous page.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">[34]</span></a> '<i>With impunity.</i>'—There is no one point in which I have +found a more absolute coincidence of opinion amongst all profound +thinkers, English, German, and French, when discussing the philosophy of +education, than this great maxim—<i>that the memory ought never to be +exercised in a state of insulation</i>, that is, in those blank efforts of +its strength which are accompanied by no law or logical reason for the +thing to be remembered; by no such reason or principle of dependency as +could serve to recall it in after years, when the burthen may have +dropped out of the memory. The reader will perhaps think that I, the +writer of this little work, have a pretty strong and faithful memory, +when I tell him that every word of it, with all its details, has been +written in a situation which sternly denied me the use of books bearing +on my subject. A few volumes of rhetorical criticism and of polemic +divinity, that have not, nor, to my knowledge, could have furnished me +with a solitary fact or date, are all the companions of my solitude. +Other voice than the voice of the wind I have rarely heard. Even my +quotations are usually from memory, though not always, as one out of +three, perhaps, I had fortunately written down in a pocket-book; but no +one date or fact has been drawn from any source but that of my +unassisted memory. Now, this useful sanity of the memory I ascribe +entirely to the accident of my having escaped in childhood all such +mechanic exercises of the memory as I have condemned in the text—to +this accident, combined with the constant and severe practice I have +given to my memory, in working and sustaining immense loads of facts +that had been previously brought under logical laws.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">[35]</span></a> '<i>The long careering of an earthquake.</i>'—It is +remarkable, and was much noticed at the time by some German +philosophers, that the earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins about +ninety-five years ago, could be as regularly traced through all its +stages for some days previous to its grand <i>finale</i>, as any thief by a +Bow Street officer. It passed through Ireland and parts of England; in +particular it was dogged through a great part of Leicestershire; and its +rate of travelling was not so great but that, by a series of telegraphs, +timely notice might have been sent southwards that it was coming. [The +Lisbon earthquake occurred in 1755; so that this paper must have been +written about 1849 or 1850.—<span class="smcap">Ed.</span>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">[36]</span></a> '<i>The exact personality.</i>'—The historical personality, or +complete identification of an individual, lies in the whole body of +circumstances that would be sufficient to determine him as a responsible +agent in a court of justice. Archbishop Usher and others fancy that +Sardanapalus was the son of Pul; guided merely by the sound of a +syllable. Tiglath-Pileser, some fancy to be the same person as +Sardanapalus; others to be the very rebel who overthrew Sardanapalus. In +short, all is confused and murky to the very last degree. And the reader +who fancies that some accurate chronological characters are left, by +which the era of Sardanapalus can be more nearly determined than it is +determined above, viz., as generally coinciding with the era of Romulus +and of the Greek Olympiad, is grossly imposed upon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">[37]</span></a> '<i>And Asiatic.</i>'—<i>Asiatic</i>, let the pupil observe, and +not merely Assyrian; for the Assyria of this era represents all that was +afterwards Media, Persia, Chaldæa, Babylonia, and Syria. No matter for +the exact limits of the Assyrian empire, which are as indistinct in +space as in time. Enough that no Asiatic State is known as distinct from +this empire.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">[38]</span></a> And this is so exceedingly striking, that I am much +surprised at the learned disputants upon the era of Homer having failed +to notice this argument; especially when we see how pitiably poor they +are in probabilities or presumptions of any kind. The miserable shred of +an argument with those who wish to carry up Homer as high as any +colourable pretext will warrant, is this, that he must have lived pretty +near to the war which he celebrates, inasmuch as he never once alludes +to a great revolutionary event in the Peloponnesus. Consequently, it is +argued, Homer did not live to witness that revolution. Yet he must have +witnessed it, if he had lived at the distance of eighty years from the +capture of Troy; for such was the era of that event, viz., the return of +the Heraclidæ. Now, in answer to this, it is obvious to say that +negations prove little. Homer has failed to notice, has omitted to +notice, or found no occasion for noticing, scores of great facts +contemporary with Troy, or contemporary with himself, which yet must +have existed for all that. In particular, he has left us quite in the +dark about the great empires, and the great capitals on the Euphrates +and the Tigris, and the Nile; and yet it was of some importance to have +noticed the relation in which the kingdom of Priam stood to the great +potentates on those rivers. The argument, therefore, drawn from the +non-notice of the Heraclidæ, is but trivial. On the other hand, an +argument of some strength for a lower era as the true era of Homer, may +be drawn from the much slighter colouring of the marvellous, which in +Homer's treatment of the story attaches to the <i>Iliad</i>, than to the +<i>Seven against Thebes</i>. In the Iliad we have the mythologic marvellous +sometimes; the marvellous of necessity surrounding the gods and their +intercourse with men; but we have no Amphiaraus swallowed up by the +earth, no Œdipus descending into a mysterious gulf at the summons of +an unseen power. And beyond all doubt the shield of Achilles, supposing +it no interpolation of a later age, argues a much more advanced state of +the arts of design, etc., than the shields, (described by Æschylus, as +we may suppose, from ancient traditions preserved in the several +families), of the seven chiefs who invaded Thebes.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">[39]</span></a> '<i>Seven-gated</i>,' both as an expression which recalls the +subject of the Romance (the Seven Anti-Theban Chieftains), and as one +which distinguishes this Grecian Thebes from the Egyptian Thebes; that +being called <i>Hekatómpylos</i>, or <i>Hundred-gated</i>. Of course some little +correction will always be silently applied to the general expression, so +as to meet the difference between the two generations that served at +Troy and in the Argonautic expedition, and again between David and his +son. If the elder generation be fixed to the year 1000, then 1000 +<i>minus</i> 30 will express the era of the younger; if the younger be fixed +to the year 1000, then 1000 <i>plus</i> 30 will express the era of the elder. +Or, better still, 1000 may be taken as the half-way era in which both +generations met; that era in which the father was yet living and active, +whilst the son was already entering upon manhood; that era, for +instance, at which David was still reigning, though his son Solomon had +been crowned. On this plan, no correction at all will be required; 15 +years on each side of the 1000 will mark the two terms within which the +events and persons range; and the 1000 will be the central point of the +period.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">[40]</span></a> Elam is the Scriptural name for Persia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">[41]</span></a> 'Alala! Alala!' the war cry of Eastern armies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">[42]</span></a> And for the very reason that political economy had but a +small share in determining the war of the year A, it became not so much +a great force as the sole force for putting an end to the war of the +year D.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE.</i></h2> + + +<p>Some time back I published in this journal a little paper on the +Californian madness—for madness I presumed it to be, and upon two +grounds. First, in so far as men were tempted into a lottery under the +belief that it was <i>not</i> a lottery; or, if it really <i>were</i> such, that +it was a lottery without blanks. Secondly, in so far as men were tempted +into a transitory speculation under the delusion that it was not +transitory, but rested on some principle of permanence. We have since +seen the Californian case repeated, upon a scale even of exaggerated +violence, in Australia. There also, if great prizes seemed to be won in +a short time, it was rashly presumed that something like an equitable +distribution of these prizes took place. Supposing ten persons to have +obtained £300 in a fortnight, people failed to observe that, if divided +amongst the entire party of which these ten persons formed a section, +the £300 would barely have yielded average wages. In one instance a very +broad illustration of this occurred in the early experience of Victoria. +A band of seven thousand people had worked together; whether simply in +the sense of working as neighbours in the same local district, or in the +commercial sense of working as partners, I do not know, nor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> is it +material to know. The result sounded enormous, when stated in a +fragmentary way with reference to particular days, and possibly in +reference also to particular persons, distinguished for luck, but on +taking the trouble to sum up the whole amount of labourers, of days, and +of golden ounces extracted, it did not appear that the wages to each +individual could have averaged quite so much as twenty shillings a week, +supposing the total product to have been on that principle of +participation. Very possibly it was <i>not</i>; and in that case the gains of +some individuals may have been enormous. But a prudent man, if he quits +a certainty or migrates from a distance, will compute his prospects upon +this scale of averages, and assuredly not upon the accidents of +exceptional luck. The instant objection will be, that such luck is <i>not</i> +exceptional, but represents the ordinary case. Let us consider. The +reports are probably much exaggerated; and something of the same +machinery for systematic exaggeration is already forming itself as +operated so beneficially for California. As yet, however, it is not +absolutely certain that the reports themselves, taken literally, would +exactly countenance the romantic impressions drawn from those reports by +the public.</p> + +<p>Until the reader has checked the accounts, or, indeed, has been enabled +to check them, by balancing the amount of gain against the amount of +labour applied, he cannot know but that the reports themselves would +show on examination a series of unusual successes set against a series +of entire failures, so as to leave a <i>facit</i>, after all corrections and +allowances, of moderately good wages upon an equal distribution of the +whole. I would remind him to propose this question: has it been +asserted, even by these wild reports, with respect to any thousand men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> +(taken as an aggregate), I do not mean to say that all have succeeded, +or even that a majority have not failed decisively—that is more than I +demand—but has it been asserted that they have realized so much in any +week or any month as would, if divided equally amongst losers and +winners, have allowed to each man anything conspicuously above the rate +of ordinary wages? Of lotteries in general it has been often remarked, +that if you buy a single ticket you have but a poor chance of winning, +if you buy twenty tickets your chance is very much worse, and if you buy +all the tickets your chance is none at all, but is exchanged for a +certainty of loss. So as to the gold lottery of Australia, I suspect +(and, observe, not assuming the current reports to be false, but, on the +contrary, to be strictly correct for each separate case, only needing to +be combined and collated as a whole) that if each separate century<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> +of men emigrating to the goldfield of Mount Alexander were to make a +faithful return of their aggregate winnings, that return would not prove +seductive at all to our people at home, supposing these winnings to be +distributed equally as amongst an incorporation of adventurers; though +it <i>has</i> proved seductive in the case of the extraordinary success being +kept apart so as to fix and fascinate the gaze into an oblivion of the +counterbalancing failures.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p> +<p>There is, however, notoriously, a natural propensity amongst men to +confide in their luck; and, as this is a wholesome propensity in the +main, it may seem too harsh to describe by the name of <i>mania</i> even a +morbid excess of it, though it ought to strike the most sanguine man, +that in order to account for the possibility of any failures at all, we +must suppose the main harvest of favourable chances to decay with the +first month or so of occupation by any commensurate body of settlers; so +that in proportion to the strength and reality of the promises to the +earliest settlers, will have been the rapid exhaustion of such promises. +Exactly <i>because</i> the district was really a choice one for those who +came first, it must often be ruined for <i>him</i> who succeeds him.</p> + +<p>Here, then, is a world of disappointments prepared and preparing for +future emigrants. The favourite sports and chief lands of promise will +by the very excess of their attractiveness have converged upon +themselves the great strength of the reapers; and in very many cases the +main harvest will have been housed before the new race of adventurers +from Great Britain can have reached the ground. In most cases, +therefore, ruin would be the instant solution of the disappointment. But +in a country so teeming with promise as Australia, ruin is hardly a +possible event. A hope lost is but a hope transfigured. And one is +reminded of a short colloquy that took place on the field of Marengo. +'Is this battle lost?' demanded Napoleon of Desaix. 'It is,' replied +Desaix; 'but, before the sun sets, there is plenty of time to win it +back.' In like manner the new comers, on reaching the appointed grounds, +will often have cause to say, 'Are we ruined this morning?' To which the +answer will not unfrequently be, 'Yes; but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> this is the best place for +being ruined that has yet been discovered. You have trusted to the +guidance of a <i>will-of-the-wisp</i>; but a <i>will-of-the-wisp</i> has been +known to lead a man by accident to a better path than that which he had +lost.' There is no use, therefore, in wasting our pity upon those who +may happen to suffer by the first of the two delusions which I noticed, +viz., the conceit that either Australia or California offers a lottery +without blanks. Blanks too probably they will draw; but what matters it, +when this disappointment cannot reach them until they find themselves +amidst a wilderness of supplementary hopes? One prize has been lost, but +twenty others have been laid open that had never been anticipated.</p> + +<p>Far different, on the other hand, is the second delusion—the delusion +of those who mistake a transitional for a permanent prosperity, and many +of whom go so far in their frenzy as to see only matter of +congratulation in the very extremity of changes, which (if realized) +would carry desperate ruin into our social economy. For these people +there is no indemnification. I begin with this proposition—that no +material extension can be given to the use of gold after great national +wants are provided for, without an enormous lowering of its price: which +lowering, if once effected, and exactly in proportion as it is effected, +takes away from the gold-diggers all motive for producing it. The +dilemma is this, and seems to me inevitable: Given a certain +depreciation of gold, as, for instance, by 80 per cent., then the +profits of the miners falling in that same proportion<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> (viz., by +four-fifths) will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> leave no temptation whatever to pursue the trade of +digging. But, on the other hand, such a depreciation <i>not</i> being +given—gold being supposed to range at anything approaching to its old +price—in that case no considerable extension as to the uses of gold is +possible. In either case alike the motive for producing gold rapidly +decays. To keep up any steady encouragement to the miners, the market +for gold must be prodigiously extended. That the market may be extended, +new applications of gold must be devised: the old applications would not +absorb more than a very limited increase. That new applications may be +devised, a prodigious lowering of the price is required. But precisely +as that result is approached the <i>extra</i> encouragement to the miners +vanishes. <i>That</i> drooping, the production will droop, even if nature +should continue the extra supplies; and the old state of prices must +restore itself.</p> + +<p>The whole turns upon the possibility of extending the market for gold. A +child must see that, if the demand for gold cannot be materially +increased, it is altogether<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> nugatory that nature should indefinitely +enlarge the supply. In articles that adapt themselves to a variable +scale of uses, so as to be capable of substitution for others, according +to the relations of price, it is often possible enough that, in the +event of any change which may lower their price, the increased demand +may go on without assignable limits. For instance, when iron rises +immoderately in price, timber is substituted to an indefinite extent. +But, on the other hand, where the application is severely circumscribed, +no fall of price will avail to extend the demand. Certain herbs, for +instance, or minerals, employed for medicinal purposes, and for those +only, have their supply regulated by the demand of hospitals and of +private medical practitioners. That demand being once exhausted, no +cheapness whatever will extend the market. Suppose the European market +for leeches to be saturated; every man, suppose, is supplied; in that +case, even an <i>extra</i> thousand cannot be sold. The purpose which leeches +answer has been met. And after <i>that</i> nobody will take them as a gift. +But in the case of gold, it is imagined that, although the market is +pretty stationary whilst the price is stationary, let that price +materially lower itself, and immediately the substitutions of gold for +other metals, or for other decorative materials (as ivory, etc.), would +begin to extend; and commensurately with such extensions the regular +gold market would widen. This is the prevailing conceit. Now let us +consider it.</p> + +<p>What are the known applications of gold in the old state of +circumstances, which may be supposed capable of furnishing a basis for +extension in the altered circumstances? I will rapidly review them. +First, a very large amount of gold more than people would imagine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> is +annually wasted in gilding. Much of what has been applied to other +purposes is continually reverting to the market; but the gold used in +gilding is absolutely lost. This already makes a drain upon the gold +market; but will that drain be materially larger in the event of gold +falling by 50 <i>per cent.</i>? Apparently not. Amongst ourselves the chief +subjects of gilding are books, picture-frames, and some varieties of +porcelain. But none of these would be bought more extensively in +consequence of gold being cheap: a man does not buy a book, for +instance, simply with a view to its being gilt; the gilding follows as a +contingency depending upon a previous act not modified in any degree by +the price of gold. In the decoration of houses it is true that hitherto +our English expenditure of gilding has been very trifling compared with +that of France and Italy, and to a great extent therefore would allow of +an increased use. Cornices, for instance, in rooms, and sections of +panels, are rarely gilt with us; and apart from any reference to the +depreciation of gold, I believe that this particular application of it +is sensibly increasing at present. Of course an improvement, which has +already begun, would extend itself further under a reduced price of +gold; yet still, as the class of houses so decorated is somewhat +aristocratic, the effect could not be very important. On the Continent +it is probable that at any rate gilding will be more extensively applied +to out-of-doors decoration, as for example, of domes, cupolas, +balustrades, etc. But all architectural innovations are slow in +travelling! And I am of opinion that five to seven thousand pounds' +worth of gold would cover all the augmented expenditure of this class. +It is doubtful, indeed, whether all the increase of gilding will do more +than balance the total abolition of it on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> panels of carriages. In +the time of Louis XIV. an immense expenditure occurred in this way, and +the disuse of it is owing to the superior chastity of taste amongst our +English carriage-builders, who, in this particular art, have shot far +ahead of continental Europe. But the main consumption of gold occurs, +first, I should imagine, in watches and watch chains; secondly, in +personal ornaments; and thirdly, in gold plate. Now we must remember, at +starting, that what is called jewellers' gold, even when manufactured by +honourable tradesmen, avowedly contains a very much smaller proportion +of the pure metal than our gold coinage. Consequently an increase in the +use of watches and personal ornaments, or of such trinkets as +snuff-boxes, supposing it in the first year of cheapened gold to go the +length of 20 per cent., would not even in that department of the gold +demand enhance it by one-fifth, but perhaps by one-fourth the part of +one-fifth—that is to say, by one-twentieth. The reader, I hope, +understands me, for upon <i>that</i> depends a pretty strong presumption of +the small real change that would be worked in the effective demand for +gold by a great apparent change in our chief demand for gold +manufactures. There can be no doubt that in watches and personal +ornaments is involved our main demand upon the gold market; through +these it is that we chiefly act upon the market. Now three corrections +are applicable to the <i>primâ facie</i> view of this subject.</p> + +<p>The first of these is—that gold chains, etc., and a pompous display of +rings have long ago been degraded in public estimation by the practice +and opinions prevailing in aristocratic quarters. This tendency of +public feeling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> at once amounts to a large deduction from what would +otherwise be our demand.</p> + +<p>The second of these corrections is—that, since our main action upon the +gold market lies through the jewellers, and, consequently, through +jewellers' gold, therefore, on allowing for the way in which jewellers +alloy their gold, our real means of operating upon the gold market may +be estimated perhaps at not more than one-fourth part of our apparent +means.</p> + +<p>A third important correction is this—at first sight it might seem as +though the purchaser of gold articles would benefit by the whole +depreciation of gold, and that the depreciation might be taken to +represent exactly the amount of stimulation applied to the sale, for +instance, of gold plate. But this is not so. Taking the depreciation of +gold at one-half, then upon any gold article, as suppose a salver, each +ounce would have sunk from 77s. to 38s. 6d. Next, rate the workmanship +at 40s. the ounce, and then the total cost upon each ounce will not be +(77s. + 40)/2, or in other words 58s. 6d., as a hasty calculation might +have fancied, but (77s./2) + 40, that is to say, 78s. 6d. Paying +heretofore £5 17s., under the new price of gold you would pay £4 within +a trifle. Consequently, when those who argue for the vast extension of +the gold market, rely for its possibility upon a vast preliminary +depreciation of gold, they are deceiving themselves as to the nature and +compass of that depreciation. The main action of the public upon the +gold market must always lie through <i>wrought</i> and not through unwrought +gold, and in this there must always be two elements of price, viz., X, +the metal, and Y,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> the workmanship; so that the depreciation will never +be = (<i>x</i> + <i>y</i>)/2 but only <i>x</i>/2 + <i>y</i>; and <i>y</i>, which is a very costly +element, will never be bound at all, not by the smallest fraction, +through any possible change in the cost of <i>x</i>.</p> + +<p>This is a most important consideration; for if the price of gold could +fall to nothing at all, not the less the high price of the +workmanship—this separately for itself—would for ever prevent the +great bulk of society from purchasing gold plate. Yet, through what +other channel than this of plate is it possible for any nation to reach +the gold market by any effectual action upon the price? M. Chevalier, +the most influential of French practical economists, supposes the case +that California might reduce the price of gold by one-half. Let us say, +by way of evading fractions, that gold may settle finally at the price +of forty shillings the ounce. But to what purpose would the diggers +raise enormous depôts of gold for which they can have no commensurate +demand? As yet the true difficulty has not reached them. The tendency +was frightful; but, within the short period through which the new power +has yet worked, there was not range enough to bring this tendency into +full play. Now, however, when new powers of the same quality, viz., in +Australia, in Queen Charlotte's Island, in Owhyhee, and, lastly, on Lord +Poltimore's estate in South Moulton, are in working, it seems sensibly +nearer. It is a literal fact that we have yet to ascertain whether this +vaunted gold will even pay for the costs of working it. Coals lying at +the very mouth of a pit will be thankfully carried off by the poor man, +but dig a little deeper, and it requires the capital of a rich man to +raise them;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> and after <i>that</i> it requires a good deal of experience, and +the trial of much mechanic artifice, to ascertain whether after all it +will be worth while to raise them. To leap from the conclusion—that, +because a solitary prize of 25 lb. weight may largely remunerate an +emigrant to California, therefore a whole generation of emigrants will +find the average profits of gold-washing, golddigging, etc., beyond +those of Russia or of Borneo, is an insanity quite on a level with all +the other insanities of the case. But, says the writer in the <i>Times</i>, +the fact has justified the speculation; the result is equal to the +anticipation; in practice nobody has been disappointed; everybody has +succeeded; nobody complains of any delusion. We beg his pardon. There +have been very distinct complaints of that nature. These have proceeded +not from individuals merely, but from associations of ten or twelve, +who, after working for some time, have not reaped the ordinary profits +on their expenses; whereas, they were also entitled to expect high wages +for their labour, in addition to extravagant profits on their outlay. +Yet, suppose this to have been otherwise, what shadow of an argument can +be drawn from the case of those privileged few, who entered upon a +virgin harvest, applicable to the multitudes who will succeed to an +inheritance of ordinary labour, tried in all quarters of the globe, and +seldom indeed found to <i>terminate</i> in any extra advantages?</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">[43]</span></a> '<i>Century of Men</i>,'—It may be necessary to remind some +readers that this expression, to which I resort for want of any better +or briefer, is strictly correct. The original Latin word <i>centuria</i> is a +collection of one hundred separate items, no matter what, whether men, +horses, ideas, etc. 'A Century of Sonnets' was properly taken as the +title of a book. 'A Century of Inventions' was adopted by Lord Worcester +as the title of <i>his</i> book. And when we use the word century (as +generally we do) to indicate a certain duration of time, it is allowable +only on the understanding that it is an elliptical expression; the full +expression is <i>a century of years</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">[44]</span></a> 'In that same proportion,' but in reality the profits +would fall in a much greater proportion. To illustrate this, suppose the +existing price of gold in Australia to be sixty shillings an oz. I +assume the price at random, as being a matter of no importance; but, in +fact, I understand that at Melbourne, and other places in the province +of Victoria, this really <i>is</i> the ruling price at present. For some +little time the price was steady at fifty-seven shillings; that is, +assuming the mint price in England to be seventy-seven shillings +(neglecting the fraction of 10-1/2d.), and the Australian price sank by +twenty shillings; which sinking, however, we are not to understand as +any depreciation that had the character of permanence; it arose out of +local circumstances. Subsequently the price fell as low even as +forty-five shillings, where it halted, and soon ascended again to sixty +shillings. Sixty shillings therefore let us postulate as the present +price. Upon this sum descended the expenses of the miner. Let these, +including tools, machinery, etc., be assumed at three half-crowns for +each ounce of gold. Then, at a price of sixty shillings, this discount +descends upon each sovereign to the amount of one half-crown, or +one-eighth. But at a reduced price of thirty shillings, this discount of +three half-crowns amounts to one-fourth. And, at a price of twelve +shillings, it amounts to five-eighths. So that, as the gross profits +descend, the <i>nett</i> profits descend in a still heavier proportion.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE.</i></h2> + + +<p>It is by a continued <i>secretion</i> (so to speak) of all which forces +itself to the surface of national importance in the way of patriotic +services that the English peerage keeps itself alive. Stop the laurelled +trophies of the noble sailor or soldier pouring out his heart's blood +for his country, stop the intellectual movement of the lawyer or the +senatorial counsellor, and immediately the sources are suffocated +through which <i>our</i> peerage is self-restorative. The simple truth is, +how humiliating soever it may prove I care not, that whether positively +by cutting off the honourable sources of addition, or negatively by +cutting off the ordinary source of subtraction, the other peerages of +Europe are peerages of <i>Fainéans</i>. Pretend not to crucify for ignominy +the sensual and torpid princes of the Franks; in the same boat row all +the peerages that <i>can</i> have preserved their regular hereditary descent +amongst civil feuds which <i>ought</i> to have wrecked them. The Spanish, the +Scotch, the Walloon nobility are all of them nobilities from which their +several countries would do well to cut themselves loose, so far as +<i>that</i> is possible. How came <i>you</i>, my lord, we justly say to this and +that man, proud of his ancient descent, to have brought down your +wretched carcase to this generation, except by having shrunk from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> all +your bloody duties, and from all the chances that beset a gallant +participation in the dreadful enmities of your country? Would you make +it a reproach to the Roman Fabii that 299 of that house perished in +fighting for their dear motherland? And that, if a solitary Fabius +survived for the rekindling of the house, it was because the restorer of +his house had been an infant at the æra of his household catastrophe. +And if, through such burning examples of patriotism, far remote +collateral descendants entered upon the succession, was this a reproach? +Was this held to vitiate or to impair the heraldic honours? A +disturbance, a convulsion, that shook the house back into its primitive +simplicities of standing, was that a shock to its hereditary grandeur? +If it <i>had</i> been, there perished the efficient fountain of nobility as +any <i>national</i> or <i>patriotic</i> honour; that being extinguished, it became +a vile, <i>personal</i> distinction. For instance, like the Roman Fabii, the +major part of the English nobility was destroyed in the contest (though +so short a contest) of the two Roses. To restore it at all, recourse was +had to every mode of healing family wounds through distant marriage +connections, etc. But in the meantime, to a Spanish or a Scottish +nobleman, who should have insisted upon the <i>directness</i> of his descent, +the proper answer would have been: 'Dog! in what kennel were you lurking +when such and such civil feuds were being agitated? As an honest man, as +a gallant man, ten times over you ought to have died, had you felt, +which the English nobility of the fifteenth century <i>did</i> feel, that +your peerage was your summons to the field of battle and the scaffold.' +For, again in later years than the fifteenth century, the English +nobility—those even who, like the Scotch, had gained<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> their family +wealth by plundering the Church—in some measure washed out this +original taint by standing forward as champions of what they considered +(falsely or truly) national interests. The Russells, the Cavendishes, +the Sidneys, even in times of universal profligacy, have held aloft the +standard of their order; and no one can forget the many peers in Charles +I.'s time, such as Falkland, or the Spencers (Sunderland), or the +Comptons (Northampton), who felt and owned their paramount duty to lie +in public self-dedication, and died therefore, and oftentimes left their +inheritances a desolation. 'Thus far'—oh heavens! with what bitterness +I said this, knowing it a thing undeniable by W. W. or by Sir +George—you, the peerages that pretend to try conclusions with the +English, you—French, German, Walloon, Spanish, Scottish—are able to do +so simply because you are <i>fainéans</i>, because in time of public danger +you hid yourselves under your mammas' petticoats, whilst the glorious +work of reaping a bloody harvest was being done by others.</p> + +<p>But the English peerage also celebrates services in the Senate as well +as in the field. Look for a moment at the house of Cecil. The interest +in this house was national, and at the same time romantic. Two families +started off—one might say <i>simultaneously</i>—from the same radix, for +the difference in point of years was but that which naturally divided +the father and the son. Both were Prime Ministers of England, rehearsing +by anticipation the relations between the two William Pitts—the +statesmen who guided, first, the <i>Seven Years' War</i>, from 1757 to 1763; +and, secondly, the French Revolutionary War, from the murder of Louis +XVI. in 1793 to the battle of Trafalgar in October, 1805. Sir William<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> +Cecil, the father, had founded the barony of Burleigh, which +subsequently was raised into the earldom of Exeter. Sir Robert Cecil, +the son, whose personal merits towards James I. were more conspicuous +than those of his father towards Queen Elizabeth, had leaped at once +into the earldom of Salisbury. Through two centuries these distinguished +houses—Exeter the elder and Salisbury the junior—had run against each +other. At length the junior house ran ahead of its elder, being raised +to a marquisate. But in this century the elder righted itself, rising +also to a marquisate. In an ordinary case this would not have won any +notice, but the historic cradle of the two houses, amongst burning feuds +of Reformation and anti-Reformation policy, fiery beyond all that has +ever raged amongst men, fixed the historic eye upon them. Neck and neck +they ran together. Hatfield House for the family of Salisbury, Burleigh +House (founded by the original Lord Burleigh) for the family of Exeter, +expressed in the nineteenth century that fraternal conflict which had +commenced in the sixteenth. Personal merits, if any such had varied and +coloured the pretensions of this or that generation, had, in the midst +of wealth and ease and dignity, withdrawn themselves from notice, except +that about the splendid decennium of the Regency and the second +decennium of George IV.'s reign, no lady of the Court had been so +generally acceptable to the world of fashion and elegance, domestic or +foreign, as the Marchioness of Salisbury, whose tragical death by fire +at Hatfield House, in spite of her son's heroic exertions, was as +memorable for the last generation as the similar tragedy at the Austrian +Ambassador's continued to be for the Court and generation of +Napoleon.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> It is not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>often that two kindred houses, belonging in the +Roman sense to the same <i>gens</i> or clan, run against each other with +parity of honour and public consideration through nearly three +centuries. The present representative of the Exeter house of the +Cecils<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> was not individually considered a very interesting person. +Or, at least, any interest that might distinguish him did not adapt +itself to conversational display. His personal story was more remarkable +than he was himself.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">[45]</span></a> Napoleon attached a superstitious importance to this +event. In 1813, upon the sudden death of Moreau, whilst as yet the +circumstances were entirely unknown, he fancied strangely enough that +the ambassador (Prince Schwartzenberg) whose fête had given birth to the +tragedy, must himself have been prefigured.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">[46]</span></a> 'The present representative of the Exeter Cecils' was the +father of the present peer, Brownlow, 2nd Marquis; born 2nd July, 1785; +succeeded 1st May, 1804, and died 16th Jan., 1867.—<span class="smcap">Ed</span>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT.</i></h2> + + +<p>The sincerity of an author sometimes borrows an advantageous +illustration from the repulsiveness of his theme. That a subject is +dull, however unfortunately it may operate for the impression which he +seeks to produce, must at least acquit him of seeking any aid to that +impression from alien and meretricious attractions. Is a subject +hatefully associated with recollections of bigotry, of ignorance, of +ferocious stupidity, of rancour, and of all uncharitableness? In that +case, the reader ought to be persuaded that nothing less than absolute +consciousness—in that case he ought to know that nothing short of <span class="smcap">truth</span> +(not necessarily as it <i>is</i>, but at least as it <i>appears</i> to the writer) +can have availed to draw within an arena of violence and tiger-like +<i>acharnement</i> one who, by temperament and by pressure of bodily disease, +seeks only for repose. Most unwillingly I enter the ring. Mere disgust +at the wicked injustice, which I have witnessed silently through the +last three months, forces me into the ranks of the combatants. Mere +sympathy with the ill-used gives me any motive for stirring. People have +turned Christian from witnessing the torments suffered with divine +heroism by Christian martyrs. And I think it not impossible that many +hearts may be turned favourably towards Popery by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> mere recoil of +disgust from the savage insolence with which for three weeks back it has +in this country been tied to a stake, and baited. The actors, or at +least the leaders, in such scenes seem to forget that Popery has +peculiar fascinations of her own; her errors, supposing even all to be +errors which Protestantism denounces for such, lie in doctrinal points; +but her merit, and her prodigious advantage over Protestantism, lies in +the devotional spirit which she is able to kindle and to sustain amongst +simple, docile, and confiding hearts. In mere prudence it ought to be +remembered, that to love, to trust, to adore, is a far more contagious +tendency amongst the poor, the wretched, and the despised, than to +question, investigate, and reflect.</p> + +<p>How, then, did this movement begin? By <i>that</i>, perhaps, we may learn +something of its quality. Who was it that first roused this movement? +The greater half of the nation, viz., all the lower classes, cannot be +said to have shared in the passions of the occasion; but the educated +classes, either upon a sincere impulse, or in a spirit of excessive +imitation, have come forward with a perseverance, which (in a case of +perils confessedly so vague) is more like a moonstruck infatuation than +any other recorded in history. Until Parliament met on the 4th of +February, when a Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons first +attempted to give some specific account of the legal effects incident to +a substitution of bishops for vicars apostolic, no man has made the very +cloudiest sketch of the evils that were apprehended, or that <i>could</i> be +apprehended, or that were in the remotest way possible. Sir Edward +Sugden, indeed, came forward with a most unsatisfactory effort to show +how Cardinal Wiseman might be punished, or might be restrained,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> +supposing that he had done wrong; but not at all to show that the +Cardinal <i>had</i> done wrong, and far less to show that, if wrong could be +alleged, any evils would follow from it. Sir Edward most undoubtedly did +not satisfy himself, and so little did he satisfy anybody else, that +already his letter is forgotten; nor was it urged or relied upon by any +one of the great meetings which succeeded it. Too painful it would be to +think that Sir Edward had in this instance stepped forward +sycophantically, as so many prominent people undoubtedly did, to meet +and to aid a hue and cry of fanaticism simply because it had emanated +from a high quarter. But <i>what</i> quarter? Again I ask, <i>who</i> was it that +originated this fierce outbreak of bigotry? Much depends upon <i>that</i>. It +was Lord John Russell, it was the First Minister of the Crown, that +abused the power of his place for a purpose of desperate fanaticism; +yes, and for a purpose which his whole life had been dedicated to +opposing, to stigmatizing, to overthrowing. Right or wrong, he has to +begin life anew. Bigotry may <i>not</i> be bigotry, change of position may +show it under a new aspect. But still upon that, which once was <i>called</i> +bigotry, Lord John must now take his stand. Neither will <i>ratting</i> a +second time avail to set him right. These things do not stand under +algebraical laws, as though ratting to the right hand could balance a +ratting to the left, and leave the guilt = 0. On the contrary, five +rattings, of which each is valued at ten, amount to fifty degrees of +crime; or, perhaps, if moral computations were better understood, amount +to a crime that swells by some secret geometrical progression +unintelligible to man.</p> + +<p>But now, reader, pause. Suppose that Lord John Russell, aware of some +evil, some calamity or disease,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> impending over the established Church +of England—sure of this evil, but absolutely unable to describe it by +rational remarks or premonitory symptom, had cast about for a channel by +which he might draw attention to the evil, and, by exposing, make an end +of it. But who could have dreamed that he would have chosen the means he +has chosen? What propriety was there in Lord John's addressing himself +upon such a subject to the Bishop of Durham? Who is that Bishop? And +what are his pretensions to public authority? He is a respectable Greek +scholar; and has re-edited the Prosodiacal Lexicon of Morell—a service +to Greek literature not easily overestimated, and beyond a doubt not +easily executed. But in relation to the Church he is not any official +organ; nor was there either decorum or good sense in addressing a letter +essentially official from the moment that it was published with consent +of the writer, to a person clothed with no sort of official powers or +official relation to the Church of England. If Lord John should have +occasion to communicate with the Bank of England, what levity, and in +the proper sense of the word what impertinence, it would be to invoke +the attention—not of the Governor—but of some clerk in a special +department of that establishment whom Lord John might happen to know. +Which of us, that wishes to bring a grievance before the authorities of +the Post-Office, would address himself to his private friend that might +happen to hold a respectable situation in the Money Order or in the Dead +Letter Office? Of mere necessity, that he might gain for his own +application an official privilege, he would address it to the +Postmaster-General through the Secretary. Not being so addressed, his +communication would take rank as gossip; neither meriting nor obtaining +any serviceable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> notice. Two points are still in suspense: whether the +people of England as a nation have taken any interest in the uproar +caused by Lord John's letter; and secondly, whether the writer of that +letter took much interest in it himself. Spite of all the noise and +tumult kept up for three months by the Low-Church party, clerks and +laymen, it is still a question with many vigilant lookers-on—whether +the great neutral majority in the lower strata of society (five-sixths +in short of what we mean by the nation) have taken any real interest in +the agitation. Any real share in it, beyond all doubt, they have <i>not</i> +taken: the movers in these meetings from first to last would not make +fifteen thousand; and the inert subscribers of Petitions would not make +seventy thousand. Secondly, in spite of the hysterical violence +manifested by the letter of the Premier, and partly in consequence of +that violence (so theatrical and foreign to Lord John's temperament), +many doubt whether he himself carried any sincerity with the movement. +And this doubt is strengthened by the singular indecorum of his having +addressed himself to Dr. Maltby.</p> + +<p>Counterfeit zeal is likely enough to have recoiled from its own act in +the very moment of its execution. The purpose of Lord John was +sufficiently answered, if he succeeded in diverting public attention +from quarters in which it might prove troublesome: and to that extent +was sure of succeeding by an extra-official note addressed to any bishop +whatever—whether zoological like the late Bishop of Norwich, or +Prosodiacal like Dr. Maltby. A storm in a slop-basin was desirable for +the moment. But had the desire been profoundly sincere, and had it +soared to that height which <i>real</i> fears for religious interests are apt +to attain, then beyond all doubt the Minister would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> not have addressed +himself to a Provincial bishop, but to the two Metropolitan bishops of +Canterbury and York. They, but not an inferior prelate, represent the +Church of England.</p> + +<p>The letter therefore, had it been solemn and austere in the degree +suitable to an <i>unsimulated</i> panic, would have taken a different +direction. Gossip may be addressed to anybody. He that will listen is +sought for; and not he that can co-operate. But earnest business, +soaring into national buoyancy on the wings of panic, turns by instinct +to the proper organs for giving it effect and instant mobility. Yet, on +the other hand, if the letter really <i>had</i> been addressed to the Primate +(as in all reason it would have been, if thoroughly in earnest), that +change must have consummated the false step, diplomatically valued, +which Lord John Russell has taken. Mark, reader! We are told, and so +often that the very echoes of Killarney and Windermere will be +permanently diseased by this endless iteration of lies, that His +Holiness has been insulting us. Ancient Father of Christendom, under +whose sheltering shadow once slept in peace for near a thousand years +the now storm-tossed nations of Western and Central Christendom, couldst +thou indeed, when turned out a houseless<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> fugitive like Lear upon a +night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> of tempest, still retain aught of thy ancient prestige, and +through the might of belief rule over those who have exiled thee?</p> + + +<h3>EDITOR'S NOTE.</h3> + +<p>The famous Durham Letter which excited so much controversy, and +re-opened what can only be called so many old sores, was addressed by +Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, to Dr. Maltby, in November, 1850. +At first it was received with great approbation, as presenting a +decisive front against Papal assumption; the Pope having recently issued +a Bull, dividing England into twelve Sees, and appointing Dr. Wiseman, +who was made a Cardinal, Archbishop of Westminster. But some expressions +in Lord John's letter, especially the expression 'unworthy sons,' +applied to High Churchmen, aroused the active opposition of a class, +with whom, he never had much sympathy, looking on the attitude and +spirit of Drs. Pusey and Newman with unaffected dislike. Catholics, of +course, and with them many moderate Roman Catholics, set up an +agitation, and soon the Durham Letter was in everybody's mouth. De +Quincey, of course, writes from his own peculiar philosophic point of +view; and when he somewhat sarcastically alludes to the informality of +addressing such a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and not to one or +other of the Archbishops, he was either ignorant of, or of set purpose +ignored, the exceptionally intimate relations in which Lord John had for +many years stood to Dr. Maltby, such relations as might well have been +accepted as explaining, if not justifying, such a departure from strict +formal propriety. Lord Russell's biographer writes:</p> + +<p>'Dr. Maltby, who in 1850 held the See of Durham, to which he had been +promoted on Lord John's own recommendation in 1836, was one of Lord +John's oldest and closest friends. He had been his constant +correspondent for more than twenty years; he had supplied him with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> much +information for the religious chapters of the "Affairs of Europe," and +he had been his frequent counsellor on questions affecting the Church, +and on the qualifications and characters of the men who were candidates +for promotion in it. It was natural, therefore, to Lord John, to open +his mind freely to the Bishop' (ii. 119, 120).</p> + +<p>Lord John had added in a postscript: 'If you think it will be of any +use, you have my full permission to publish this letter.'</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">[47]</span></a> 'A houseless fugitive.' No one expression of petty malice +has struck the generous as more unworthy, amongst the many insolences +levelled at the Pope, than the ridicule so falsely fastened upon the +mode of his escape from Rome, and upon the apparently tottering tenure +of his temporal throne. His throne rocked with subterraneous heavings. +True, and was <i>his</i> the only throne that rocked? Or which was it amongst +continental thrones that did <i>not</i> rock? But he escaped in the disguise +of a livery servant. What odious folly! In such emergencies, no disguise +can be a degradation. Do we remember our own Charles II. assuming as +many varieties of servile disguise as might have glorified a pantomime? +Do we remember Napoleon reduced to the abject resource of entreating one +of the Commissioners to <i>whistle</i>, by way of misleading the infuriated +mob into the belief that <i>l'empereur</i> could not be supposed present in +that carriage when such an indecency was attempted? As to the insecurity +of his throne, we must consider that other thrones, and amongst them +some of the first rank (as those of Turkey and Persia) redress their own +weakness by means of alien strength. In the jealousies of England and +France is found a bulwark against the overshadowing ambition of Russia.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE:</i></h2> + +<h3><i>Review of Kant's Essay on the Common Saying, that such and +such a thing may be true in theory, but does not hold good +in practice.</i></h3> + + +<p>What was the value of Kant's essay upon this popular saying? Did it do +much to clear up the confusion? Did it exterminate the vice in the +language by substituting a better <i>formula</i>? Not at all. Immanuel Kant +was, we admit, the most potent amongst all known intellects for +functions of pure abstraction. But also, viewed in two separate +relations: first, in relation to all <i>practical</i> interests (manners, +legislation, government, spiritual religion); secondly, in relation to +the arts of teaching, of explaining, of communicating any man's meaning +where it happened to be dark or perplexed (above all, if that meaning +were his own)—this same Kant was merely impotent; absolutely, and 'no +mistake,' a child of darkness. Were it not that veneration and gratitude +cause us to suspend harsh words with regard to such a man, who has upon +the greatest question affecting our human reason almost, we might say, +<i>revealed</i> the truth (viz., in his theory of the categories), we should +describe him, and continually we are tempted to describe him as the most +superhuman of recorded blockheads. Would it be credited, that at this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> +time of day, actually in the very closing years of the eighteenth +century, a man armed with some reading, but not too much study—and +sixty years' profound meditation should treat it as a matter of obvious +good sense that crowns and the succession to mighty empires ought to +travel along the line of 'merit'; not exactly on the ground of personal +beauty, or because the pretender was taller by the head than most of his +subjects—no, <i>that</i> would be the idea of a barbarous nation. Thank God! +a royal professor of Koenigsberg was above <i>that</i>. But on the assumption +of an <i>appropriate</i> merit, as if, for instance, he were wiser, if he +were well grounded in Transcendentalism, if he had gained a prize for +'virtue,' surely, surely, such graces ought to ensure a sceptre to their +honoured professor. Especially when we consider how <i>readily</i> these +personal qualities <i>prove</i> themselves to the general understanding, and +how cheerfully they are always <i>allowed</i> by jealous and abominating +competitors! Now turn from this haughty philosopher to a plain but most +sensible and reflecting scholar—Isaac Casaubon. This man pretended to +no philosophy, but a sincere, docile heart, much good sense, and patient +observation of his own country's annals, which in the midst of +belligerent papists, and very much against his own interest, had made +him a good Church of England Protestant, made him also intensely +attached to the doctrine of fixed succession under closer and clearer +limitations than exist even in England. For a thousand years this one +plain rule had been the amulet for liberating France (else so +constitutionally disposed to war) from the bloodiest of intestine +contests. The man's career was pretty nearly concurrent as to its two +limits with that of our own Shakespeare. Both he and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Shakespeare were +patronized, or, at least, countenanced by James the First, and both died +many years before their patron. More than two centuries by a good deal +have therefore passed away since he spoke, but this is the emphatic +testimony which even at that time, wanting the political experience +superadded, he bore to the peace and consequently to the civilization +won for his country by this divine maxim, this <i>lex trabalis</i> (as so +powerfully Casaubon calls it) of hereditary succession, the cornerstone, +the main beam, in the framework of Gallic polity. These are the words: +'<i>Occidebant et occidebantur</i>' (<i>i.e.</i>, in those days of Roman Cæsars) +'<i>immanitate pari; cum in armis esset jus omne regnandi</i>'—in the sword +lay the arbitration of the title. He speaks of the horrid murderous +uniformity by which the Western Empire moved through five centuries (for +it commenced in murder 42 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span> and lasted for 477 after Christ). +But why? Simply by default of any conventional rule, and the consequent +necessity that men should fall back upon the title of the strongest. For +that ridiculous plausibility of Kant's superscribed with <i>Detur +meliori</i>, it should never be forgotten, is so far from having any +pacific tendencies, that originally, according to the eldest of Greek +fables, it was Ερις, Eris, the goddess of dissension, no +peace-making divinity, who threw upon a wedding-table the fatal apple +thus ominously labelled. <i>Meliori</i>! in that one word went to wreck the +harmony of the company. But for France, for the famous kingdom of the +Fleur-de-lys, for the first-born child of Christianity, always so prone +by her gentry to this sword-right, Nature herself had been silenced +through a long millennium by this one almighty amulet. 'Inde' (that is, +from this standing appeal made to personal vanity or to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> ambition +amongst Roman nobles)—'<i>inde</i> haec tam spissa principatuum mutatio: quâ +re nulla alia miseris populis ne dici quidem aut fingi queat +perniciosior.' So often, he goes on to say, as this dreadful curse +entailed upon Rome Imperial comes into my mind, so often 'Franciæ patriæ +meæ felicitatem non possim non prædicare; quæ sub imperio Regum +sexaginta trium (LXIII)—non dicam CLX annos' (which had been the upshot +of time, the 'tottle,' upon sixty-three Imperatores) sed paullo minus +CIO (one clear thousand, observe) 'et CC—rem omnibus seculis +inauditam!—egit beata; fared prosperously; et egisset beatior, si sua +semper bona intellexisset. Tanti est, jura regiæ successionis trabali +lege semel fixisse.' Aye, faithful and sagacious Casaubon! there lies +the secret. In that word '<i>fixisse</i>'—the having settled once and for +ever, the having laid down as beams and main timbers those adamantine +rules of polity which leave no opening to doubt, no licence to caprice, +and no temptation to individual ambition. We are all interested, +Christendom to her very depths is interested, in the well-being and +progress of this glorious realm—the kingdom of the lilies, the kingdom +of Charlemagne and his paladins; from the very fierceness and angry +vigilance of whose constant hostility to ourselves has arisen one chief +re-agent in sustaining our own concurrent advancement. Under the torpor +of a German patriotism, under the languor of a <i>sensus communis</i> which +is hardly at all developed, our own unrivalled energy would partially +have gone to sleep. We are, therefore, deeply indebted to the rancorous +animosity of France. And in this one article of a sound political creed +we must be sensible that France, so dreadfully in arrear as to all other +political wisdom, has run ahead of ourselves. For to what else was +owing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> our ruinous war of the Two Roses than to an original demur in our +courts of law whether the descendant of an elder son through the female +line had a title preferable or inferior to that of a descendant in the +male line from a son confessedly <i>junior</i>? Whether the element to the +right hand of uncontested superiority balanced or did <i>not</i> balance that +element to the left hand of undenied inferiority? How well for us +English, and for the interests of our literature so cruelly barbarized +within fifty years from the death of Chaucer (<span class="smcap">a.d.</span> 1400), had we been +able to intercept the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, +Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of +French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the +arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the +old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or +the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested +abrogation of that law were the governing principle in strict +constitutional practice. To this point had the French dynasty brought +matters, that no lawyer even could say on which side the line of +separation lay the <i>onus</i> of treason. We have ultimately so far improved +our law of succession by continued limitations, that now even the +religion of a prince has become one amongst his indispensable +qualifications. But how matters once stood, we see written in letters of +blood. And yet to this state of perilous uncertainty would Kant have +reduced every nation under the conceit of mending their politics. 'Orbis +terrarum dominatio'—<i>that</i>, says Casaubon, was the prize at stake. And +how was it awarded? '<i>In parricidii præmium cedebat.</i>' By tendency, by +usage, by natural gravitation, this Imperial dignity passed into a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +bounty upon murder, upon treasonable murder, upon parricidal murder. For +the oath of fealty to the <i>sacra Cæsaria majestas</i> was of awful +obligation, although the previous title of the particular Cæsar had been +worth nothing at all. And the consequent condition of insecurity, the +shadowy tenure of all social blessings, is described by Casaubon in +language truly forcible.</p> + +<p>Kant's purpose, as elsewhere we shall show, was not primarily with the +maxim: that was but a secondary purpose. His direct and real object lay +in one or two of the illustrative cases under the maxim. With this +particular obliquity impressed upon the movement of his own essay, we +can have no right to quarrel. Kant had an author's right to deal with +the question as best suited his own views. But with one feature of his +treatment we quarrel determinately. He speaks of this most popular (and, +we venture to add, most wise and beneficial) maxim, which arms men's +suspicions against all that is merely speculative, on the ground that it +is continually at war with the truth of practical results, as though it +were merely and blankly a vulgar error, as though <i>sans phrase</i> it might +be dismissed for nonsense. But, because there is a casual inaccuracy in +the wording of a great truth, we are not at liberty to deny that truth, +to evade it, to 'ignore' it, or to confound a faulty expression with a +meaning originally untenable. Professor Kant, of all men, was least +entitled to plead blindness as to the substance in virtue of any vice +affecting the form. No man knew better the art of translating so wise +and beneficial a sentiment, though slightly disfigured by popular usage, +into the appropriate philosophic terms. To this very sentiment it is, +this eternal <i>protest</i> against the plausible and the speculative,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> not +as a flash sentiment for a gala dinner, but as a principle of action +operative from age to age in all parts of the national conduct, that +England is indebted more than she is to any other known influence for +her stupendous prosperity on two separate lines of progress: first, on +that of commercial enterprise; secondly, on that of political +improvement. At this moment there are two forces acting upon Christendom +which constitute the principles of movement all over Europe: these are, +the questions incident to representative government, and the mighty +interests combined by commercial enterprise. Both have radiated from +England as their centre. There only did the early models of either +activity prosper. Through North America, as the daughter of England, +these two forces have transplanted themselves to every principal region +(except one) of the vast Southern American continent. Thus, to push our +view no further, we behold one-half of the habitable globe henceforth +yoked to the two sole forces of <i>permanent</i> movement for nations, since +war and religious contests are but intermitting forces; and these two +principles, we repeat, have grown to what we now behold chiefly through +the protection of this one great maxim which throws the hopes of the +world, not upon what the scheming understanding can suggest, but upon +what the most faithful experiment can prove.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY.</i></h2> + + +<p>The 'Essay on Criticism' illustrates the same profound misconception of +the principle working at the root of Didactic Poetry as operated +originally to disturb the conduct of the 'Essay on Man' by its author, +and to disturb the judgments upon it by its critics. This 'Essay on +Criticism' no more aims at unfolding the grounds and theory of critical +rules applied to poetic composition, than does the <i>Epistola ad Pisones</i> +of Horace. But what if Horace and Pope both believed themselves the +professional expounders <i>ex cathedrá</i> of these very grounds and this +very theory? No matter if they did. Nobody was less likely to understand +their own purposes than themselves. Their real purposes were <i>immanent</i>, +hidden in their poems; and from the poems they must be sought, not from +the poets; who, generally, in proportion as the problem is one of +analysis and evolution, for which, simply as the authors of the work, +Horace and Pope were no better qualified than other people, and, as +authors having that particular constitution of intellect which +notoriously they had, were much worse qualified than other people. We +cannot possibly allow a man to argue upon the meaning or tendency of his +own book, as against the evidence of the book itself. The book is +unexceptionable authority: and, as against <i>that</i>, the author<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> has no +<i>locus standi</i>. Both Horace and Pope, however little they might be aware +of it, were secretly governed by the same moving principle—viz., not to +teach (which was impossible for two reasons)—but to use this very +impossibility, this very want of flexibility in the subject to the +ostensible purpose of the writers, as the resistance of the atmosphere +from which they would derive the motion of their wings. That it was +impossible in a poem seriously to teach the principles of criticism, we +venture to affirm on a double argument: 1st, that the teaching, if in +earnest, must be <i>polemic</i>: and how alien from the spirit of poetry to +move eternally through controversial discussions! 2ndly, that the +teaching, from the very necessities of metre, must be <i>eclectic</i>; +innumerable things must be suppressed; and how alien from the spirit of +science to move by discontinuous links according to the capricious +bidding of poetic decorum! Divinity itself is not more entangled in the +necessities of fighting for every step in advance, and maintaining the +ground by eternal preparation for hostility, than is philosophic +criticism; a discipline so little matured, that at this day we possess +in any language nothing but fragments and hints towards its +construction. To dispute in verse has been celebrated as the +accomplishment of Lucretius, of Sir John Davies, of Dryden: but then +this very disputation has always been eclectic; not exhausting even the +<i>essential</i> arguments; but playing gracefully with those only which +could promise a brilliant effect. Such a mimic disputation is like a +histrionic fencing match, where the object of the actor is not in good +earnest to put his antagonist to the sword, but to exhibit a few elegant +passes in <i>carte</i> and <i>tierce</i>, not forgetting the secondary object of +displaying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> to advantage any diamonds and rubies that may chance to +scintillate upon his sword-hand.</p> + +<p>Had Pope, or had Horace, been requested to explain the <i>rationale</i> of +his own poem on Criticism, it is pretty certain that each (and from the +same causes) would have talked nonsense. The very gifts so rare and so +exquisite by which these extraordinary men were adorned—the graceful +negligence, the delicacy of tact, the impassioned <i>abandon</i><a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> upon +subjects suited to their <i>modes</i> of geniality, though not absolutely or +irreversibly incompatible with the sterner gifts of energetic attention +and powerful abstraction, were undoubtedly not in alliance with them. +The two sets of gifts did not exert a reciprocal stimulation. As well +might one expect from a man, because he was a capital shot, that he +should write the best essay on the theory of projectiles. Horace and +Pope, therefore, would have talked so absurdly in justifying or +explaining their own works, that we—naturally impatient of nonsense on +the subject of criticism, as our own <i>métier</i>—should have said, 'Oh, +dear gentlemen, stand aside for a moment, and we will right you in the +eyes of posterity: at which bar, if either of you should undertake to be +his own advocate, he will have a fool for his client.'</p> + +<p>We do and must concede consideration even to the one-sided pleadings of +an advocate. But it is under the secret assumption of the concurrent +pleadings equally<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> exaggerated on the adverse side. Without this +counterweight, how false would be our final summation of the evidence +upon most of the great state trials! Nay, even with both sides of the +equation before us, how perplexing would be that summation generally, +unless under the moderating guidance of a neutral and indifferent eye; +the eye of the judge in the first instance, and subsequently of the +upright historian—whether watching the case from the station of a +contemporary, or reviewing it from his place in some later generation.</p> + +<p>Now what we wish to observe about Criticism is, that with just the same +temptation to personal partiality and even injustice in extremity, it +offers a much wider latitude to the distortion of things, facts, +grounds, and inferences. In fact, with the very same motives to a +personal bias swerving from the equatorial truth, it makes a much wider +opening for giving effect to those motives. Insincerity in short, and +every mode of contradicting the truth, is far more possible under a +professed devotion to a general principle than any personal expression +could possibly be.</p> + +<p>If the logic of the case be steadily examined, a definition of didactic +poetry will emerge the very opposite to that popularly held: it will +appear that in didactic poetry the teaching is not the <i>power</i>, but the +<i>resistance</i>. It is difficult to teach even playfully or mimically in +reconciliation with poetic effect: and the object is to wrestle with +this difficulty. It is as when a man selects an absurd or nearly +impracticable subject, his own chin,<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> suppose, for the organ of a new +music: he does not select<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> it as being naturally allied to music, but +for the very opposite reason—as being eminently alien from music, that +his own art will have the greater triumph in taming this reluctancy into +any sort of obedience to a musical purpose. It is a wrestle with all but +physical impossibility. Many arts and mechanic processes in human life +present intermitting aspects of beauty, scattered amongst others that +are utterly without interest of that sort. For instance, in husbandry, +where many essential processes are too mean to allow of any poetic +treatment or transfiguration, others are picturesque, and recommended by +remembrances of childhood to most hearts. How beautiful, for instance, +taken in all its variety of circumstances, the gorgeous summer, the gay +noontide repast, the hiding of children in the hay, the little toy of a +rake in the hands of infancy, is the hay-harvest from first to last! +Such cases wear a Janus aspect, one face connecting them with gross uses +of necessity, another connecting them with the gay or tender sentiments +that accidents of association, or some purpose of Providence, may have +thrown about them as a robe of beauty. Selecting therefore what meets +his own purpose, the poet proceeds by <i>resisting</i> and rejecting all +those parts of the subject which would tend to defeat it. But at least, +it will be said, he does not resist those parts of the subject which he +selects. Yes, he <i>does</i>; even those parts he resists utterly in their +real and primary character, viz., as uses indispensable to the machinery +of man's animal life; and adopts them only for a collateral beauty +attached to the accidents of their evolution; a beauty oftentimes not +even guessed by those who are most familiar with them as practical +operations. It is as if a man, having a learned eye, should follow the +track of armies—careless of the political<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> changes which they created, +or of the interests (all neutral as regarded any opinion of <i>his</i>) which +they disturbed—but alive to every form of beauty connected with these +else unmeaning hostilities—alive to the beauty of their battle-array, +to the pomp of their manœuvres, to the awning of smoke-wreaths +surging above the artilleries, to the gleaming of sabres and bayonets at +intervals through loopholes in these gathering smoky masses. This man +would abstract from the politics and doctrines of the hostile armies, as +much as the didactic poet from the doctrinal part of his theme.</p> + +<p>From this attempt to rectify the idea of didactic poetry, it will be +seen at once why Pope failed utterly and inevitably in the 'Essay on +Man.' The subject was too directly and commandingly interesting to +furnish any opening to that secondary and playful interest which arises +from the management by art and the subjugation of an intractable theme. +The ordinary interest of didactic poetry is derived from the <i>repellent</i> +qualities of the subject, and consequently from the dexterities of the +conflict with what is doubtful, indifferent, unpromising. Not only was +there no <i>resistance</i> in the subject to the grandeur of poetry, but, on +the contrary, this subject offered so much grandeur, was so pathetic and +the amplitude of range so vast as to overwhelm the powers of any poet +and any audience, by its exactions. That was a fault in one direction. +But a different fault was—that the subject allowed no power of +selection. In ordinary didactic poetry, as we have just been insisting, +you sustain the interest by ignoring all the parts which will not bear a +steady gaze. Whatever fascinates the eye, or agitates the heart by +mimicry of life is selected and emphasized, and what is felt to be +intractable or repellent is authoritatively<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> set aside. The poet has an +unlimited discretion. But on a theme so great as man he has no +discretion at all. This resource is denied. You <i>can</i> give the truth +only by giving the whole truth. In treating a common didactic theme you +may neglect merely transitional parts with as much ease as benefit, +because they are familiar enough to be pre-supposed, and are besides +essential only in the real process, but not at all in the mimic process +of description; since A and C, that in the <i>reality</i> could reach one +another only through B, may yet be intelligible as regards their beauty +without any intermediation of B. The ellipsis withdraws a deformity, and +does not generally create an obscurity: either the obscurity is none at +all, or is irrelevant to the real purpose of beauty, or may be treated +sufficiently by a line or two of adroit explanation. But in a poem +treating so vast a theme as man's relations to his own race, to his +habitation the world, to God his maker, and to all the commands of the +conscience, to the hopes of the believing heart, and to the eternal +self-conflicts of the intellect, it is clear that the purely +transitional parts, essential to the understanding of the whole, cannot +be omitted or dispensed with at the beck of the fancy or the necessities +of the metre and rhyme.</p> + +<p>There is also an objection to Man (or any other theme of that grandeur) +as the subject of a didactic poem, which is more subtle, and which for +that reason we have reserved to the last. In the ordinary specimens of +didactic poetry, the theme and its sub-divisions wear (as we have +already observed) a double-faced or Janus aspect; one derived from the +direct experience of life, the other from the reflex experience of it. +And the very reason why one face <i>does</i> affect you is because the other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> +does <i>not</i>. Thus a Morland farmyard, a Flemish tavern, or a clean +kitchen in an unpretending house seen by ruddy firelight reflected from +pewter ware, scarcely interests the eye at all in the reality; but for +that very reason it <i>does</i> interest us all in the mimicry. The very fact +of seeing an object framed as it were, insulated, suddenly <i>relieved</i> to +the steady consciousness, which all one's life has been seen <i>un</i>framed, +<i>not</i> called into relief, but depressed into the universal level of +subconsciousness, awakens a pleasurable sense of surprise. But now Man +is too great a subject to allow of any unrelieved aspects. What the +reader sees he must see directly and without insulation, else falseness +and partiality are immediately apparent.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">[48]</span></a> We speak here of Horace in his lyrical character, and of +Pope as he revealed himself in his tender and pathetic sincerities, not +in his false, counterfeit scorn. Horace, a good-natured creature, that +laughed eternally in his satire, was probably sincere. Pope, a benign +one, could not have been sincere in the bitter and stinging +personalities of his satires. Horace seems to be personal, but is not. +Neither is Juvenal; the names he employs are mere allegoric names. +<i>Draco</i> is any bloody fellow; <i>Favonius</i> is any sycophant: but Pope is +very different.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">[49]</span></a> 'His own chin,' chin-chopping, as practised in our days, +was not an original invention; it was simply a restoration from the days +of Queen Anne.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH</i>.</h2> + + +<p>I take the opportunity of referring to the work of a very eloquent +Frenchman, who has brought the names of Wordsworth and Shakspeare into +connection, partly for the sake of pointing out an important error in +the particular criticism on Wordsworth, but still more as an occasion +for expressing the gratitude due to the French author for the able, +anxious, and oftentimes generous justice which he has rendered to +English literature. It is most gratifying to a thoughtful +Englishman—that precisely from that period when the mighty drama of the +French Revolution, like the Deluge, or like the early growth of +Christianity, or like the Reformation, had been in operation long enough +to form a new and more thoughtful generation in France, has the English +literature been first studied in France, and first appreciated. Since +1810, when the generation moulded by the Revolution was beginning to +come forward on the stage of national action, a continued series of able +writers amongst the French—ardent, noble, profound—have laid aside +their nationality in the most generous spirit for the express purpose of +investigating the great English models of intellectual power, locally so +near to their own native models, and virtually in such polar remoteness. +Chateaubriand's intense enthusiasm for Milton, almost monomaniac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> in the +opinion of some people, is notorious. This, however, was less +astonishing: the pure marble grandeur of Milton, and his classical +severity, naturally recommended themselves to the French taste, which +can always understand the beauty of proportion and regular or teleologic +tendencies. It was with regard to the anomalous, and to that sort of +vaster harmonies which from moving upon a wider scale are apt at first +sight to pass for discords, that a new taste needed to be created in +France. Here Chateaubriand showed himself a Frenchman of the old leaven. +Milton would always have been estimated in France. He needed only to be +better known. Shakspeare was the <i>natural</i> stone of offence: and with +regard to <i>him</i> Chateaubriand has shown himself eminently blind. His +reference to Shakspeare's <i>female</i> gallery, so divine as that Pantheon +really is, by way of most forcibly expressing his supposed inferiority +to Racine (who strictly speaking has no female pictures at all, but +merely <i>umrisse</i> or outlines in pencil) is the very perfection of human +blindness. But many years ago the writers in <i>Le Globe</i>, either by +direct papers on the drama or indirectly by way of references to the +acting of Kean, etc., showed that even as to Shakspeare a new heart was +arising in France. M. Raymond de Véricour, though necessarily called off +to a more special consideration of the Miltonic poetry by the very +promise of his title (<i>Milton, et la Poésie Epique</i>: Paris et Londres, +1838), has in various places shown a far more comprehensive sense of +poetic truth than Chateaubriand. His sensibility, being originally +deeper and trained to move upon a larger compass, vibrates equally under +the chords of the Shakspearian music. Even he, however, has made a +serious mistake as to Wordsworth in his relation to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> Shakspeare. At p. +420 he says: 'Wordsworth qui (de même que Byron) sympathise pen +cordialement avec Shakspeare, se prosterne cependant comme Byron devant +le <i>Paradis perdu</i>; Milton est la grande idole de Wordsworth; il ne +craint pas quelquefois de se comparer lui-même à son géant;' (never +unless in the single accident of praying for a similar audience—'fit +audience let me find though few'); 'et en vérité ses sonnets ont souvent +le même esprit prophétique, la même élévation sacrée que ceux de +l'Homère anglais.' There cannot be graver mistakes than are here brought +into one focus. Lord Byron cared little for the 'Paradise Lost,' and had +studied it not at all. On the other hand, Lord Byron's pretended +disparagement of Shakspeare by comparison with the meagre, hungry and +bloodless Alfieri was a pure stage trick, a momentary device for +expressing his Apemantus misanthropy towards the English people. It +happened at the time he had made himself unpopular by the circumstances +of his private life: these, with a morbid appetite for engaging public +attention, he had done his best to publish and to keep before the public +eye; whilst at the same time he was very angry at the particular style +of comments which they provoked. There was no fixed temper of anger +towards him in the public mind of England: but he believed that there +was. And he took his revenge through every channel by which he fancied +himself to have a chance for reaching and stinging the national pride; +1st, by ridiculing the English pretensions to higher principle and +national morality; but <i>that</i> failing, 2ndly, by disparaging Shakspeare; +3rdly, on the same principle which led Dean Swift to found the first +lunatic hospital in Ireland, viz.:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'To shew by one satiric touch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No nation wanted it so much.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Lord Byron, without any <i>sincere</i> opinion or care upon the subject one +way or other, directed in his will—that his daughter should not marry +an Englishman: this bullet, he fancied, would take effect, even though +the Shakspeare bullet had failed. Now, as to Wordsworth, he values both +in the highest degree. In a philosophic poem, like the 'Excursion,' he +is naturally led to speak more pointedly of Milton: but his own +affinities are every way more numerous and striking to Shakspeare. For +this reason I have myself been led to group him with Shakspeare. In +those two poets alike is seen the infinite of Painting: in Æschylus and +Milton alike are seen the simplicities and stern sublimiities of +Sculpture.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH.</i></h2> + + +<p>One fault in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' suggested by Coleridge, but +luckily quite beyond all the resources of tinkering open to William +Wordsworth, is—in the choice of a Pedlar as the presiding character who +connects the shifting scenes and persons in the 'Excursion.' Why should +not some man of more authentic station have been complimented with that +place, seeing that the appointment lay altogether in Wordsworth's gift? +But really now who could this have been? Garter King-at-Arms would have +been a great deal too showy for a working hero. A railway-director, +liable at any moment to abscond with the funds of the company, would +have been viewed by all readers with far too much suspicion for the +tranquillity desirable in a philosophic poem. A colonel of Horse Marines +seems quite out of the question: what his proper functions may be, is +still a question for the learned; but no man has supposed them to be +philosophic. Yet on the other hand, argues Coleridge, would not '<i>any</i> +wise and beneficent old man,' without specifying his rank, have met the +necessities of the case? Why, certainly, if it is <i>our</i> opinion that +Coleridge wishes to have, we conceive that such an old gentleman, +advertising in the <i>Times</i> as 'willing to make himself generally +useful,'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> might have had a chance of dropping a line to William +Wordsworth. But still we don't know. Beneficent old gentlemen are +sometimes great scamps. Men, who give themselves the best of characters +in morning papers, are watched occasionally in a disagreeable manner by +the police. Itinerant philosophers are absolutely not understood in +England. Intruders into private premises, even for grand missionary +purposes, are constantly served with summary notices to quit. Mrs. +Quickly gave a first-rate character to Simple; but for all <i>that</i>, Dr. +Caius with too much show of reason demanded, 'Vat shall de honest young +man do in my closet?' And we fear that Coleridge's beneficent old man, +lecturing <i>gratis</i> upon things in general, would be regarded with +illiberal jealousy by the female servants of any establishment, if he +chose to lecture amongst the family linen. 'What shall de wise +beneficent old Monsieur do amongst our washing-tubs?' We are perfectly +confounded by the excessive blindness of Coleridge and nearly all other +critics on this matter. 'Need the rank,' says Coleridge, 'have been at +all particularized, when nothing follows which the knowledge of that +rank is to explain or illustrate?' Nothing to explain or illustrate! +Why, good heavens! it is only by the most distinct and positive +information lodged with the constable as to who and what the vagrant +was, that the leading philosopher in the 'Excursion' could possibly have +saved himself over and over again from passing the night in the village +'lock-up,' and generally speaking in handcuffs, as one having too +probably a design upon the village hen-roosts. In the sixth and seventh +books, where the scene lies in the churchyard amongst the mountains, it +is evident that the philosopher would have been arrested as a +resurrection-man, had he not been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> known to substantial farmers as a +pedlar 'with some money.' To be clothed therefore with an intelligible +character and a local calling was as indispensable to the free movements +of the Wanderer when out upon a philosophical spree, as a passport is to +each and every traveller in France. Dr. Franklin, who was a very +indifferent philosopher, but very great as a pedlar, and as cunning as +Niccolo Machiavelli (which means as cunning as old Nick), was quite +aware of this necessity as a tax upon travellers; and at every stage, on +halting, he used to stand upright in his stirrups, crying aloud, +'Gentlemen and Ladies, here I am at your service; Benjamin Franklin by +name; once (but <i>that</i> was in boyhood) a devil; viz., in the service of +a printer; next a compositor and reader to the press; at present a +master-printer. My object in this journey is—to arrest a knave who will +else be off to Europe with £200 of my money in his breeches-pocket: that +is my final object: my immediate one is—dinner; which, if there is no +just reason against it, I beg that you will no longer interrupt.' Yet +still, though it is essential to the free circulation of a philosopher +that he should be known for what he is, the reader thinks that at least +the philosopher might be known advantageously as regards his social +standing. No, he could not. And we speak seriously. How <i>could</i> +Coleridge and so many other critics overlook the overruling necessities +of the situation? They argue as though Wordsworth had selected a pedlar +under some abstract regard for his office of buying and selling: in +which case undoubtedly a wholesale man would have a better chance for +doing a 'large stroke of business' in philosophy than this huckstering +retailer. Wordsworth however fixed on a pedlar—not for his commercial +relations—but in spite of them. It was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> not for the <i>essential</i> of his +calling that a pedlar was promoted to the post of central philosopher in +his philosophic poem, but for an accident indirectly arising out of it. +This accident lay in the natural privilege which a pedlar once had +through all rural districts of common access to rich and poor, and +secondly, in the leisurely nature of his intercourse. Three conditions +there were for fulfilling that ministry of philosophic intercourse which +Wordsworth's plan supposed. First, the philosopher must be clothed with +a <i>real</i> character, known to the actual usages of the land, and not +imaginary: else this postulate of fiction at starting would have +operated with an unrealizing effect upon all that followed. Next, it +must be a character that was naturally fitted to carry the bearer +through a large circuit of districts and villages; else the <i>arena</i> +would be too narrow for the large survey of life and conflict demanded: +lastly, the character must be one recommending itself alike to all ranks +in tracts remote from towns, and procuring an admission ready and +gracious to him who supports that character. Now this supreme advantage +belonged in a degree absolutely unique to the character of pedlar, or +(as Wordsworth euphemistically terms it) of 'wandering merchant.' In +past generations the <i>materfamilias</i>, the young ladies, and the visitors +within their gates, were as anxious for his periodic visit as the +humblest of the domestics. They received him therefore with the +condescending kindness of persons in a state of joyous expectation: +young hearts beat with the anticipation of velvets and brocades from +Genoa, lace veils from the Netherlands, jewels and jewelled trinkets; +for you are not to think that, like Autolycus, he carried only one +trinket. They were sincerely kind to him, being sincerely pleased. +Besides, it was politic to assume a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> gracious manner, since else the +pedlar might take out his revenge in the price of his wares; fifteen per +cent. would be the least he could reasonably clap on as a premium and +<i>solatium</i> to himself for any extra hauteur. This gracious style of +intercourse, already favourable to a tone of conversation more liberal +and unreserved than would else have been conceded to a vagrant huckster, +was further improved by the fact that the pedlar was also the main +retailer of news. Here it was that a real advantage offered itself to +any mind having that philosophic interest in human characters, +struggles, and calamities, which is likely enough to arise amongst a +class of men contemplating long records of chance and change through +their wanderings, and so often left to their own meditations upon them +by long tracts of solitude. The gossip of the neighbouring districts, +whether tragic or comic, would have a natural interest from its +locality. And such records would lead to illustration from other cases +more remote—losing the interest of neighbourhood, but compensating that +loss by their deeper intrinsic hold upon the sensibilities. Ladies of +the highest rank would suffer their reserve to thaw in such interviews; +besides that, before unresisting humility and inferiority too apparent +even haughtiness the most intractable usually abates its fervour.</p> + +<p>Coleridge also allows himself, for the sake of argument, not merely to +assume too hastily, but to magnify too inordinately. Daniel, the poet, +really <i>was</i> called the 'well-languaged' (p. 83, vol. ii.), but by whom? +Not, as Hooker was called the 'judicious,' or Bede the 'venerable,' by +whole generations; but by an individual. And as to the epithet of +'prosaic,' we greatly doubt if so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> much as one individual ever connected +it with Daniel's name.</p> + +<p>But the whole dispute on Poetic Diction is too deep and too broad for an +occasional or parenthetic notice. It is a dispute which renews itself in +every cultivated language;<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> and even, in its application to different +authors within the same language, as for instance, to Milton, to +Shakspeare, or to Wordsworth, it takes a special and varied aspect. +Declining this, as far too ample a theme, we wish to say one word, but +an urgent word and full of clamorous complaint, upon the other branch. +This dispute, however, is but one of two paths upon which the +Biographical Literature approaches the subject of Wordsworth: the other +lies in the direct critical examination of Wordsworth's poems. As to +this, we wish to utter one word, but a word full of clamorous complaint. +That the criticisms of Coleridge on William Wordsworth were often false, +and that they betrayed fatally the temper of one who never <i>had</i> +sympathized heartily with the most exquisite parts of the Lyrical +Ballads, might have been a record injurious only to Coleridge himself. +But unhappily these perverse criticisms have proved the occasions of +ruin to some admirable poems; and, as if that were not enough, have +memorialized a painful feature of weakness in Wordsworth's judgment. If +ever on this earth there was a man that in his prime, when saluted with +contumely from all quarters, manifested a stern deafness to +criticism—it was William Wordsworth. And we thought the better of him +by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> much for this haughty defiance to groundless judgments. But the +cloak, which Boreas could not tear away from the traveller's resistance, +oftentimes the too genial Phœbus has filched from his amiable spirit +of compliance. These criticisms of Coleridge, generally so wayward and +one-sided, but sometimes desperately opposed to every mode of truth, +have been the means of exposing in William Wordsworth a weakness of +resistance—almost a criminal facility in surrendering his own +rights—which else would never have been suspected. We will take one of +the worst cases. Readers acquainted with Wordsworth as a poet, are of +course acquainted with his poem (originally so fine) upon Gipseys. To a +poetic mind it is inevitable—that every spectacle, embodying any +remarkable quality in a remarkable excess, should be unusually +impressive, and should seem to justify a poetic record. For instance, +the solitary life of one<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> who should tend a lighthouse could not fail +to move a very deep sympathy with his situation. Here for instance we +read the ground of Wordsworth's 'Glen Almain.' Did he care for torpor +again, lethargic inertia? Such a spectacle as <i>that</i> in the midst of a +nation so morbidly energetic as our own, was calculated to strike some +few chords from the harp of a poet so vigilantly keeping watch over +human life.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">[50]</span></a> Valckenaer, in his famous 'Dissertation on the +Phœnissæ,' notices such a dispute as having arisen upon the diction +of Euripides. The question is old and familiar as to the quality of the +passion in Euripides, by comparison with that in Sophocles. But there +was a separate dispute far less notorious as to the quality of the +<i>lexis</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">[51]</span></a> 'One,' but in the Eddystone or other principal lighthouses +on our coast there are <i>two</i> men resident. True, but these two come upon +duty by alternate watches, and generally are as profoundly separated as +if living leagues apart.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XIII. WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES.</i></h2> + +<h3>(<i>An Early Paper.</i>)</h3> + + +<p>Of late the two names of Wordsworth and Southey have been coupled +chiefly in the frantic philippics of Jacobins, out of revenge for that +sublime crusade which, among the intellectual powers of Europe, these +two eminent men were foremost (and for a time alone) in awakening +against the brutalizing tyranny of France and its chief agent, Napoleon +Bonaparte: a crusade which they, to their immortal honour, unceasingly +advocated—not (as others did) at a time when the Peninsular victories, +the Russian campaign, and the battle of Leipsic, had broken the charm by +which France fascinated the world and had made Bonaparte mean even in +the eyes of the mean—but (be it remembered!) when by far the major part +of this nation looked upon the cause of liberty as hopeless upon the +Continent, as committed for many ages to the guardianship of England, in +which (or not at all) it was to be saved as in an Ark from the universal +deluge. Painful such remembrances may be to those who are now ashamed of +their idolatry, it must not be forgotten that, from the year 1803 to +1808, Bonaparte was an idol to the greater part of this nation; at no +time, God be thanked!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> an idol of love, but, to most among us, an idol +of fear. The war was looked upon as essentially a <i>defensive</i> war: many +doubted whether Bonaparte could be successfully opposed: almost all +would have treated it as lunacy to say that he could be conquered. Yet, +even at that period, these two eminent patriots constantly treated it as +a feasible project to march an English army triumphantly into Paris. +Their conversations with various friends—the dates of their own +works—and the dates of some composed under influences emanating from +them (as, for example, the unfinished work of Colonel Pasley of the +Engineers)—are all so many vouchers for this fact. We know not whether +(with the exception of some few Germans such as Arndt, for whose book +Palm was shot) there was at that time in Europe another man of any +eminence who shared in that Machiavellian sagacity which revealed to +them, as with the power and clear insight of the prophetic spirit, the +craziness of the French military despotism when to vulgar politicians it +seemed strongest. For this sagacity, and for the strength of patriotism +to which in part they owed it (for in all cases the <i>moral</i> spirit is a +great illuminator of the <i>intellect</i>), they have reaped the most +enviable reward, in the hatred of traitors and Jacobins all over the +world: and in the expressions of that hatred we find their names +frequently coupled. There was a time, however, when these names were +coupled for other purposes: they were coupled as joint supporters of a +supposed new creed in relation to their own art. Mr. Wordsworth, it is +well known to men of letters, did advance a new theory upon two great +questions of art: in some points it might perhaps be objected that his +faith, in relation to that which he attacked, was as the Protestant +faith to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> Catholic—<i>i.e.</i>, not a new one, but a restoration of the +primitive one purified from its modern corruptions. Be this as it may, +however, Mr. Wordsworth's exposition of his theory is beyond all +comparison the subtlest and (not excepting even the best of the German +essays) the most finished and masterly specimen of reasoning which has +in any age or nation been called forth by any one of the fine arts. No +formal attack has yet been made upon it, except by Mr. Coleridge; of +whose arguments we need not say that they furnish so many centres (as it +were) to a great body of metaphysical acuteness; but to our judgment +they fail altogether of overthrowing Mr. Wordsworth's theory. All the +other critics have shown in their casual allusions to this theory that +they have not yet come to understand what is its drift or main thesis. +Such being the state of their acquaintance with the theory itself, we +need not be surprised to find that the accidental connection between Mr. +Wordsworth and the Laureate arising out of friendship and neighbourhood +should have led these blundering critics into the belief that the two +poets were joint supporters of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile +that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey +dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; +dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male +blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent—but +as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long +examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions +dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany +occasionally dissents from Leibnitz. That which Mr. Wordsworth has in +common with all great poets, Mr. Southey cannot but reverence: he has +told us<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> that he does: and, if he had not, his own originality and +splendour of genius would be sufficient pledges that he did. That which +is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey may disapprove: he +may think that it narrows the province of the poet too much in one +part—that, in another part, it impairs the instrument with which he is +to work. Thus far he may disapprove; and, after all, deduct no more from +the merits of Mr. Wordsworth, than he will perhaps deduct from those of +Milton, for having too often allowed a Latin or Hebraic structure of +language to injure the purity of his diction. To whatsoever extent, +however, the disapprobation of Mr. Southey goes, certain it is (for his +own practice shows it) that he does disapprove the <i>innovations</i> of Mr. +Wordsworth's theory—very laughably illustrates the sagacity of modern +English critics: they were told that Mr. Southey held and practised a +certain system of innovations: so far their error was an error of +misinformation: but next they turn to Mr. Southey's works, and there +they fancy that they find in every line an illustration of the erroneous +tenets which their misinformation had led them to expect that they +should find. A more unfortunate blunder, one more confounding to the +most adventurous presumption, can hardly be imagined. A system, which no +man could act upon unless deliberately and with great effort and labour +of composition, is supposed to be exemplified in the works of a poet who +uniformly rejects it: and this ludicrous blunder arises not from any +over-refinements in criticism (such, for instance, as led Warburton to +find in Shakspeare what the poet himself never dreamt of), but from no +more creditable cause than a misreport of some blue-stocking miss either +maliciously or ignorantly palmed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> upon a critic whose understanding +passively surrendered itself to anything however gross.</p> + +<p>Such are the two modes in which the names of these two eminent men have +been coupled. As true patriots they are deservedly coupled: as poets +their names cannot be justly connected by any stricter bond than that +which connects all men of high creative genius. This distinction, as to +the main grounds of affinity and difference between the two writers, was +open and clear to any unprejudiced mind prepared for such +investigations, and we should at any rate have pointed it out at one +time or other for the sake of exposing the hollowness of those +impostures which offer themselves in our days as criticisms.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XIV. PRONUNCIATION.</i></h2> + + +<p>To <i>write</i> his own language with propriety is the ambition of here and +there an individual; to speak it with propriety is the ambition of +multitudes. Amongst the qualifications for a public writer—the +preliminary one of <i>leisure</i> is granted to about one man in three +thousand; and, this being indispensable, there at once, for most men, +mercifully dies in the very instant of birth the most uneasy and +bewildering of temptations. But <i>speak</i> a man must. Leisure or no +leisure, to <i>talk</i> he is obliged by the necessities of life, or at least +he thinks so; though my own private belief is, that the wisest rule upon +which a man could act in this world (alas! I did not myself act upon it) +would be to seal up his mouth from earliest youth, to simulate the +infirmity of dumbness, and to answer only by signs. This would soon put +an end to the impertinence of questions, to the intolerable labour of +framing and uttering replies through a whole life, and, above all (oh, +foretaste of Paradise!), to the hideous affliction of sustaining these +replies and undertaking for all their possible consequences. That notion +of the negroes in Senegal about monkeys, viz., that they <i>can</i> talk if +they choose, and perhaps with classical elegance, but wisely dissemble +their talent under the fear that the unjust whites would else make them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> +work in Printing Houses, for instance, as 'readers' and correctors of +the press, this idea, which I dare say is true, shows how much wiser, in +his generation, is a monkey than a man. For, besides the wear and tear +to a man's temper by the irritation of talking, and the corrosion of +one's happiness by the disputes which talking entails, it is really +frightful to think of the mischief caused, if one measures it only by +the fruitless expense of words. Eleven hundred days make up about three +years; consequently, eleven thousand days make up thirty years. But that +day must be a very sulky one, and probably raining cats and dogs, on +which a man throws away so few as two thousand words, not reckoning what +he loses in sleep. A hundred and twenty-five words for every one of +sixteen hours cannot be thought excessive. The result, therefore, is, +that, in one generation of thirty years, he wastes irretrievably upon +the impertinence of answering—of wrangling, and of prosing, not less +than twice eleven thousand times a thousand words; the upshot of which +comes to a matter of twenty-two million words. So that, if the English +language contains (as some curious people say it does) forty thousand +words, he will have used it up not less than five hundred and fifty +times. Poor old battered language! One really pities it. Think of any +language in its old age being forced to work at that rate; kneaded, as +if it were so much dough, every hour of the day into millions of +fantastic shapes by millions of capricious bakers! Being old, however, +and superannuated, you will say that our English language must have got +used to it: as the sea, that once (according to Camoens) was indignant +at having his surface scratched, and his feelings harrowed, by keels, is +now wrinkled and smiling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>Blessed is the man that is dumb, when speech would have betrayed his +ignorance; and the man that has neither pens nor ink nor crayons, when a +record of his thought would have delivered him over to the derision of +posterity. This, however, the reader will say, is to embroider a large +moral upon a trivial occasion. Possibly the moral may be +disproportionately large; and yet, after all, the occasion may not be so +trivial as it seems. One of the many revolutions worked by the railway +system is, to force men into a much ampler publicity; to throw them at a +distance from home amongst strangers; and at their own homes to throw +strangers amongst <i>them</i>. Now, exactly in such situations it is, where +all other gauges of appreciation are wanting, that the two great +external indications of a man's rank, viz., the quality of his manners +and the quality of his pronunciation, come into play for assigning his +place and rating amongst strangers. Not merely pride, but a just and +reasonable self-respect, irritates a man's aspiring sensibilities in +such a case: not only he <i>is</i>, but always he <i>ought</i> to be, jealous of +suffering in the estimation of strangers by defects which it is in his +own choice to supply, or by mistakes which a little trouble might +correct. And by the way we British act in this spirit, whether we ought +to do or not, it is noticed as a broad characteristic of us Islanders, +viz., both of the English and the Scotch, that we are morbidly alive to +jealousy under such circumstances, and in a degree to which there is +nothing amongst the two leading peoples of the Continent at all +corresponding.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> A Scotchman or an Englishman of low rank is anxious +on a Sunday to dress in a style which may mislead the casual observer +into the belief that perhaps he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> is a gentleman: whereas it is notorious +that the Parisian artisan or labourer of the lower class is proud of +connecting himself conspicuously with his own order, and ostentatiously +acknowledging it, by adopting its usual costume. It is his way of +expressing an <i>esprit de corps</i>. The same thing is true very extensively +of Germans. And it sounds pretty, and reads into a sentimental +expression of cheerful contentedness, that such customs should prevail +on a great scale. Meantime I am not quite sure that the worthy Parisian +is not an ass, and the amiable German another, for thus meekly resigning +himself to the tyranny of his accidental situation. What they call the +allotment of Providence is, often enough, the allotment of their own +laziness or defective energy. At any rate, I feel much more inclined to +respect the aspiring Englishman or Scotchman that kicks against these +self-imposed restraints; that rebels in heart against whatever there may +be of degradation in his own particular employment; and, therefore, +though submitting to this degradation as the <i>sine quâ non</i> for earning +his daily bread, and submitting also to the external badges and dress of +his trade as frequently a matter of real convenience, yet doggedly +refuses to abet or countersign any such arrangements as tend to lower +him in other men's opinion. And exactly this is what he <i>would</i> be doing +by assuming his professional costume on Sundays; the costume would then +become an exponent of his choice, not of his convenience or his +necessity; and he would thus be proclaiming that he glories in what he +detests. To found a meek and docile nation, the German is the very +architect wanted; but to found a go-ahead nation quite another race is +called for, other blood and other training. And, again, when I hear a +notable housewife<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> exclaiming, 'Many are the poor servant girls that +have been led into temptation and ruin by dressing above their station,' +I feel that she says no more than the truth; and I grieve that it should +be so. Out of tenderness, therefore, and pity towards the poor girls, if +I personally had any power to bias their choice, my influence should be +used in counteraction to their natural propensities. But this has +nothing to do with the philosophic estimate of those propensities. +Perilous they are; but <i>that</i> does not prevent their arising in +fountains that contain elements of possible grandeur, such as would +never be developed by a German Audrey (see 'As You Like It') content to +be treated as a doll by her lover, and viewing it as profane to wear +petticoats less voluminous, or a headdress less frightful than those +inherited from her grandmother.</p> + +<p>Excuse this digression, reader. What I wished to explain was that, if a +man in a humble situation seeks to refine his pronunciation of English, +and finds himself in consequence taxed with pride that will not brook +the necessities of his rank, at all events, he is but <i>integrating</i> his +manifestations of pride. Already in his Sunday's costume he has <i>begun</i> +this manifestation, and, as I contend, rightfully. If a carpenter or a +stonemason goes abroad on a railway excursion, there is no moral +obligation upon him—great or small—to carry about any memento +whatsoever of his calling. I contend that his right to pass himself off +for a gentleman is co-extensive with his power to do so: the right is +limited by the power, and by that only. The man may say justly: "What I +am seeking is a holiday. This is what I pay for; and I pay for it with +money earned painfully enough. I have a right therefore to expect that +the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> article shall be genuine and complete. Now, a holiday means freedom +from the pains of labour—not from some of those pains, but from all. +Even from the memory of these pains, if <i>that</i> could be bought, and from +the anticipation of their recurrence. Amongst the pains of labour, a +leading one next after the necessity of unintermitting muscular effort, +is the oppression of people's superciliousness or of their affected +condescension in conversing with one whom they know to be a working +mechanic. From this oppression it is, from this oppression whether open +or poorly disguised, that I seek to be delivered. It taints my pleasure: +it spoils my holiday. And if by being dressed handsomely, by courtesy in +manners, and by accuracy in speaking English, I can succeed in obtaining +this deliverance for myself, I have a right to it." Undoubtedly he has. +His real object is not to disconnect himself from an honest calling, but +from that burthen of contempt or of slight consideration which the world +has affixed to his calling. He takes measures for gratifying his +pride—not with a direct or primary view to that pride, but indirectly +as the only means open to him for evading and defeating the unjust +conventional scorn that would settle upon himself <i>through</i> his trade, +if that should happen to become known or suspected. This is what I +should be glad to assist him in; and amongst other points connected with +his object, towards which my experience might furnish him with some +hints, I shall here offer him the very shortest of lessons for his +guidance in the matter of English pronunciation.</p> + +<p>What can be attempted on so wide a field in a paper limited so severely +in dimensions as all papers published by this journal <i>must</i> be limited +in obedience to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> transcendent law of variety? To make it possible +that subjects <i>enough</i> should be treated, the Proprietor wisely insists +on a treatment vigorously succinct for each in particular. I myself, it +suddenly strikes me, must have been the chief offender against this +reasonable law: but my offences were committed in pure ignorance and +inattention, faults which henceforth I shall guard against with a +penitential earnestness. Reformation meanwhile must begin, I fear, +simultaneously with this confession of guilt. It would not be possible +(would it?) that, beginning the penitence this month of November, I +should postpone the amendment till the next? No, <i>that</i> would look too +brazen. I must confine myself to the two and a half pages prescribed as +the maximum extent—and of that allowance already perhaps have used up +one half at the least. Shocking! is it not? So much the sterner is the +demand through the remaining ground for exquisite brevity.</p> + +<p>Rushing therefore at once <i>in medias res</i>, I observe to the reader that, +although it is thoroughly impossible to give him a guide upon so vast a +wilderness as the total area of our English language, for, if I must +teach him how to pronounce, and upon what learned grounds to pronounce, +40,000 words, and if polemically I must teach him how to dispose of +40,000 objections that have been raised (or that <i>may</i> be raised) +against these pronunciations, then I should require at the least 40,000 +lives (which is quite out of the question, for a cat has but +nine)—seeing and allowing for all this, I may yet offer him some +guidance as to his guide. One sole rule, if he will attend to it, +governs in a paramount sense the total possibilities and compass of +pronunciation. A very famous line of Horace states it. What line? What +is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> the supreme law in every language for correct pronunciation no less +than for idiomatic propriety?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'<i>Usus</i>, quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi:'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>usage, the established practice, subject to which is all law and normal +standard of correct speaking. Now, in what way does such a rule +interfere with the ordinary prejudice on this subject? The popular error +is that, in pronunciation, as in other things, there is an abstract +right and a wrong. The difficulty, it is supposed, lies in ascertaining +this right and wrong. But by collation of arguments, by learned +investigation, and interchange of <i>pros</i> and <i>cons</i>, it is fancied that +ultimately the exact truth of each separate case might be extracted. +Now, in that preconception lies the capital blunder incident to the +question. There <i>is</i> no right, there <i>is</i> no wrong, except what the +prevailing usage creates. The usage, the existing custom, <i>that</i> is the +law: and from that law there is no appeal whatever, nor demur that is +sustainable for a moment.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">[52]</span></a> Amongst the Spaniards there <i>is</i>.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA.</i></h2> + + +<p>Now, observe what I am going to prove. First A, and as a stepping-stone +to something (B) which is to follow: It is, that the Jewish Scriptures +could not have been composed in any modern æra. I am earnest in drawing +your attention to the particular point which I have before me, because +one of the enormous faults pervading all argumentative books, so that +rarely indeed do you find an exception, is that, in all the dust and +cloud of contest and of objects, the reader never knows what is the +immediate object before the writer and himself, nor if he were told +would he understand in what relation it stood to the main object of +contest—the main question at stake. Recollect, therefore, that what I +want is to show that these elder Jewish Scriptures must have existed in +very ancient days—how ancient? for ancient is an ambiguous word—could +not have been written as a memorial of tradition within a century or two +of our æra. To suppose, even for the sake of answering, the case of a +forgery, is too gross and shocking: though a very common practice +amongst writers miscalled religious, but in fact radically, incurably +unspiritual. This might be shown to be abominable even in an +intellectual sense; because no adequate, no rational purpose could be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> +answered by such a labour. The sole conceivable case would be, that from +the eldest days the Jews had been governed by all the Mosaic +institutions as we now have them, but that the mere copying, the mere +registration on tablets of parchment, wood, leather, brass, had not +occurred till some more modern period. As to this the answer is at once: +Why should they not have been written down? What answer could be given? +Only this: For the same reason that other nations did not commit to +writing their elder institutions. And why did they not? Was it to save +trouble? So far from that, this one privation imposed infinite trouble +that would have been evaded by written copies. For because they did not +write down, therefore, as the sole mode of providing for accurate +remembrance, they were obliged to compose in a very elaborate metre; in +which the mere <i>pattern</i> as it were of the verse, so intricate and so +closely interlocked, always performed thus two services: first, it +assisted the memory in mastering the tenor; but, secondly, it checked +and counterpleaded to the lapses of memory or to the artifices of fraud. +This explanation is well illustrated in the 'Iliad'—a poem elder by a +century, it is rightly argued, than the 'Odyssey,' ergo the eldest of +Pagan literature. Now, when the 'Iliad' had once come down safe to +Pisistratus 555 years <span class="smcap">b.c.</span>, imagine this great man holding out his hands +over the gulf of time to Homer, 1,000 years before, who is chucking or +shying his poems across the gulf. Once landed in those conservative +hands, never trouble yourself more about the safety of the 'Iliad.' +After that it was as safe as the eyes in any Athenian's head. But before +that time there <i>was</i> a great danger; and this danger was at all +surmounted (scholars differ greatly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> and have sometimes cudgelled one +another with real unfigurative cudgels as to the degree in which it +<i>did</i> surmount the danger) only by the metre and a regular orchestra in +every great city dedicated to this peculiar service of chanting the +'Iliad'; insomuch that a special costume was assigned to the chanters of +the 'Iliad,' viz., scarlet or crimson, and also another special costume +to the chanters of the 'Odyssey,' viz., violet-coloured. Now, this +division of orchestras had one great evil and one great benefit. The +benefit was, that if locally one orchestra went wrong (as it might do +upon local temptations) yet surely all the orchestras would not go +wrong: ninety-nine out of every hundred would check and expose the +fraudulent hundredth. <i>There</i> was the good. But the evil was concurrent. +For by this dispersion of orchestras, and this multiplication, not only +were the ordinary chances of error according to the doctrine of chances +multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold, but also, which was worse, each +separate orchestra was brought by local position under a separate and +peculiar action of some temptation, some horrible temptation, some bribe +that could not be withstood, for falsifying the copy by compliments to +local families; that is, to such as were or such as were not descendants +from the Paladius of Troy. For that, let me say, was for Greece, nay, +for all the Mediterranean world, what for us of Christian ages have been +the Crusades. It was the pinnacle from which hung as a dependency all +the eldest of families. So that they who were of such families thirsted +after what they held aright to be asserted, viz., a Homeric +commemoration; and they who were not thirsted after what had begun to +seem a feasible ambition to be accomplished. It was feasible: for +various<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> attempts are still on record very much like our interpolations +of Church books as to records of birth or marriage. Athens, for +instance, was discontented with Homer's praise; and the case is +interesting, because, though it argues such an attempt to be very +difficult, since even a great city could not fully succeed, yet, at the +same time, it argues that it was not quite hopeless, or else it would +hardly have been attempted. So that here arises one argument for the +main genuineness of the Homeric text. Yet you will say: Perhaps when +Athens tried the trick it was too late in the day: it was too late after +full daylight to be essaying burglaries. But it would have been easy in +elder days. This is true; but remark the restraint which that very state +of the case supposes. Precisely when this difficulty became great, +became enormous, did the desire chiefly become great, become enormous, +for mastering it. And when the difficulty was light, when the forgery +was most a matter of ease, the ambition was least. For you cannot +suppose that families standing near to the Crusades would have cared +much for the reputation. As an act of piety they would prize it; as an +exponent of antiquity they would not prize it at all. For, in fact, it +would argue no such thing, until many centuries had passed. You see, +however, by this sketch the <i>pros</i> and the <i>cons</i> respecting the +difficulty of transmitting the 'Iliad' free from corruption, if at once +it was resigned to mere oral tradition. The alterations were more and +more tempting; but in that ratio were less and less possible. And then, +secondly, there were the changes from chance or from changing language. +Apply all these considerations to the case of the Hebrew Scriptures, and +their great antiquity is demonstrated.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY.</i></h2> + + +<p>Look into the Acts of the Apostles, you see the wide dispersion of the +Jews which had then been accomplished; a dispersion long antecedent to +that penal dispersion which occurred subsequently to the Christian era. +But search the pages of the wicked Jew, Josephus,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> notices +expressly this universal dispersion of the Jews, and gives up and down +his works the means of tracing them through every country in the +southern belt of the Mediterranean, through every country of the +northern belt, through every country of the connecting belt, in Asia +Minor and Syria—through every island of the Mediterranean. Search +Philo-Judæus, the same result is found. But why? Upon what theory? What +great purpose is working, is fermenting underneath? What principle, what +law can be abstracted from this antagonist or centrifugal motion +outwards now violently beating back as with a conflict of tides the +original centripetal motion inwards? Manifestly this: the incubating +process had been completed: the ideas of God as an ideal of Holiness, +the idea of Sin as the antagonist force—had been perfected; they were +now so inextricably worked into the texture of Jewish minds, or the +Jewish minds were now arrived at their <i>maximum</i> of adhesiveness, or at +their <i>minimum</i> of repulsiveness, in manners and social character, that +this stage was perfect; and now came the five hundred years during which +they were to manure all nations with these preparations for +Christianity. Hence it was that the great globe of Hebraism was now +shivered into fragments; projected 'by one sling of that victorious +arm'—which had brought them up from Egypt. Make ready for Christianity! +Lay the structure, in which everywhere Christianity will strike root. +You, that for yourselves even will reject, will persecute Christianity, +become the pioneers, the bridge-layers, the reception-preparers, by +means of those two inconceivable ideas, for natural man—sin and its +antagonist, holiness.</p> + +<p>In this way a preparation was made. But if Christianity was to benefit +by it, if Christianity was to move<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> with ease, she must have a language. +Accordingly, from the time of Alexander, the strong he-goat, you see a +tendency—sudden, abrupt, beyond all example, swift, perfect—for +uniting all nations by the bond of a single language. You see kings and +nations taking up their positions as regularly, faithfully, solemnly as +a great fleet on going into action, for supporting this chain of +language.</p> + +<p>Yet even that will be insufficient; for fluent motion out of nation into +nation it will be requisite that all nations should be provinces of one +supreme people; so that no hindrances from adverse laws, or from +jealousies of enmity, can possibly impede the fluent passage of the +apostle and the apostle's delegates—inasmuch as the laws are swallowed +up into one single code, and enmity disappears with its consequent +jealousies, where all nationalities are absorbed into unity.</p> + +<p>This last change being made, a signal, it may be supposed, was given as +with a trumpet; now then, move forward, Christianity; the ground is +ready, the obstacles are withdrawn. Enter upon the field which is +manured; try the roads which are cleared; use the language which is +prepared; benefit by the laws which protect and favour your motion; +apply the germinating principles which are beginning to swell in this +great vernal season of Christianity. New heavens and new earth are +forming: do you promote it.</p> + +<p>Such a <i>complexus</i> of favourable tendencies, such a meeting in one +centre of plans—commencing in far different climates and far different +centres, all coming up at the same æra face to face, and by direct lines +of connection meeting in one centre—the world had never seen before.</p> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">[53]</span></a> 'The wicked Jew,' Josephus, as once I endeavoured to show, +was perhaps the worst man in all antiquity; it is pleasant to be +foremost upon any path, and Joe might assuredly congratulate himself on +surmounting and cresting all the scoundrels since the flood. What there +might be on the other side the flood, none of us can say. But on <i>this</i> +side, amongst the Cis-diluvians, Joe in a contest for the deanery of +that venerable chapter, would assuredly carry off the prize. Wordsworth, +on a question arising as to <i>who</i> might be the worst man in English +history, vehemently contended for the pre-eminent pretensions of Monk. +And when some of us assigned him only the fifth or sixth place, was +disposed to mourn for him as an ill-used man. But no difficulty of this +kind could arise with regard to the place of Josephus among the +ancients, full knowledge and impartial judgment being presupposed. And +his works do follow him; just look at this: From the ridiculous attempt +of some imbecile Christian to interpolate in Josephus's History a +passage favourable to Christ, it is clear that no adequate idea +prevailed of his intense hatred to the new sect of Nazarenes and +Galilæans. In our own days we have a lively illustration of the use +which may be extracted from the Essenes by sceptics, and an indirect +confirmation of my own allegation, against them, in Dr. Strauss (<i>Leben +Jesu</i>). The moment that his attention was directed to that fact of the +Essenes being utterly ignored in the New Testament (a fact so easily +explained by <i>my</i> theory, a fact so <i>utterly</i> unaccountable to <i>his</i>) he +conceived an affection for them. Had they been mentioned by St. John, +there was an end to the dislike; but Josephus had, even with this modern +sceptical Biblical critic, done his work and done it well.</p></div> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY.</i></h2> + + +<p>If you are one that upon meditative grounds have come sincerely to +perceive the philosophic value of this faith; if you have become +sensible that as yet Christianity is but in its infant stages—after +eighteen centuries is but beginning to unfold its adaptations to the +long series of human situations, slowly unfolding as time and change +move onwards; and that these self-adapting relations of the religion to +human necessities, this conformity to unforeseen developments, argues a +Leibnitzian pre-establishment of this great system as though it had from +the first been a mysterious substratum laid under 'the dark foundations' +of human nature; holding or admitting such views of the progress +awaiting Christianity—you will thank us for what we are going to say. +You may, possibly for yourself, when reviewing the past history of man, +have chanced to perceive the same—we are not jealous of participation +in a field so ample—but even in such a case, if the remark (on which we +are now going to throw a ray of light) should appeal to you in +particular, with less of absolute novelty, not the less you will feel +thankful to be confirmed in your views by independent testimony. We, for +ourselves, offer the remark as new; but, in an age teeming with so much +agility of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> thought, it is rare that any remark can have absolutely +evaded all partial glimpses or stray notices of others, even when <i>aliud +agentes</i>, men stumble upon truths, to which they are not entitled by any +meritorious or direct studies. However, whether absolutely original or +not, the remark is this—Did it ever strike you, reader, as a most +memorable phenomenon about Christianity, as one of those contradictory +functions which, to a thing of human mechanism, is impossible, but which +are found in <i>vital</i> agencies and in all deep-laid systems of +truth—that the same scheme of belief which is the most settling, +freezing, tranquillizing for one purpose, is the most unbinding, +agitating, revolutionary in another? Christianity is that religion which +most of all settles what is perilous in scepticism; and yet, also, it is +that which most of all unsettles whatever may invite man's intellectual +activity. It is the sole religion which can give any deep anchorage for +man's hopes; and yet, also, in mysterious self-antagonism, it is the +sole religion which opens a pathless ocean to man's useful and blameless +speculations. Whilst all false religions neither as a matter of fact +<i>have</i> produced—nor as a matter of possibility <i>could</i> have produced—a +philosophy, it is a most significant distinction of Christianity, and +one upon which volumes might be written, that simply by means of the +great truths which that faith has fixed when brought afterwards into +collision with the innumerable questions which that faith has left +undetermined (as not essential to her own final purposes), Christianity +has bred, and tempted, and stimulated a vast body of philosophy on +neutral ground; ground religious enough to create an interest in the +questions, yet not so religious as to react upon capital truths by any +errors that may be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> committed in the discussion. For instance, on that +one sea-like question of free agency, besides the <i>explicit</i> philosophy +that Christianity has bred amongst the Schoolmen, and since their time, +what a number of sects, heresies, orthodox churches have <i>implicitly</i> +couched and diffused some one view or other of this question amongst +their characteristic differences; and without prejudice to the integrity +of their Christian views or the purity of their Christian morals. +Whilst, on the other hand, the very noblest of false religions (the +noblest as having stolen much from Christianity), viz., Islamism, has +foreclosed all philosophy on this subject by the stupid and killing +doctrine of fatalism. This we give as one instance; but in all the rest +it is the same. You might fancy that from a false religion should arise +a false philosophy—false, but still a philosophy. Is it so? On the +contrary: the result of false religion is no philosophy at all.</p> + +<p>Paganism produced none: the Pagans had a philosophy; but it stood in no +sort of relation, real or fancied relation, to their mythology or +worship. And the Mahometans, in times when they had universities and +professors' chairs, drew the whole of their philosophic systems from +Greece, without so much as ever attempting to connect these systems with +their own religious creed. But Christianity, on the other hand, the only +great doctrinal religion, the only religion which ties up—chains—and +imprisons human faith, where it is good for man's peace that he should +be fettered, is also the only religion which places him in perfect +liberty on that vast neutral arena where it is good for him to exercise +his unlimited energies of mind. And it is most remarkable, that whilst +Christianity so far shoots her rays into these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> neutral questions as to +invest them with grandeur, she keeps herself uncommitted and unpledged +to such philosophic problems in any point where they might ally +themselves with error. For instance, St. Austin's, or Calvin's doctrine +on free agency is so far Christian, that Christian churches have adopted +it into their articles of faith, or have even built upon it as a +foundation. So far it seems connected with Christian truth. Yet, again, +it is so far separate from Christian truth, that no man dares to +pronounce his brother heretical for doubting or denying it. And thus +Christianity has ministered, even in this side-chapel of its great +temple, to two great necessities: it has thrown out a permanent +temptation to human activity of intellect, by connecting itself with +tertiary questions growing out of itself derivatively and yet +indifferent to the main interests of truth. In this way Christianity has +ministered to a necessity which was not religious, but simply human, +through a religious radiation in a descending line. Secondly, it has +kept alive and ventilated through every age the direct religious +interest in its own primary truths, by throwing out secondary truths, +that were doubtfully related to the first, for polemical agitation. +Foolish are they who talk of our Christian disputes as arguments of an +unsound state, or as silent reproaches to the sanity or perfect +development of our religion. Mahometans are united, because the only +points that could disunite them relate generally to fact and <i>not</i> to +doctrinal truths. Their very national heresies turn only on a ridiculous +piece of gossip—Was such a man's son-in-law his legitimate successor? +Upon a point so puerile as this revolves the entire difference between +the heterodoxy of Persia and the orthodoxy of Turkey. Or, if their +differences go deeper, in that case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> they tend to the utter extinction +of Islamism; they maintain no characteristic or exclusive dogma; as +amongst the modern Sikhs of Hindostan, who have blended the Brahminical +and Mahometan creeds by an incoherent <i>syncretismus</i>; or, as amongst +many heretics of Persia and Arabia, who are mere crazy freethinkers, +without any religious determination, without any principle of libration +for the oscillating mind. Whereas <i>our</i> differences, leaving generally +all central truths untouched, arise like our political parties, and +operate like them; they grow out of our sincerity, and they sustain our +sincerity. That interest <i>must</i> be unaffected which leads men into +disputes and permanent factions, and that truth <i>must</i> be diffusive as +life itself, which is found to underlay a vast body of philosophy. It is +the cold petrific annihilation of a moral interest in the subject, by +substituting a meagre interest of historical facts, which stifles all +differences; stifles political differences under a despotism, from utter +despair of winning practical value to men's opinions; stifles religious +differences under a childish creed of facts or anecdotes, from the +impossibility of bringing to bear upon the το positive of an +arbitrary legend, or the mere conventional of a clan history—dead, +inert letters—any moral views this way or that, and any life of +philosophical speculation. Thence comes the soul-killing monotony (unity +one cannot call it) of all false religions. Attached to mere formal +facts, they provoke no hostility in the inner nature. Affirming nothing +as regards the life of truth, why should they tempt any man to +contradict? Lying, indeed, but lying only as a false pedigree lies, or +an old mythological legend, they interest no principle in man's moral +heart; they make no oracular answers, put forth no secret agitation, +they provoke no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> question. But Christianity, merely by her settlements +and fixing of truths, has disengaged and unfixed a world of other +truths, for sustaining or for tempting an endless activity of the +intellect. And the astonishing result has thus been accomplished—that +round a centre, fixed and motionless as a polar tablet of ice, there has +been in the remote offing a tumbling sea of everlasting agitation. A +central gravitation in the power of Christianity has drawn to one point +and converged into one tendency all capital agencies in all degrees of +remoteness, making them tend to rest and unity; whilst, again, by an +antagonist action, one vast centrifugal force, measured against the +other, has so modified the result as to compel the intellect of man into +divergencies answering to the line of convergence; balancing the central +rest for man's hopes by everlasting motion for his intellect, and the +central unity for man's conscience by everlasting progress for his +efforts.</p> + +<p>Now, the Scholastic philosophy meddled chiefly with those tertiary or +sub-dependent truths; such, viz., as are indifferent to Christianity by +any reaction which they can exert from error in their treatment, but not +indifferent as regards their own original derivation. Many people +connect Scholasticism with a notion of error and even of falsehood, +because they suppose it to have arisen on the incitement of Popery. And +it is undeniable that Popery impressed a bias or <i>clinamen</i> upon its +movement. It is true also that Scholasticism is not only ministerial to +Popery, but in parts is consubstantial with Popery. Popery is not fully +fleshed and developed apart from the commentaries or polemical apologies +of Aquinas. But still we must remember that Popery had not yet taken up +the formal position of hostility to truth, seeing that as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> yet +Protestantism was only beginning its first infant struggles. Many Popish +errors were hardened and confirmed in the very furnace of the strife. +And though perilous errors had intermingled themselves with Popery, +which would eventually have strangled all the Christian truth which it +involved, yet that truth it was which gave its whole interest to the +Reformation. Had the Reformation fought against mere unmixed error, it +could not have been viewed as a reforming process, but as one entirely +innovating. So that even where it is most exclusively Popish, +Scholasticism has often a golden thread of truth running through its +texture; often it is not Popish in the sense of being Anti-Protestant, +but in the elder sense of being Anti-Pagan. However, generally speaking, +it is upon the neutral ground common to all modes of Christianity that +this philosophy ranges. That being so, there was truth enough of a high +order to sustain the sublimer motives of the Schoolmen; whilst the +consciousness of supporting the mixed interests, secular and spiritual, +of that mighty Christian church which at that time was co-extensive with +Christianity in the West, gave to the Schoolmen a more instant, human, +and impassioned interest in the labours of that mysterious loom which +pursued its aerial web through three centuries.</p> + +<p>As a consequence from all this, we affirm that the parallel is complete +between the situation on the one side of the early Greek authors, the +creators of Greek literature in the age of Pericles, and, on the other +side, of the Christian Schoolmen; (1) the same intense indolence, which +Helvetius fancied to be the most powerful stimulant to the mind under +the reaction of <i>ennui</i>; (2) the same tantalizing dearth of books—just +enough to raise a craving, too little to meet it; (3) the same chilling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> +monotony of daily life and absence of female charities to mould social +intercourse—for the Greeks from false composition of society and +vicious sequestration of women—for the scholastic monks from the +austere asceticism of their founders and the 'rule' of their order; (4) +finally the same (but far different) enthusiasm and permanent elevation +of thought from disinterested participation in forwarding a great +movement of the times—for the one side tending to the unlimited +aggrandisement of their own brilliant country; for the other, +commensurate with what is conceivable in human grandeur.</p> + +<p>This sketch of Christianity as it is mysteriously related to the total +body of Philosophy actual or possible, present or in reversion, may seem +inadequate. In some sense it <i>is</i> so. But call it a note or +'<i>excursus</i>,' which is the scholarlike name for notes a little longer +than usual, and all will be made right. What we have in view, is to +explain the situation of the Greeks under Pericles by that of the +Schoolmen. We use the modern or Christian case, which is more striking +from its monastic peculiarity, as a reflex picture of the other. We rely +on the moulding circumstances of Scholasticism, its awakened intellect, +its famishing eagerness from defect of books, its gloom from the exile +of all feminine graces, and its towering participation in an interest +the grandest of the age, as a sort of <i>camera obscura</i> for bringing down +on the table before us a portraiture essentially the same of early Greek +society in the rapturous spring-time of Pericles.</p> + +<p>If the governing circumstances were the same in virtue, then probably +there would be a virtual sameness in some of the results: and amongst +these results would be the prevailing cast of thinking, and therefore to +some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> extent the prevailing features of style. It may seem strange to +affirm any affinities between the arid forms of Scholastic style and the +free movement of the early Grecian style. They seem rather to be +repelling extremes. But extremes meet more often than is supposed. And +there really <i>are</i> some remarkable features of conformity even as to +this point between the tendencies of Christian monachism and the +unsocial sociality of Paganism. However, it is not with this view that +we have pressed the parallel. Not by way of showing a general affinity +in virtues and latent powers, and thence deducing a probable affinity in +results, but generally for the sake of fixing and illustrating +circumstances which made it <i>physically</i> impossible that the movement +could have been translated by contagion from one country to the others. +Roads were too bad, cities too difficult of access, travellers too rare, +books too incapable of transmission, for any solution which should +explain the chain of coincidences into a chain of natural causations. +No; the solution was, that Christianity had everywhere gone ahead +spontaneously with the same crying necessities for purification, that +is, for progress. One deep, from North to South, called to another; but +the deeps all alike, each separately for itself, were ready with their +voices, ready without collusion to hear and to reverberate the cry to +God. The light, which abides and lodges in Christianity, had everywhere, +by measured steps and by unborrowed strength, kindled into mortal +antagonism with the darkness which had gathered over Christianity from +human corruptions. But in science this result is even more conspicuous. +Not only by their powers and energies the parallel currents of science +in different lands enter into emulations that secure a general +uniformity of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> progress, run neck and neck against each other, so as to +arrive at any killing rasper of a difficulty pretty nearly about the +same time; not only do they thus make it probable that coincidences of +victory will continually occur through the rivalships of power; but also +through the rivalships of weakness. Most naturally for the same reason +that they worshipped in spirit and in truth, for the same reason that +led them to value such a worship, they valued its distant fountain-head. +Hence their interest in the Messiah. Hence their delegation.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED.</i></h2> + + +<p>The Romans, so far from looking with the Jews to the Tigris, looked to +the Jews themselves. Or at least they looked to that whole Syria, of +which the Jews were a section. Consequently, there is a solution of two +points:</p> + +<p>1. The wise men of the East were delegates from the trans-Tigridian +people.</p> + +<p>2. The great man who should arise from the East to govern the world was, +in the sense of that prophecy, <i>i.e.</i>, in the terms of that prophecy +interpreted according to the sense of all who circulated and partook +in—or were parties to—the belief of that prophecy, was to come from +Syria: <i>i.e.</i>, from Judea.</p> + +<p>Now take it either way, observe the sublimity and the portentous +significance of this expectation. Every man of imaginative feeling has +been struck with that secret whisper that stirred through France in +1814-15—that a man was to come with the violets. The violets were +symbolically Napoleonic, as being the colour of his livery: it was also +his cognizance: and the time for his return was <i>March</i>, from which +commence the ever memorable Hundred days. And the sublimity lies in the +circumstances of:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p> + +<p>1. A whisper running through Christendom: people in remotest quarters +bound together by a tie so aerial.</p> + +<p>2. Of the dread augury enveloped in this little humble but beautiful +flower.</p> + +<p>3. Of the awful revolution at hand: the great earthquake that was mining +and quarrying in the dark chambers beneath the thrones of Europe.</p> + +<p>These and other circumstances throw a memorable sublimity upon this +whisper of conspiracy. But what was this to the awful whisper that +circled round the earth (ἡ οικουμενη) as to the being that was +coming from Judea? There was no precedent, no antagonist whisper with +which it could enter into any terms of comparison, unless there had by +possibility been heard that mysterious and ineffable sigh which Milton +ascribes to the planet when man accomplished his mysterious rebellion. +The idea of such a sigh, of a whisper circling through the planet, of +the light growing thick with the unimaginable charge, and the purple +eclipse of Death throwing a penumbra; that may, but nothing else ever +can, equal the unutterable sublimity of that buzz—that rumour, that +susurrus passing from mouth to mouth—nobody knew whence coming or +whither tending, and about a being of whom nobody could tell what he +should be—what he should resemble—what he should do, but that all +peoples and languages should have an interest in his appearance.</p> + +<p>Now, on the one hand, suppose this—I mean, suppose the Roman whisper to +be an authorized rumour utterly without root; in that case you would +have a clear intervention of Heaven. But, on the other hand, suppose, +which is to me the more probable idea, that it was not without a root; +that in fact it was the Judæan conception<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> of a Messiah, translated into +Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand, or +with which the world could sympathize, viz., that <i>rerum potiretur</i>. +(The plural here indicates only the awful nature, its +indeterminateness.)</p> + +<p>I have, in fact, little doubt that it <i>was</i> a Romanized appropriation or +translation of the Judæan Messiah. One thing only I must warn you +against. You will naturally say: 'Since two writers among the very few +surviving have both refuted this prophecy, and Josephus besides, this +implies that many thousands did so. For if out of a bundle of newspapers +two only had survived quite disconnected, both talking of the same man, +we should argue a great popularity for that man.' And you will say: 'All +these Roman people, did they interpret?' You know already—by Vespasian. +Now whilst, on the one hand, I am far from believing that chance only +was the parent of the ancient ευστοχια, their felicitous +guessing (for it was a higher science), yet, in this new matter, what +coincidence of Pagan prophecy, as doubtless a horrid mistrust in the +oracles, etc., made them 'sagacious from a fear' of the coming peril, +and, as often happens in Jewish prophecies—God when He puts forth His +hand the purposes attained roll one under the other sometimes three deep +even to our eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS.</i></h2> + + +<p>Life, naturally the antagonism of Death, must have reacted upon Life +according to its own development. Christianity having so awfully +affected the το + of Death, this + must have reacted on Life. +Hence, therefore, a phenomenon existing broadly to the human sensibility +in these ages which for the Pagans had no existence whatever. If to a +modern spectator a very splendid specimen of animal power, suppose a +horse of three or four years old in the fulness of his energies, that +saith <i>ha</i> to the trumpets and is unable to stand <i>loco</i> if he hears any +exciting music, be brought for exhibition—not one of the spectators, +however dull, but has a dim feeling of excitement added to his +admiration from the lurking antagonism of the fugacious life attached to +this ebullient power, and the awful repulsion between that final +tendency and the meridian development of the strength. Hence, therefore, +the secret rapture in bringing forward tropical life—the shooting of +enormous power from darkness, the kindling in the midst of winter and +sterility of irrepressible, simultaneous, tropical vegetation—the +victorious surmounting of foliage, blossoms, flowers, fruits—burying +and concealing the dreary vestiges of desolation.</p> + +<p>Reply to the fact that Xerxes wept over his forces, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> showing that in +kind, like the Jewish, the less ignoble superstition of Persia—which +must in the time of Balaam, if we suppose the Mesotam meant to have been +the tract between the Euphrates and the Tigris, have been almost +coincident with the Jewish as to the unity of God—had always, amidst +barbarism arising from the forces moulding social sentiment, prompted a +chivalry and sensibility far above Grecian. For how else account for the +sole traits of Christian sensibility in regard to women coming forward +in the beautiful tale of the Armenian prince, whose wife when asked for +her opinion of Cyrus the Conqueror, who promised to restore them all to +liberty and favour (an act, by the way, in itself impossible to Greek +feelings, which exhibit no one case of relinquishing such rights over +captives) in one hour, replied that she knew not, had not remarked his +person; for that <i>her</i> attention had been all gathered upon that prince, +meaning her youthful husband, who being asked by the Persian king what +sacrifice he would esteem commensurate to the recovery of his bride, +answered so fervently, that life and all which it contained were too +slight a ransom to pay. Even that answer was wholly impossible to a +Grecian. And again the beautiful catastrophe in the tale of Abradates +and Panthea—the gratitude with which both husband and wife received the +royal gift of restoration to each other's arms, implying a sort of holy +love inconceivable to a state of Polygamy—the consequent reaction of +their thought in testifying this gratitude; and as war unhappily offered +the sole chance for displaying it, the energy of Panthea in adorning +with her own needle the habiliments of her husband—the issuing forth +and parting on the morning of battle—the principle of upright duty and +of immeasurable gratitude in Abradates forming 'a nobler<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> counsellor' +than his wife's 'poor heart'—his prowess—his glorious death—his +bringing home as a corpse—the desolation of Panthea—the visit and +tears of the Persian king to the sorrowing widow stretched upon the +ground by the corpse of her hero—the fine incident of the right hand, +by which Cyrus had endeavoured to renew his pledges of friendship with +the deceased prince, coming away from the corpse and following the royal +touch (this hand having been struck off in the battle)—the burial—and +the subsequent death of Panthea, who refused to be comforted under all +the kind assurances, the kindest protection from the Persian king—these +traits, though surviving in Greek, are undoubtedly Persian. For Xenophon +had less sensibility than any Greek author that survives. And besides, +abstracting from the writer, how is it that Greek records offer no such +story; nothing like it; no love between married people of that chivalric +order—no conjugal fidelity—no capacity of that beautiful reply—that +she saw him not, for that <i>her</i> mind had no leisure for any other +thought than <i>one</i>?</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> +<h2><i>XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS.</i></h2> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">1.—Dinner.</span></h3> + +<p>In London and other great capitals it is well known that new diseases +have manifested themselves of late years: and more would be known about +them, were it not for the tremulous delicacy which waits on the +afflictions of the rich. We do not say this invidiously. It is right +that such forbearance should exist. Medical men, as a body, are as manly +a race as any amongst us, and as little prone to servility. But +obviously the case of exposure under circumstances of humiliating +affliction is a very different thing for the man whose rank and +consideration place him upon a hill conspicuous to a whole city or +nation, and for the unknown labourer whose name excites no feeling +whatever in the reader of his case. Meantime it is precisely amongst the +higher classes, privileged so justly from an exposure pressing so +unequally upon <i>their</i> rank, that these new forms of malady emerge. Any +man who visits London at intervals long enough to make the spectacle of +that great vision impressive to him from novelty and the force of +contrast, more especially if this contrast is deepened by a general +residence in some quiet rural seclusion, will not fail to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> be struck by +the fever and tumult of London as its primary features. <i>Struck</i> is not +the word: <i>awed</i> is the only adequate expression as applied to the +hurry, the uproar, the strife, the agony of life as it boils along some +of the main arteries among the London streets. About the hour of +equinoctial sunset comes a periodic respite in the shape of dinner. Were +it not for that, were it not for the wine and the lustre of lights, and +the gentle restraints of courtesies, and the soothing of conversation, +through which a daily reaction is obtained, London would perish from +excitement in a year. The effect upon one who like ourselves simply +beholds the vast frenzy attests its power. The mere sympathy, into which +the nerves are forced by the eye, expounds the fury with which it must +act upon those who are acting and suffering participators in the mania. +Rome suffered in the same way, but in a less degree: and the same relief +was wooed daily in a brilliant dinner (<i>cæna</i>), but two and a half hours +earlier.</p> + +<p>The same state of things exists proportionately in other +capitals—Edinburgh, Dublin, Naples, Vienna. And doubtless, if the +curtain were raised, the same penalties would be traced as pursuing this +agitated life; the penalties, we mean, that exist in varied shapes of +nervous disease.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">2.—Omitted Passages From the Review of Bennett's Ceylon.</span></h3> + +<p>Mr. Bennett personally is that good man who interests us the more +because he seems to be an ill-used one. By the way, here is a +combination which escaped the Roman moralist: <i>Vir bonus</i>, says he, +<i>malâ fortunâ compositus</i>, is a spectacle for the gods. Yet what is that +case, the case of a man matched in duel with the enmity of a malicious +fellow-creature—naturally his inferior, but officially having means to +oppress him? No man is naturally or easily roused to anger by a blind +abstraction like Fortune; and therefore he is under no temptation to +lose his self-command. He sustains no trial that can make him worthy of +a divine contemplation. Amongst all the extravagancies of human nature, +never yet did we hear of a person who harboured a sentiment of private +malice against Time for moving too rapidly, or against Space for being +infinitely divisible. Even animated annoyers, if they are without spite +towards ourselves, we regard with no enmity. No man in all history, if +we except the twelfth Cæsar, has nourished a deadly feud against +flies<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a>:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> and if Mrs. Jameson allowed a sentiment of revenge to nestle +in her heart towards the Canadian mosquitoes, it was the race and not +the individual parties to the trespass on herself against whom she +protested. Passions it is, human passions, intermingling with the wrong +itself that envenom the sense of wrong. We have ourselves been caned +severely in passing through a wood by the rebound, the recalcitration we +may call it, of elastic branches which we had displaced. And passing +through the same wood with a Whitehaven dandy of sixty, now in <i>Hades</i>, +who happened to wear a beautiful wig from which on account of the heat +he had removed his hat, we saw with these eyes of ours one of those same +thickets which heretofore had been concerned in our own caning, +deliberately lift up, suspend, and keep dangling in the air for the +contempt of the public that auburn wig which was presumed by its wearer +to be simular of native curls. The ugliness of that death's head which +by this means was suddenly exposed to daylight, the hideousness of that +grinning skull so abruptly revealed, may be imagined by poets. Neither +was the affair easily redressed: the wig swung buoyantly in the playful +breezes: to catch it was hard, to release it without injuring the +tresses was a matter of nicety: ladies were heard approaching from Rydal +Mount: the dandy was agitated: he felt himself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> if seen in this +condition, to be a mere <i>memento mori</i>: for the first time in his life, +as we believe, he blushed on meeting our eye: he muttered something, in +which we could only catch the word 'Absalom': and finally we extricated +ourselves from the cursed thicket barely in time to meet the ladies. +Here were insufferable affronts: greater cannot be imagined: wanton +outrages on two inoffensive men: and for ourselves, who could have +identified and sworn to one of the bushes as an accomplice in <i>both</i> +assaults, it was not easy altogether to dismiss the idea of malice. Yet, +because this malice did not organize and concentrate itself in an eye +looking on and genially enjoying our several mortifications, we both +pocketed the affronts. All this we say to show Mr. Bennett how fully we +do justice to his situation, and allow for the irritation natural to +such cases as his, where the loss is clothed with contumely, and the +wrong is barbed by malice. But, for all <i>that</i>, we do not think such +confidential communications of ill-usage properly made to the public.</p> + +<p>In fact, this querulous temper of expostulation, running through the +book, disfigures its literary aspect. And possibly for our own comfort +we might have turned away from a feature of discontent so gloomy and +painful, were it not that we are thus accidentally recalled to a +grievance in our Eastern administrations upon which we desire to enter a +remark. Life is languid, the blood becomes lazy, at the extremities of +our bodily system, as we ourselves know by dolorous experience under the +complaint of <i>purpura</i>; and analogously we find the utility of our +supreme government to droop and languish before it reaches the Indian +world. Hence partly it is (for nearer home we see nothing of the kind), +that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> foreign adventurers receive far too much encouragement from our +British Satraps in the East. To find themselves within 'the regions of +the morn,' and cheek to cheek with famous Sultans far inferior in power +and substantial splendour, makes our great governors naturally proud. +They are transfigured by necessity; and, losing none of their justice or +integrity, they lose a good deal of their civic humility. In such a +state they become capable of flattery, apt for the stratagems of foreign +adulation. We know not certainly that Mr. Bennett's injuries originated +in that source; though we suspect as much from the significant stories +which he tells of interloping foreigners on the pension list in Ceylon. +But this we <i>do</i> know, that, from impulses easily deciphered, foreigners +creep into favour where an Englishman would not; and why? For two +reasons: 1st, because a foreigner <i>must</i> be what is meant by 'an +adventurer,' and in his necessity he is allowed to find his excuse; +2ndly, because an Englishman, attempting to play the adulatory +character, finds an obstacle to his success in the standard of his own +national manners from which it requires a perpetual effort to wean +himself: whereas the oily and fluent obsequiousness found amongst +Italians and Frenchmen makes the transition to a perfect Phrygian +servility not only more easy to the artist, and less extravagantly +palpable, but more agreeable in the result to his employer. This cannot +be denied, and therefore needs no comment. But, as to the other reason, +viz., that a foreigner <i>must</i> be an adventurer, allow us to explain. +Every man is an adventurer, every man is <i>in sensu strictissimo</i> +sometimes a knave.</p> + +<p>You might imagine the situation of an adventurer who had figured +virtually in many lives, to resemble that of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> late revered Mr. Prig +Bentham, when sitting like a contrite spider at the centre of his +'panopticon'; all the lines, which meet in a point at his seat, radiate +outwards into chambers still widening as they increase their distance. +This <i>may</i> be an image of an adventurer's mind when open to compunction, +but generally it is exactly reversed; he sees the past sections of his +life, however spacious heretofore, crowding up and narrowing into +vanishing points to his immediate eye. And such also they become for the +public. The villain, who walks, like Æneas at Carthage, shrouded in +mist, is as little pursued by any bad report for his forgotten misdeeds +as he is usually by remorse. In the process of losing their relation to +any known and visible person, acts of fraud, robbery, murder, lose all +distinct place in the memory. Such acts are remembered only through +persons. And hence it is that many interesting murders, worthy to become +cabinet gems in a museum of such works, have wasted their sweetness on +the desert air even in our time, for no other reason than that the +parties concerned did not amplify their proportions upon the public eye; +the sufferers were perhaps themselves knaves; and the doers had +retreated from all public knowledge into the mighty crowds of London or +Glasgow.</p> + +<p>This excursus, on the case of adventurers who run away from their own +crimes into the pathless wildernesses of vast cities, may appear +disproportionate. But excuse it, reader, for the subject is interesting; +and with relation to our Eastern empire it is peculiarly so. Many are +the anecdotes we could tell, derived from Oriental connections, about +foreign scamps who have first exposed the cloven foot when inextricably +connected with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> political intrigues or commercial interests, or possibly +with domestic and confidential secrets. The dangerousness of their +characters first began to reveal itself after they had become dangerous +by their present position.</p> + +<p>Mr. Bennett mentions one lively illustration of this in the case of a +foreigner, who had come immediately from the Cape of Good Hope; so far, +but not farther, he could be traced. And what part had he played at the +Cape? The illustrious one of private sentinel, with a distant prospect +perhaps of rising to be a drum-major. This man—possibly a refugee from +the bagnio at Marseilles, or from the Italian galleys—was soon allowed +to seat himself in an office of £1,000 per annum. For what? For which of +his vices? Our English and Scottish brothers, honourable and educated, +must sacrifice country, compass land and sea, face a life of storms, +with often but a slender chance of any result at all from their pains, +whilst a foreign rascal (without any allegation of merit in his favour) +shall at one bound, by planting his servility in the right quarter and +at the fortunate hour, vault into an income of 25,000 francs per annum; +the money, observe, being national money—yours, ours, +everybody's—since at that period Ceylon did not pay her own expenses. +Now, indeed, she does, and furnishes beside, annually, a surplus of +£50,000 sterling. But still, we contend that places of trust, honour, +and profit, won painfully by British blood, are naturally and rightfully +to be held in trust as reversions for the children of the family. To +return, however, and finish the history of our scamp, it happened that +through the regular action of his office, and in part perhaps through +some irregular influence or consideration with which his station +invested him, he became the depositary of many sums saved<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> laboriously +by poor Ceylonese. These sums he embezzled; or, as a sympathizing +countryman observed of a similar offence in similar circumstances, he +'gave an irregular direction to their appropriation.' You see, he could +not forget his old Marseilles tricks. This, however, was coming it too +strong for his patron, who in spite of his taste for adulation was a +just governor. Our poor friend was summoned most peremptorily to account +for the missing dollars; and because it did not occur to him that he +might plead, as another man from Marseilles in another colony had done, +'that the white ants had eaten the dollars,' he saw no help for it but +to cut his throat, and cut his throat he did. This being done, you may +say that he had given such a receipt as he could, and had entitled +himself to a release. Well, we are not unmerciful; and were the case of +the creditors our own, we should not object. But we remark, besides the +private wrong, a posthumous injury to the British nation which this +foreigner was enabled to commit; and it was twofold: he charged the +pension-list of Ceylon with the support of his widow, in prejudice of +other widows left by our meritorious countrymen, some of whom had died +in battle for the State; and he had attainted, through one generation at +least, the good faith of our nation amongst the poor ignorant +Cinghalese, who cannot be expected to distinguish between true +Englishmen and other Europeans whom English governors may think proper +to exalt in the colony.</p> + +<p>Cases such as these, it is well known to the learned in that matter, +have been but too frequent in our Eastern colonies; and we do assert +that any single case of that nature is too much by one. Even where the +question is merely one of courtesy to science or to literature, we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> +complain heavily, not at all of that courtesy, but that by much too +great a preponderance is allowed to the pretensions of foreigners. +Everybody at Calcutta will recollect the invidious distinctions +(invidious upon contrast) paid by a Governor-General some years ago to a +French <i>savant</i>, who came to the East as an itinerant botanist and +geologist on the mission of a Parisian society. The Governor was Lord +William Bentinck. His Excellency was a radical, and, being such, could +swallow 'homage' by the gallon, which homage the Frenchman took care to +administer. In reward he was publicly paraded in the <i>howdah</i> of Lady +William Bentinck, and caressed in a way not witnessed before or since. +Now this Frenchman, after visiting the late king of the Sikhs at Lahore, +and receiving every sort of service and hospitality from the English +through a devious route of seven thousand miles (treatment which in +itself we view with pleasure), finally died of liver complaint through +his own obstinacy. By way of honour to his memory, the record of his +three years' wanderings has been made public. What is the expression of +his gratitude to the English? One service he certainly rendered us: he +disabused, if <i>that</i> were possible, the French of their silly and most +ignorant notions as to our British government in India and Ceylon: he +could do no otherwise, for he had himself been astounded at what he saw +as compared with what he had been taught to expect. Thus far he does us +some justice and therefore some service, urged to it by his bitter +contempt of the French credulity wherever England is slandered. But +otherwise he treats with insolence unbounded all our men of science, +though his own name has made little impression anywhere: and, in his +character of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> traveller he speaks of himself as of one laying the +foundation-stone of any true knowledge with regard to India. In +particular he dismisses with summary contempt the Travels of Bishop +Heber—not very brilliant perhaps, but undoubtedly superior both in +knowledge and in style to his own. Yet this was the man selected for +<i>fêting</i> by the English Governor-General; as though courtesy to a +Frenchman could not travel on any line which did not pass through a +mortifying slight to Englishmen.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">3.—Gillman's Coleridge.</span></h3> + +<p>Variation on the opening of 'Coleridge and Opium-eating.'</p> + +<p>What is the deadest thing known to philosophers? According to popular +belief, it is a door-nail. For the world says, 'Dead as a door-nail!' +But the world is wrong. Dead may be a door-nail; but deader and most +dead is Gillman's Coleridge. Which fact in Natural History we +demonstrate thus: Up to Waterloo it was the faith of every child that a +sloth took a century for walking across a street. His mother, if she +'knew he was out,' must have had a pretty long spell of uneasiness +before she saw him back again. But Mr. Waterton, Baptist of a new +generation in these mysteries, took that conceit out of Europe: the +sloth, says he, cannot like a snipe or a plover run a race neck and neck +with a first-class railway carriage; but is he, therefore, a slow coach? +By no means: he would go from London to Edinburgh between seedtime and +harvest. Now Gillman's Coleridge, vol. i., has no such speed: it has +taken six years to come up with those whom chiefly it concerned. Some +dozen of us, Blackwood-men and others, are stung<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> furiously in that book +during the early part of 1838; and yet none of us had ever perceived the +nuisance or was aware of the hornet until the wheat-fields of 1844 were +white for the sickle. In August of 1844 we saw Gillman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">4.—Why Scripture Does Not Deal With Science ('Pagan Oracles').</span></h3> + +<p>The Fathers grant to the Oracles a real power of foresight and prophecy, +but in all cases explain these supernatural functions out of diabolic +inspiration. Van Dale, on the other hand, with all his Vandalish +followers, treats this hypothesis, both as regards the power itself of +looking into the future and as regards the supposed source of that +power, in the light of a contemptible chimera. They discuss it scarcely +with gravity: indeed, the very frontispiece to Van Dale's book already +announces the repulsive spirit of scoffing and mockery in which he means +to dismiss it; men are there represented in the act of juggling and +coarsely exulting over their juggleries by protruding the tongue or +exchanging collusive winks with accomplices. Now, in a grave question +obliquely affecting Christianity and the course of civilization, this +temper of discussion is not becoming, were the result even more +absolutely convincing than it is. Everybody can see at a glance that it +is not this particular agency of evil spirits which Van Dale would have +found so ridiculous, were it not that he had previously addicted himself +to viewing the whole existence of evil spirits as a nursery fable. Now +it is not our intention to enter upon any speculation so mysterious. It +is clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> from the first that no man by human researches can any more +add one scintillation of light to the obscure indications of Scripture +upon this dark question, than he can add a cubit to his stature. We do +not know, nor is it possible to know, what is even likely to be the +exact meaning of various Scriptural passages partly, perhaps, adapted to +the erring preconceptions of the Jews; for never let it be forgotten +that upon all questions alike, which concerned no moral interest of man, +all teachers alike who had any heavenly mission, patriarchs or lawgivers +conversing immediately with God, prophets, apostles, or even the Founder +of our religion Himself, never vouchsafe to reveal one ray of +illumination. And to us it seems the strangest oversight amongst all the +oversights of commentators that, in respect to the Jewish errors as to +astronomy, etc., they should not have seen the broad open doctrine which +vindicates the profound Scriptural neglect of errors however gross in +that quality of speculation. The solution of this neglect is not such as +to leave a man under any excuse for apologizing or shuffling. The +solution is technical, precise, and absolute. It is not sufficient to +say, as the best expounders do generally say, that science, that +astronomy for instance, that geology, that physiology, were not the kind +of truth which divine missionaries were sent to teach; that is true, but +is far short of the whole truth. Not only was it negatively no part of +the offices attached to a divine mission that it should extend its +teaching to merely intellectual questions (an argument which still +leaves the student to figure it as a work not indispensable, not +absolutely to be expected, yet in case it <i>were</i> granted as so much of +advantage, as a <i>lucro ponatur</i>), but in the most positive and +commanding sense it <i>was</i> the business of revelation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> to refuse all +light of this kind. According to all the analogies which explain the +meaning of a revelation, it would have been a capital schism in the +counsels of Providence, if in one single instance it had condescended to +gratify human curiosity by anticipation with regard to any subject +whatever, which God had already subjected to human capacity through the +ample faculties of the human intellect.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> + + +<h3><span class="smcap">5.—Variation on a Famous Passage in 'The Daughter of Lebanon.'</span></h3> + +<p>The evangelist, stepping forward, touched her forehead. 'She is mortal,' +he said; and guessing that she was waiting for some one amongst the +youthful revellers, he groaned heavily; and then, half to himself and +half to <i>her</i>, he said, 'O flower too gorgeous, weed too lovely, wert +thou adorned with beauty in such excess, that not Solomon in all his +glory was arrayed like thee, no nor even the lily of the field, only +that thou mightest grieve the Holy Spirit of God?' The woman trembled +exceedingly, and answered, 'Rabbi, what should I do? For, behold! all +men forsake me.'</p> + +<p>Brief had been the path, and few the steps, which had hurried her to +destruction. Her father was a prince amongst the princes of Lebanon; but +proud, stern, and inflexible.</p> + + +<h4>THE END.</h4> + +<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">[54]</span></a> 'Against flies'—whence he must have merited the anger of +Beelzebub, whom Syrians held to be the tutelary god of flies; meaning +probably by 'flies' all insects whatever, as the Romans meant by +<i>passer</i> and <i>passerculus</i>, all little birds of whatsoever family, and +by <i>malum</i> every fruit that took the shape and size of a ball. How +honoured were the race of flies, to have a deity of the first rank for +their protector, a Cæsar for their enemy! Cæsar made war upon them with +his stylus; he is supposed to have massacred openly, or privately and +basely to have assassinated, more than seven millions of that +unfortunate race, who however lost nothing of that indomitable +pertinacity in retaliating all attacks, which Milton has noticed with +honour in 'Paradise Regained.' In reference to this notorious spirit of +persecution in the last prince of the Flavian house, Suetonius records a +capital repartee: 'Is the Emperor alone?' demanded a courtier. 'Quite +alone.' 'Are you sure? Really now is nobody with him?' Answer: '<i>Ne +musca quidem.</i>'</p></div> + +</div> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De +Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols), by Thomas De Quincey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + +***** This file should be named 25940-h.htm or 25940-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/9/4/25940/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliothčque 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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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. II (2 vols) + +Author: Thomas De Quincey + +Editor: Alexander H. Japp + +Release Date: June 30, 2008 [EBook #25940] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliotheque nationale de France +(BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.) + + + + + + + + + +THE POSTHUMOUS WORKS + +OF + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +_EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MSS., WITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES_ + +BY + +ALEXANDER H. JAPP LL.D., F.R.S.E. + +_VOLUME II._ + +LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1893 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONVERSATION AND COLERIDGE + +With Other Essays + +_CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, IMAGINATIVE AND +HUMOROUS_ + +BY + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +LONDON +WILLIAM HEINEMANN +1893 + + + + +PREFACE. + + +All that is needful for me to say by way of Preface is that, as in the +case of the first volume, I have received much aid from Mrs. Baird Smith +and Miss De Quincey, and that Mr. J. R. McIlraith has repeated his +friendly service of reading the proofs. + +ALEXANDER H. JAPP. + +LONDON, +_March 1st, 1893._ + + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +INTRODUCTION 1 + +I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE 7 + +II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE 60 + +III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR 91 + +IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY) 95 + +V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY 107 + +VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE 157 + +VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE 169 + +VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT 174 + +IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE 182 + +X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY 189 + +XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH 197 + +XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH 201 + +XIII. WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES 208 + +XIV. PRONUNCIATION 213 + +XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA 221 + +XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY 225 + +XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY 228 + +XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED 238 + +XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS 241 + +XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS 244 + 1. Dinner 244 + 2. Omitted Passages from the Review of Bennett's Ceylon 246 + 3. Gillman's Coleridge 255 + 4. Why Scripture does not Deal with Science ('Pagan Oracles') 257 + 5. Variation on a Famous Passage in 'The Daughter of Lebanon' 260 + + + + +DE QUINCEY'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS. + + + + +_INTRODUCTION._ + + +All that needs to be said in the way of introduction to this volume will +best take the form of notes on the articles which it contains. + +I. '_Conversation and S. T. Coleridge._' This article, which was found +in a tolerably complete condition, may be regarded as an attempt to deal +with the subject in a more critical and searching, and at the same time +more sympathetic and inclusive spirit, than is apparent in any former +essay. It keeps clear entirely of the field of personal reminiscence; +and if it glances at matters on which dissent must be entered to the +views of Coleridge, it is still unvaryingly friendly and reverent +towards the subject. It is evidently of a later date than either the +'Reminiscences of Coleridge' in the 'Recollections of the Lakes' series, +or the article on 'Coleridge and Opium-Eating,' and may be accepted as +De Quincey's supplementary and final deliverance on Coleridge. The +beautiful apostrophe to the name of Coleridge, which we have given as a +kind of motto to the essay, was found attached to one of the sheets; +and, in spite of much mutilation and mixing of the pages with those of +other articles, as we originally found them, it was for the most part so +clearly written and carefully punctuated, that there can be no doubt, +when put together, we had it before us very much as De Quincey meant to +publish it had he found a fitting chance to do so. For such an article +as this neither _Tait_ nor _Hogg's Instructor_ afforded exactly the +proper medium, but rather some quarterly review, or magazine such as +_Blackwood_. We have given, in an appended note to this essay, some +corroboration from the poems of Coleridge of the truth of De Quincey's +words about the fatal effect on a nature like that of Coleridge of the +early and very sudden death of his father, his separation from his +mother, and his transference to Christ's Hospital, London. + +II. _Mr. Finlay's_ '_History of Greece_.' This essay is totally +different, alike in the advances De Quincey makes to the subject, the +points taken up, and the general method of treatment, from the essay on +Mr. Finlay's volumes which appears in the Collected Works. It would seem +as though De Quincey, in such a topic as this, found it utterly +impossible to exhaust the points that had suggested themselves to him on +a careful reading of such a work, in the limits of one article; and +that, in this case, as in some others, he elaborated a second article, +probably with a view to finding a place for it in a different magazine +or review. In this, however, he either did not succeed, or, on his own +principle of the opium-eater never really finishing anything, retreated +from the practical work of pushing his wares with editors even after he +had finished them. At all events, we can find no trace of this article, +or any part of it, having ever been published. The Eastern Roman Empire +was a subject on which he might have written, not merely a couple of +review articles, but a volume, as we are sure anyone competent to judge +will, on carefully reading these articles, at once admit. This essay, +too, was found in a very complete condition, when the various pages had +been brought together and arranged. This is true of all save the last +few pages, which existed more in the form of notes, yet are perfectly +clear and intelligible; the leading thoughts being distinctly put, +though not followed out in any detail, or with the illustration which he +could so easily have given them. + +III. '_The Assassination of Caesar_.' This was clearly meant to be +inserted at the close of the first section of 'The Caesars,' but was at +the last moment overlooked, though without it the text there, as it +stands in the Collected Works, is, for De Quincey, perhaps too hurried +and business-like. + +IV. The little article on '_Cicero_' is evidently meant as a +supplementary note to the article on that eminent man, as it appears in +the Collected Works. Why De Quincey, when preparing these volumes for +the press, did not work it into his text is puzzling, as it develops +happily some points which he has there dwelt on, and presents in a very +effective and compact style the mingled feelings with which the great +Proconsul quitted his office in Cilicia, and his feelings on arriving at +Rome. + +V. _Memorial Chronology._--This is a continuation of that already +published under the same title in the Collected Works. In a note from +the publishers, preceding the portion already given in the sixteenth +volume of the original edition, and the fourteenth of Professor Masson's +edition, it is said: 'This article was written about twenty years ago +[1850], and is printed here for the first time from the author's _MS_. +It was his intention to have continued the subject, but this was never +done.' From the essay we now present it will be seen that this last +statement is only in a modified sense true--the more that the portion +published in the Messrs. Black's editions is, on the whole, merely +introductory, and De Quincey's peculiar _technica memoria_ is not there +even indicated, which it is, with some degree of clearness, in the +following pages, and these may be regarded as presenting at least the +leading outlines of what the whole series would have been. + +De Quincey's method, after having fixed a definite accepted point of +departure, was to link the memory of events to a period made signal by +identity of figures. Thus, he finds the fall of Assyria, the first of +the Olympiads, and the building of Rome to date from about the year 777 +B.C. That is his starting-point in definite chronology. Then he takes up +the period from 777 to 555; from 555 to 333, and so on. + +De Quincey was writing professedly for ladies only, and not for +scholars; and that his acknowledged leading obstacle was the +semi-mythical wilderness of all early oriental history is insisted on +with emphasis. The way in which he triumphs over this obstacle is +certainly characteristic and ingenious. Though the latter part is +fragmentary, it is suggestive; and from the whole a fair conception may +be formed of what the finished work would have been had De Quincey been +able to complete it, and of the eloquence with which he would have +relieved the mere succession of dates and figures. + +It is clear that in the original form, though the papers were written +for ladies, the phantasy of a definite 'Charlotte' as fair +correspondent had not suggested itself to him; and that he had recourse +to this only in the final rewriting, and would have applied it to the +whole had he been spared to pursue his plan of recast and revision for +the Collected Works, as it was his intention to have done. Mrs. Baird +Smith remembers very clearly her father's many conversations on this +subject and his leading ideas--it was, in fact, a pet scheme of his; and +it is therefore the more to be regretted that his final revision only +embraced a small portion of the matter which he had already written. + +It only needs to be added that, at the time De Quincey wrote, +exploration in Assyria and Egypt, not to speak of discovery in Akkad, +had made but little way compared with what has now been accomplished, +else certain passages in this essay would no doubt have been somewhat +modified. + +VI. The article entitled '_Chrysomania; or the Gold Frenzy at its +Present Stage_', was evidently written after the two articles which +appeared in _Hogg's Instructor_. Not improbably it was felt that the +readers of _Hogg's Instructor_ had already had enough on the Gold Craze, +and this it was deemed better not to publish; but it has an interest as +supplementing much that De Quincey had said in these papers, and is a +happy illustration of his style in dealing with such subjects. Evidently +the editor of _Hogg's Instructor_ was hardly so attracted by these +papers as by others of De Quincey's; for we find that he had excised +some of the notes. + +VII. '_The Defence of the English Peerage_' is printed because, although +it does not pretend to much detail or research, it shows anew De +Quincey's keen interest in the events of English history, and his vivid +appreciation of the peerage as a means of quickening and reviving in +the minds of the people the memorable events with which the earlier +bearers of these ancient titles had been connected. + +VIII. The '_Anti-Papal Movement_' may be taken to attest once more De +Quincey's keen interest in all the topics of the day, political, social, +and ecclesiastical. + +IX. The section on literature more properly will be interesting to many +as exhibiting some new points of contact with Wordsworth and Southey. + +X. The articles on the '_Dispersion of the Jews_,' and on '_Christianity +as the result of a Pre-established Harmony_,' will, we think, be found +interesting by theologians as well as by readers generally, as attesting +not only the keen interest of De Quincey in these and allied subjects, +but also his penetration and keen grasp, and his faculty of felicitous +illustration, by which ever and anon he lights up the driest subjects. + + + + +_I. CONVERSATION AND S. T. COLERIDGE._ + + Oh name of Coleridge, that hast mixed so much with the + trepidations of our own agitated life, mixed with the + beatings of our love, our gratitude, our trembling hope; + name destined to move so much of reverential sympathy and so + much of ennobling strife in the generations yet to come, of + our England at home, of our other Englands on the St. + Lawrence, on the Mississippi, on the Indus and Ganges, and + on the pastoral solitudes of Austral climes! + + +What are the great leading vices of conversation as generally +managed?--vices that are banished from the best society by the +legislation of manners, not by any intellectual legislation, but in +other forms of society, and exactly as it approaches to the character of +vulgarism, disturbing all approaches to elegance in conversation, and +disorganizing it as a thing capable of unity or of progress? These vices +are, first, disputation; secondly, garrulity; thirdly, the spirit of +interruption. + +I. I lay it down as a rule, but still reserving their peculiar rights +and exceptions to young Scotchmen for whom daily disputing is a sort of +daily bread, that the man who disputes is a monster, and that he ought +to be expelled from civilized society. Or could not a compromise be +effected for disputatious people, by allowing a private disputing room +in all hotels, as they have private rooms for smoking? I have heard of +two Englishmen, gentlemanly persons, but having a constitutional _furor_ +for boxing, who quieted their fighting instincts in this way. It was +not glory which they desired, but mutual punishment, given and taken +with a hearty goodwill. Yet, as their feelings of refinement revolted +from making themselves into a spectacle of partisanship for the public +to bet on, they retired into a ball-room, and locked the doors, so that +nothing could transpire of the campaigns within except from the +desperate rallies and floorings which were heard, or from the bloody +faces which were seen on their issuing. A limited admission, it was +fancied, might have been allowed to select friends; but the courteous +refusal of both parties was always 'No; the pounding was strictly +confidential.' Now, pray, gentlemen disputers, could you not make your +pounding 'strictly confidential'? My chief reasons for doing so I will +mention: + +1. That disputing is in bad tone; it is vulgar, and essentially the +resource of uncultured people. + +2. It argues want of intellectual power, or, in any case, want of +intellectual development. It is because men find it easier to talk by +disputing than by _not_ disputing that so many people resort to this +coarse expedient for calling the wind into the sails of conversation. To +move along in the key of contradiction is the cheapest of all devices +for purchasing a power that is not your own. You are then carried along +by a towing-line attached to another vessel. There is no free power. +Always your antagonist predetermines the course of your own movement; +and you his. What _he_ says, you unsay. He affirms, you deny. He knits, +you unknit. Always you are servile to _him_; and he to _you_. Yet even +that system of motion in reverse of another motion, of mere antistrophe +or dancing backward what the strophe had danced forward, is better after +all, you say, than standing stock still. For instance, it might have +been tedious enough to hear Mr. Cruger disputing every proposition that +Burke advanced on the Bristol hustings; yet even _that_ some people +would prefer to Cruger's single observation, viz., 'I say _ditto_ to Mr. +Burke.' Every man to his taste: I, for one, should have preferred Mr. +Cruger's _ditto_.[1] But why need we have a _ditto_, a simple _affirmo_, +because we have _not_ an eternal _nego_? The proper spirit of +conversation moves in the general key of assent, but still not therefore +of mere iteration, but still each bar of the music is different. Nature +surely does not repeat herself, yet neither does she maintain the +eternal variety of her laughing beauty by constantly contradicting +herself, and quite as little by monotonously repeating herself. Her +samenesses are differences. + +II. Of the evils of garrulity, which, like the ceaseless droppings +of water, will eat into the toughest rock of patience and +self-satisfaction, I have spoken at considerable length elsewhere. Its +evils are so evident that they hardly call for further illustration. The +garrulous man, paradoxical as it may seem to say it, is a kind of +pickpocket without intending to steal anything--nay, rather he is fain +to please you by placing something in your pocket--though too often it +is like the egg of the cuckoo in the nest of another bird. + +III. Now, as to _Interruption_, what's to be done? It is a question that +I have often considered. For the evil is great, and the remedy occult. I +look upon a man that interrupts another in conversation as a monster +far less excusable than a cannibal; yet cannibals (though, +comparatively with _interrupters_, valuable members of society) are +rare, and, even where they are _not_ rare, they don't practise as +cannibals every day: it is but on sentimental occasions that the +exhibition of cannibalism becomes general. But the monsters who +interrupt men in the middle of a sentence are to be found everywhere; +and they are always practising. Red-letter days or black-letter days, +festival or fast, makes no difference to _them_. This enormous nuisance +I feel the more, because it is one which I never retaliate. Interrupted +in every sentence, I still practise the American Indian's politeness of +never interrupting. What, absolutely _never_? Is there _no_ case in +which I should? If a man's nose, or ear, as sometimes happens in high +latitudes, were suddenly and visibly frost-bitten, so as instantly to +require being rubbed with snow, I conceive it lawful to interrupt that +man in the most pathetic sentence, or even to ruin a whole paragraph of +his prose. You can never indeed give him back the rhetoric which you +have undermined; _that_ is true; but neither could he, in the +alternative case, have given back to himself the nose which you have +saved. + +I contend also, against a great casuist in this matter, that had you +been a friend of AEschylus, and distinctly observed that absurd old +purblind eagle that mistook (or pretended to mistake) the great poet's +bald head--that head which created the Prometheus and the Agamemnon--for +a white tablet of rock, and had you interrupted the poet in his talk at +the very moment when the bird was dropping a lobster on the sacred +cranium, with the view of unshelling the lobster, but unaware that at +the same time he was unshelling a great poet's brain, you would have +been fully justified. An impertinence it would certainly have been to +interrupt a sentence as undeniable in its Greek as any which that +gentleman can be supposed to have turned out, but still the eagle's +impertinence was greater.[2] That would have been your excuse. AEschylus, +or my friend the casuist, is not to be listened to in his very learned +arguments _contra_. + +Short of these cases, nothing can justify an interruption; and such +cases surely cannot be common, since how often can we suppose it to +happen that an eagle has a lobster to break just at the moment when a +tragic poet is walking abroad without his hat? What the reader's +experience may have been, of course, is unknown to me; but, for my own +part, I hardly meet with such a case twice in ten years, though I know +an extensive circle of tragic poets, and a reasonable number of bald +heads; eagles certainly not so many--they are but few on my visiting +list; and indeed, if that's their way of going on--cracking literary +skulls without leave asked or warning given--the fewer one knows the +better. If, then, a long life hardly breeds a case in which it is +strictly lawful to interrupt a co-dialogist, what are we to think of +those who move in conversation by the very principle of interruption? +And a variety of the nuisance there is, which I consider equally bad. +Men, that do not absolutely interrupt you, are yet continually _on the +fret_ to do so, and undisguisedly on the fret all the time you are +speaking. To invent a Latin word which ought to have been invented +before my time, 'non interrumpunt at _interrupturiunt_.' You can't talk +in peace for such people; and as to prosing, which I suppose you've a +right to do by _Magna Charta_, it is quite out of the question when a +man is looking in your face all the time with a cruel expression in his +eye amounting to 'Surely, that's enough!' or a pathetic expression which +says, '_Have_ you done?' throwing a dreadful reproach into the _Have_. +In Cumberland, at a farmhouse where I once had lodgings for a week or +two, a huge dog as high as the dining-table used to plant himself in a +position to watch all my motions at dinner. Being alone, and either +reading or thinking, at first I did not observe him; but as soon as I +did, and noticed that he pursued each rising and descent of my fork as +the poet 'with wistful eyes pursues the setting sun,' that unconsciously +he mimicked and rehearsed all the notes and _appoggiaturas_ that make up +the successive bars in the music of eating one's dinner, I was compelled +to rise, and say, 'My good fellow, I can't stand this; will you do me +the favour to accept anything on my plate at this moment? And to-morrow +I'll endeavour to arrange for your being otherwise employed at this hour +than in watching _me_.' It seems a weakness, but I really cannot eat +anything under the oppression of an envious _surveillance_ like that +dog's. A man said to me, 'Oh, what need you care about _him_? He has had +_his_ dinner long ago.' True, at twelve or one o'clock; but at six he +might want another; but, if he thinks so himself, the result is the +same. And that result is what the whole South of Frankistan[3] calls the +_evil eye_. Wanting dinner, when he sees another person in the very act +of dining, the dog (though otherwise an excellent creature) must be +filled with envy; and envy is so contagiously allied to malice, that in +elder English one word expresses both those dark modifications of +hatred. The dog's eye therefore, without any consciousness on his own +part, becomes in such a case _an evil eye_: upon me, at least, it fell +with as painful an effect as any established eye of that class could do +upon the most superstitious Portuguese. + +Now, such exactly is the eye of any man that, without actually +interrupting one, threatens by his impatient manner as often as one +begins to speak. It has a blighting effect upon one's spirits. And the +only resource is to say frankly (as I said to the dog), 'Would you +oblige me, sir, by taking the whole of the talk into your own hands? Do +not for ever threaten to do so, but at once boldly lay an interdict upon +any other person's speaking.' + +To those who suffer from nervous irritability, the man that suspends +over our heads his _threat_ of interruption by constant impatience, is +even a more awful person to face than the actual interrupter. Either of +them is insufferable; and in cases where the tone of prevailing manners +is not vigorous enough to put such people down, or where the individual +monster, being not _couchant_ or _passant_, but (heraldically speaking) +_rampant_, utterly disregards all restraints that are not enforced by a +constable, the question comes back with greater force than ever, which I +stated at the beginning of this article, 'What's to be done?' + +I really cannot imagine. Despair seizes me 'with her icy fangs,' unless +the reader can suggest something; or unless he can improve on a plan of +my own sketching. + +As a talker for effect, as a _bravura_ artist in conversation, no one +has surpassed Coleridge. There is a Spanish proverb, that he who has not +seen Seville, has seen nothing. And I grieve to inform the present +unfortunate generation, born under an evil star, coming, in fact, into +the world a day after the fair, that, not having heard Coleridge, they +have _heard_--pretty much what the strangers to Seville have _seen_, +which (you hear from the Spaniards) amounts to nothing. _Nothing_ is +hardly a thing to be proud of, and yet it has its humble advantages. To +have heard Coleridge was a thing to remember with pride as a trophy, but +with pain as a trophy won by some personal sacrifice. To have heard +Coleridge has now indeed become so great a distinction, that if it were +transferable, and a man could sell it by auction, the biddings for it +would run up as fast as for a genuine autograph of Shakespeare. The +story is current under a thousand forms of the man who piqued himself on +an interview which he had once enjoyed with royalty; and, being asked +what he could repeat to the company of his gracious Majesty's remarks, +being an honest fellow he confessed candidly that the King, happening to +be pressed for time, had confined himself to saying, 'Dog, stand out of +my horse's way'; and many persons that might appear as claimants to the +honour of having conversed with Coleridge could perhaps report little +more of personal communication than a courteous request from the great +man not to interrupt him. Inevitably, however, from this character of +the Coleridgean conversation arose certain consequences, which are too +much overlooked by those who bring it forward as a model or as a +splendid variety in the proper art of conversation. And speaking myself +as personally a witness to the unfavourable impression left by these +consequences, I shall not scruple in this place to report them with +frankness. + +At the same time, having been heretofore publicly misrepresented and +possibly because misunderstood as to the temper in which I spoke of +Coleridge, and as though I had violated some duty of friendship in +uttering a truth not flattering after his death, I wish so far to +explain the terms on which we stood as to prevent any similar +misconstruction. It would be impossible in any case for me to attempt a +Plinian panegyric, or a French _eloge_. Not that I think such forms of +composition false, any more than an advocate's speech, or a political +partisan's: it is understood from the beginning that they are one-sided; +but still true according to the possibilities of truth when caught from +an angular and not a central station. There is even a pleasure as from a +gorgeous display, and a use as from a fulness of unity, in reading a +grand or even pompous laudatory oration upon a man like Leibnitz, or +Newton, which neglects all his errors or blemishes. This abstracting +view I could myself adopt as to a man whom I had learned to know from +books, but not as to one whom I knew also from personal intercourse. His +faults and his greatness are then too much intertwisted. There is still +something unreal in the knowledge of men through books; with which is +compatible a greater flexibility of estimate. But the absolute realities +of life acting upon any mind of deep sincerity do not leave the same +liberty of suppression or concealment. In that case, the reader may +perhaps say, and wherever the relations of the writer to a deceased man +prescribe many restraints of tenderness or delicacy, would it not be +better to forbear speaking at all? Certainly; and I go on therefore to +say that my own relations to Coleridge were not of that nature. I had +the greatest admiration for his intellectual powers, which in one +direction I thought and think absolutely unrivalled on earth; I had also +that sort of love for him which arises naturally as a rebound from +intense admiration, even where there is little of social congeniality. +But, in any stricter sense of the word, _friends_ we were not. For years +we met at intervals in society; never once estranged by any the +slightest shadow of a quarrel or a coolness. But there were reasons, +arising out of original differences in our dispositions and habits, +which would probably have forever prevented us, certainly _did_ prevent +us, from being confidential friends. Yet, if we had been such, even the +more for that reason the sincerity of my nature would oblige me to speak +freely if I spoke at all of anything which I might regard as amongst his +errors. For the perfection of genial homage, one may say, in the +expression of Petronius Arbiter, _Praecipitandus est liber spiritus_, the +freedom of the human spirit must be thrown headlong through the whole +realities of the subject, without picking or choosing, without garbling +or disguising. It yet remains as a work of the highest interest, to +estimate (but for that to display) Coleridge in his character of great +philosophic thinker, in which character he united perfections that never +_were_ united but in three persons on this earth, in himself, in Plato +(as many suppose), and in Schelling, viz., the utmost expansion and in +some paths the utmost depths of the searching intellect with the utmost +sensibility to the powers and purposes of Art: whilst, as a creator in +Art, he had pretensions which neither Plato nor Schelling could make. +His powers as a Psychologist (not as a Metaphysician) seem to me +absolutely unrivalled on earth. And had his health been better, so as +to have sustained the natural cheerfulness towards which his nature +tended, had his pecuniary embarrassments been even moderately lightened +in their pressure, and had his studies been more systematically directed +to one end--my conviction is that he would have left a greater +philosophic monument of his magnificent mind than Aristotle, or Lord +Bacon, or Leibnitz. + +With these feelings as to the pretensions of Coleridge, I am not likely +to underrate anything which he did. But a thing may be very difficult to +do, very splendid when done, and yet false in its principles, useless in +its results, memorable perhaps by its impression at the time, and yet +painful on the whole to a thoughtful retrospect. In dancing it is but +too common that an intricate _pas seul_, in funambulism that a dangerous +feat of equilibration, in the Grecian art of _desultory_ equitation +(where a single rider governs a plurality of horses by passing from one +to another) that the flying contest with difficulty and peril, may +challenge an anxiety of interest, may bid defiance to the possibility of +inattention, and yet, after all, leave the jaded spectator under a sense +of distressing tension given to his faculties. The sympathy is with the +difficulties attached to the effort and the display, rather than with +any intellectual sense of power and skill genially unfolded under +natural excitements. It would be idle to cite Madame de Stael's remark +on one of these meteoric exhibitions, viz., that Mr. Coleridge possessed +the art of monologue in perfection, but not that of the dialogue; yet it +comes near to hitting the truth from her point of view. The habit of +monologue which Coleridge favoured lies open to three fatal objections: +1. It is antisocial in a case expressly meant by its final cause for the +triumph of sociality; 2. It refuses all homage to women on an arena +expressly dedicated to their predominance; 3. It is essentially fertile +in _des longueurs_. Could there be imagined a trinity of treasons +against the true tone of social intercourse more appalling to a Parisian +taste? + +In a case such as this, where Coleridge was the performer, I myself +enter less profoundly into the brilliant woman's horror, for the reason +that, having originally a necessity almost morbid for the intellectual +pleasures that depend on solitude, I am constitutionally more careless +about the luxuries of conversation. I see them; like them in the rare +cases where they flourish, but do not require them. Not sympathizing, +therefore, with the lady's horror in its intensity, I yet find my +judgment in harmony with hers. The evils of Coleridgean talk, even +managed by a Coleridge, were there, and they fixed themselves +continually on my observation: + +I. It defeats the very end of social meetings. Without the excitement +from a reasonable number of auditors, and some novelty in the +composition of his audience, Coleridge was hardly able to talk his best. +Now, at the end of some hours, it struck secretly on the good sense of +the company. Was it reasonable to have assembled six, ten, or a dozen +persons for the purpose of hearing a prelection? Would not the time have +been turned to more account, even as regarded the object which they had +substituted for _social_ pleasure, in studying one of Coleridge's +printed works?--since there his words were stationary and not flying, so +that notes might be taken down, and questions proposed by way of letter, +on any impenetrable difficulties; whereas in a stream of oral teaching, +which ran like the stream of destiny, impassive to all attempts at +interruption, difficulties for ever arose to irritate your nervous +system at the moment, and to vex you permanently by the recollection +that they had prompted a dozen questions, every one of which you had +forgotten through the necessity of continuing to run alongside with the +speaker, and through the impossibility of saying, 'Halt, Mr. Coleridge! +Pull up, I beseech you, if it were but for two minutes, that I may try +to fathom that last sentence.' This in all conversation is one great +evil, viz., the substitution of an alien purpose for the natural and +appropriate purpose. Not to be intellectual in a direct shape, but to be +intellectual through sociality, is the legitimate object of a social +meeting. It may be right, medically speaking, that a man should be +shampooed; but it cannot be right that, having asked him to dine, you +should decline dinner and substitute a shampooing. This a man would be +apt to call by the shorter name of a _sham_. + +II. It diminishes the power of the talking performer himself. Seeming to +have more, the man has less. For a man is never thrown upon his mettle, +nor are his true resources made known even to himself, until to some +extent he finds himself resisted (or at least modified) by the reaction +of those around him. That day, says Homer, robs a man of half his value +which sees him made a slave. But to be an autocrat is as perilous as to +be a slave. And supposing Homer to have been introduced to Coleridge +(a supposition which a learned man at my elbow pronounces +intolerable--'It's an anachronism, sir, a base anachronism!' Well, but +one may _suppose_ anything, however base), Homer would have observed to +me, as we came away from the _soiree_, 'In my opinion, our splendid +friend S. T. C. would have been the better for a few kicks on the +shins. That day takes away half of a man's talking value which raises +him into an irresponsible dictator to his company.' + +III. It diminishes a man's power in another way less obvious, but not +less certain. I had often occasion to remark how injurious it was to the +impression of Coleridge's finest displays where the minds of the hearers +had been long detained in a state of passiveness. To understand fully, +to sympathise deeply, it was essential that they should react. Absolute +inertia produced inevitable torpor. I am not supposing any indocility, +or unwillingness to listen. Generally it might be said that merely to +find themselves in that presence argued sufficiently in the hearers a +cheerful dedication of themselves to a dutiful patience. + +The mistake, in short, is to suppose that the particular power of talk +Coleridge had was a _nuance_ or modification of what is meant by +conversational power; whereas it was the direct antithesis: it differed +diametrically. So much as he had of his own peculiar power, so much more +alien and remote was he from colloquial power. This remark should be +introduced by observing that Madame de Stael's obvious criticism passes +too little unvalued or unsearched either by herself or others. She +fancied it an accidental inclination or a caprice, or a sort of +self-will or discourtesy or inattention. No; it was a faculty in polar +opposition to the true faculty of conversation. + +Coleridge was copious, and not without great right, upon the subject of +Art. It is a subject upon which we personally are very impatient, and +(as Mrs. Quickly expresses it) peevish, as peevish as Rugby in his +prayers.[4] Is this because we know too much about Art? Oh, Lord bless +you, no! We know too little about it by far, and our wish is--to know +more. But _that_ is difficult; so many are the teachers, who by accident +had never any time to learn; so general is the dogmatism; and, worse +than all, so inveterate is the hypocrisy, wherever the graces of liberal +habits and association are supposed to be dependent upon a particular +mode of knowledge. To know nothing of theology or medicine has a sort of +credit about it; so far at least it is clear that you are not +professional, and to that extent the chances are narrowed that you get +your bread out of the public pocket. To be sure, it is still possible +that you may be a stay-maker, or a rat-catcher. But these are +out-of-the-way vocations, and nobody adverts to such narrow +possibilities. Now, on the other hand, to be a connoisseur in painting +or in sculpture, supposing always that you are no practising artist, in +other words, supposing that you know nothing about the subject, implies +that you must live amongst _comme-il-faut_ people who possess pictures +and casts to look at; else how the deuce could you have got your +knowledge--or, by the way, your ignorance, which answers just as well +amongst those who are not peevish. We, however, _are_ so, as we have +said already. And what made us peevish, in spite of strong original +_stamina_ for illimitable indulgence to all predestined bores and +nuisances in the way of conversation, was--not the ignorance, not the +nonsense, not the contradictoriness of opinion--no! but the false, +hypocritical enthusiasm about objects for which in reality they cared +not the fraction of a straw. To hear these bores talk of educating the +people to an acquaintance with what they call 'high art'! Ah, heavens, +mercifully grant that the earth may gape for us before _our_ name is +placed on any such committee! 'High art,' indeed! First of all, most +excellent bores, would you please to educate the people into the high +and mysterious art of boiling potatoes. We, though really owning no +particular duty or moral obligation of boiling potatoes, really _can_ +boil them very decently in any case arising of public necessity for our +services; and if the art should perish amongst men, which seems likely +enough, so long as _we_ live, the public may rely upon it being +restored. But as to women, as to the wives of poor hard-working men, not +one in fifty can boil a potato into a condition that is not ruinous to +the digestion. And we have reason to know that the Chartists, on their +great meditated outbreak, having hired a six-pounder from a pawnbroker, +meant to give the signal for insurrection at dinner-time, because (as +they truly observed) cannon-balls, hard and hot, would then be plentiful +on every table. God sends potatoes, we all know; but _who_ it is that +sends the boilers of potatoes, out of civility to the female sex, we +decline to say. + +Well, but this (you say) is a digression. Why, true; and a digression is +often the cream of an article. However, as you dislike it, let us +_re_gress as fast as possible, and scuttle back from the occult art of +boiling potatoes to the much more familiar one of painting in oil. Did +Coleridge really understand this art? Was he a sciolist, was he a +pretender, or did he really judge of it from a station of +heaven-inspired knowledge? A hypocrite Coleridge never was upon any +subject; he never affected to know when secretly he felt himself +ignorant. And yet, of the topics on which he was wont eloquently to hold +forth, there was none on which he was less satisfactory--none on which +he was more acute, yet none on which he was more prone to excite +contradiction and irritation, if that had been allowed. + +Here, for example, is a passage from one of his lectures on art: + +'It is sufficient that philosophically we understand that in all +imitations two elements must coexist, and not only coexist, but must be +perceived as existing. Those two constituent elements are likeness and +unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in all genuine creations of +art there must be a union of these disparates. The artist may take this +point of view where he pleases, provided that the desired effect be +perceptibly produced, that there be likeness in the difference, +difference in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both in one. If there +be likeness to nature without any check of difference, the result is +disgusting, and the more complete the delusion the more loathsome the +effect. Why are such simulations of nature as wax-work figures of men +and women so disagreeable? Because, not finding the motion and the life +all we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood, every circumstance of +detail, which before induced you to be interested, making the distance +from truth more palpable. You set out with a supposed reality, and are +disappointed and disgusted with the deception; whilst in respect to a +work of genuine imitation you begin with an acknowledged total +difference, and then every touch of nature gives you the pleasure of an +approximation to truth.' + +In this exposition there must be some oversight on the part of +Coleridge. He tells us in the beginning that, if there be 'likeness to +nature without any check of difference, the result is disgusting.' But +the case of the wax-work, which is meant to illustrate this proposition, +does not at all conform to the conditions; the result is disgusting +certainly, but not from any want of difference to control the sameness, +for, on the contrary, the difference is confessedly too revolting; and +apparently the distinction between the two cases described is simply +this--that in the illegitimate case of the wax-work the likeness comes +first and the unlikeness last, whereas in the other case this order is +reversed. But that distinction will neither account _in fact_ for the +difference of effect; nor, if it _did_, would it account upon any reason +or ground suggested by Coleridge for such a difference. Let us consider +this case of wax-work a little more vigilantly, and then perhaps we may +find out both why it is that some men unaffectedly _are_ disgusted by +wax-work; and secondly, why it is that, if trained on just principles of +reflective taste, all men _would_ be so affected. + +As a matter not altogether without importance, we may note that even the +frailty of the material operates to some extent in disgusting us with +wax-work. A higher temperature of the atmosphere, it strikes us too +forcibly, would dispose the waxen figures to melt; and in colder seasons +the horny fist of a jolly boatswain would 'pun[5] them into shivers' +like so many ship-biscuits. The grandeur of permanence and durability +transfers itself or its expression from the material to the impression +of the artifice which moulds it, and crystallizes itself in the effect. +We see continually very ingenious imitations of objects cut out in paper +filigree; there have been people who showed as much of an artist's eye +in this sort of work, and of an artist's hand, as Miss Linwood of the +last generation in her exquisite needlework; in both cases a trick, a +_tour-de-main_, was raised into the dignity of a fine art; and yet, +because the slightness of the material too emphatically proclaims the +essential perishableness of the result, nobody views such modes of art +with more even of a momentary interest than the morning wreaths of smoke +ascending so beautifully from a cottage chimney, or cares much to +preserve them. The traceries of hoar frost upon the windows of inhabited +rooms are not only beautiful in the highest degree, but have been shown +in several French memoirs to obey laws of transcendental geometry, and +also to obey physical laws of startling intricacy. These lovely forms of +almighty nature wear the grandeur of mystery, of floral beauty, and of +science (immanent science) not always fathomable.[6] They are anything +but capricious. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like _them_; +and yet, simply because the sad hand of mortality is upon them, because +they are dedicated to death, because on genial days they will have +passed into the oblivion of graves before the morning sun has mounted to +his meridian, we do not so much as honour them with a transient stare +from the breakfast-table. Ah, wretches that we are, the horrid +carnalities of tea and toast, or else the horrid bestialities in morning +journals of Chartists and Cobdenites at home, of Red Ruffians abroad, +draw off our attention from the chonchoids and the cycloids pencilled by +the Eternal Geometrician! and these celestial traceries of the dawn, +which neither Da Vinci nor Raphaello was able to have followed as a +mimic, far less as a rival, we regard as a nuisance claiming the +attentions of the window-cleaner; even as the spider's web, that might +absorb an angel into reverie, is honoured amongst the things banned by +the housemaid. But _the_ reason why the wax-work disgusts is that it +seeks to reproduce in literal detail the traits that should be softened +under a general diffusive impression; the likeness to nature is +presented in what is essentially fleeting and subsidiary, and the 'check +of difference' is found also in this very literality, and not in any +effort of the etherealizing imagination, as it is in all true works of +art; so that the case really stands the exact opposite of that which +Coleridge had given in his definition.[7] + +To pass from art to style. How loose and arbitrary Coleridge not +infrequently was in face of the laws on that subject which he had +himself repeatedly laid down! Could it be believed of a man so quick to +feel, so rapid to arrest all phenomena, that in a matter so important as +that of style, he should have nothing loftier to record of his own +merits, services, reformations, or cautions, than that he has always +conscientiously forborne to use the personal genitive _whose_ in +speaking of inanimate things? For example, that he did not say, and +could not have been tempted or tortured into saying, 'The bridge _whose_ +piers could not much longer resist the flood.' Well, as they say in +Scotland, some people are thankful for small mercies. We--that is, you, +the reader, and ourselves--are _persons_; the bridge, you see, is but a +_thing_. We pity it, poor thing, and, as far as it is possible to +entertain such a sentiment for a bridge, we feel respect for it. Few +bridges are thoroughly contemptible; and we make a point, in obedience +to an old-world proverb, always to speak well of the bridge that has +carried us over in safety, which the worst of bridges never yet has +refused to do. But still there _are_ such things as social distinctions; +and we conceive that a man and a 'contributor' (an _ancient_ contributor +to _Blackwood_), must in the herald's college be allowed a permanent +precedency before all bridges whatsoever, without regard to number of +arches, width of span, or any other frivolous pretences. We acknowledge +therefore with gratitude Coleridge's loyalty to his own species in not +listening to any compromise with mere things, that never were nor will +be raised to the peerage of personality, and sternly refusing them the +verbal honours which are sacred to us humans. But what is the principle +of taste upon which Coleridge justifies this rigorous practice? It +is--and we think it a very just principle--that this mechanic mode of +giving life to things inanimate ranks 'amongst those worst mimicries of +poetic diction by which imbecile writers fancy they elevate their +prose.' True; but the same spurious artifices for giving a fantastic +elevation to prose reappear in a thousand other forms, from some of +which neither Coleridge nor his accomplished daughter is absolutely +free. For instance, one of the commonest abuses of pure English amongst +our Scottish brethren, unless where they have been educated out of +Scotland, is to use _aught_ for _anything_, _ere_ for _before_, +_well-nigh_ for _almost_, and scores besides. No home-bred, _i.e._ +Cockney Scotchman, is aware that these are poetic forms, and are as +ludicrously stilted in any ear trained by the daily habits of good +society to the appreciation of pure English--as if, in Spenserian +phrase, he should say, '_What time_ I came home to breakfast,' instead +of '_When_ I came home.' The _'tis_ and _'twas_, which have been +superannuated for a century in England, except in poetic forms, still +linger in Scotland and in Ireland, and these forms also at intervals +look out from Coleridge's prose. Coleridge is also guilty at odd times +(as is Wordsworth) of that most horrible affectation, the _hath_ and +_doth_ for _has_ and _does_. This is really criminal. But amongst all +barbarisms known to man, the very worst--and this also, we are sorry to +say, flourishes as rankly as weeds in Scotch prose, and is to be found +in Coleridge's writings--is the use of the _thereof_, _therein_, +_thereby_, _thereunto_. This monstrous expression of imperfect +civilization, which for one hundred and fifty years has been cashiered +by cultivated Englishmen as _attorneys' English_, and is absolutely +frightful unless in a lease or conveyance, ought (we do not scruple to +say) to be made indictable at common law, not perhaps as a felony, but +certainly as a misdemeanour, punishable by fine and imprisonment. + +In nothing is the characteristic mode of Coleridge's mind to be seen +more strikingly than in his treatment of some branches of dramatic +literature, though to that subject he had devoted the closest study. He +was almost as distinguished, indeed, for the points he missed as for +those he saw. Look at his position as regards some questions concerning +the French drama and its critics, more particularly the views of +Voltaire, though some explanation may be found in the fact, which I have +noticed elsewhere, that Coleridge's acquaintance with the French +language was not such as to enable him to read it with the easy +familiarity which ensures complete pleasure. But something may also be +due to his deep and absorbed religious feeling, which seemed to +incapacitate him from perceiving the points where Voltaire, despite his +scepticism, had planted his feet on firm ground. Coleridge was aware +that Voltaire, in common with every Frenchman until the present +generation, held it as a point of faith that the French drama was +inapproachable in excellence. From Lessing, and chiefly, from his +_Dramaturgie_, Coleridge was also aware, on the other hand, upon what +erroneous grounds that imaginary pre-eminence was built. He knew that it +was a total misconception of the Greek unities (excepting only as +regards the unity of fable, or, as Coleridge otherwise calls it, the +_unity of interest_) which had misled the French. It was a huge blunder. +The case was this: Peculiar embarrassments had arisen to the Athenian +dramatists as to time and place, from the chorus--out of which chorus +had grown the whole drama. The chorus, composed generally of men or +women, could not be moved from Susa to Memphis or from one year to +another, as might the spectator. This was a fetter, but, with the +address of great artists, they had turned their fetters into occasions +of ornament. But, in this act of beautifying their narrow field, they +had done nothing to enlarge it. They had submitted gracefully to what, +for _them_, was a religious necessity. But it was ridiculous that modern +dramatists, under no such necessity (because clogged with no inheritance +of a personal chorus), should voluntarily assume fetters which, having +no ceremonial and hallowed call for a chorus, could have no meaning. So +far Coleridge was kept right by his own sagacity and by his German +guides; but a very trifle of further communication with Voltaire, and +with the writers of whom Voltaire was speaking, would have introduced +him to two facts calculated a little to raise Voltaire in his esteem, +and very much to lower the only French writer (viz., Racine) whom he +ever thought fit to praise. With regard to Voltaire himself he would +have found that, so far from exalting the French poetic literature +_generally_ in proportion to that monstrous pre-eminence which he had +claimed for the French drama, on the contrary, from this very drama, +from the very pre-eminence, he drew an argument for the general +inferiority of the French poetry. The French drama, he argued, was +confessedly exalted amongst the French themselves beyond any other +section of their literature. But why? Why was this? If the drama had +prospered disproportionately under public favour, what caused that +favour? It was, said Voltaire, the social nature of the French, with +their consequent interest in whatever assumed the attire of conversation +or dialogue; and, secondly, it was the peculiar strength of their +language in that one function, which had been nursed and ripened by +this preponderance of social habits. Hence it happened that the drama +obtained at one and the same time a greater _interest_ for the French, +and also (by means of this culture given to conversational forms) most +unhappily for his lordship's critical discernment of flavours, as well +as his Greek literature, happens to be a respectable Joe Miller from the +era of Hierocles, and through _him_ probably it came down from +Pythagoras. Yet still Voltaire was very far indeed from being a +'scribbler.' He had the graceful levity and the graceful gaiety of his +nation in an exalted degree. He had a vast compass of miscellaneous +knowledge; pity that it was so disjointed, _arena sine calce_; pity that +you could never rely on its accuracy; and, as respected his epic poetry, +'tis true 'tis pity, and pity 'tis 'tis true, that you are rather +disposed to laugh than to cry when Voltaire solemnly proposes to be +sublime. His _Henriade_ originally appeared in London about 1726, when +the poet was visiting this country as a fugitive before the wrath of +Louis the Well-beloved; and naturally in the opening passage he +determined to astonish the weak minds of us islanders by a flourish on +the tight-rope of sublimity. But to his vexation a native Greek (viz., a +Smyrniot), then by accident in London, called upon him immediately after +the publication, and, laying his finger on a line in the exordium (as it +then stood), said, 'Sare, I am one countryman of Homer's. He write de +Iliad; you write de Henriade; but Homer vos never able in all de total +whole of de Iliad to write de verse like dis.' Upon which the Greek +showed him a certain line. + +Voltaire admired the line itself, but in deference to this Greek irony, +supported by the steady advice of his English friends, he finally +altered it. It is possible to fail, however, as an epic poet, and very +excusable for a Frenchman to fail, and yet to succeed in many other +walks of literature. But to Coleridge's piety, to Coleridge's earnest +seeking for light, and to Coleridge's profound sense of the necessity +which connects from below all ultimate philosophy with religion, the +scoffing scepticism of Voltaire would form even a stronger repulsion +than his puerile hostility to Shakespeare. Even here, however, there is +something to be pleaded for Voltaire. Much of his irreligion doubtless +arose from a defective and unimpassioned nature, but part of it was +noble, and rested upon his intolerance of cruelty, of bigotry, and of +priestcraft--but still more of these qualities not germinating +spontaneously, but assumed fraudulently as masques. But very little +Coleridge had troubled himself to investigate Voltaire's views, even +where he was supposing himself to be ranged in opposition to them. + +A word or two about those accusations of plagiarism of which far too +much has been made by more than one critic; we ourselves having, +perhaps, been guilty of too wantonly stirring these waters at one time +of our lives; and in the attempt to make matters more clear, only, it +may be, succeeded in muddying them. Stolberg, Matthison, Schiller, +Frederika Brun, Schelling, and others, whom he has been supposed to have +robbed of trifles, he could not expect to lurk[8] in darkness, and +particularly as he was actively contributing to disperse the darkness +that yet hung over their names in England. But really for such +bagatelles as were concerned in this poetic part of the allegation--even +Bow Street, with the bloodiest Draco of a critical reviewer sitting on +the bench, would not have entertained the charge. Most of us, we +suppose, would be ready enough to run off with a Titian or a Correggio, +provided the coast were clear, and no policemen heaving in sight; but to +be suspected of pocketing a silver spoon, which, after all, would +probably turn out to be made of German silver--faugh!--we not only defy +the fiend and his temptations generally, but we spit in his face for +such an insinuation. With respect to the pretty toy model of Hexameter +and Pentameter from Schiller, we believe the case to have arisen thus: +in talking of metre, and illustrating it (as Coleridge often did at +tea-tables) from Homer, and then from the innumerable wooden and +cast-iron imitations of it among the Germans--he would be very likely to +cite this little ivory bijou from Schiller; upon which the young ladies +would say: 'But, Mr. Coleridge, we do not understand German. Could you +not give us an idea of it in some English version?' Then would he, with +his usual obligingness, write down his mimic English echo of Schiller's +German echo. And of course the young ladies, too happy to possess an +autograph from the 'Ancient Mariner,' and an autograph besides having a +separate interest of its own, would endorse it with the immortal +initials 'S. T. C.,' after which an injunction issuing from the Court of +Chancery would be quite unavailing to arrest its flight through the +journals of the land as the avowed composition of Coleridge. They know +little of Coleridge's habits who suppose that his attention was +disposable for cases of this kind. Alike, whether he were unconsciously +made by the error of a reporter to rob others, or others to rob him, he +would be little likely to hear of the mistake--or, hearing of it by some +rare accident, to take any pains for its correction. It is probable that +such mistakes sometimes arose with others, but sometimes also with +himself from imperfect recollection; and _that_, owing chiefly to his +carelessness about the property at issue, so that it seemed not worth +the requisite effort to vindicate the claim if it happened to be _his_, +or formally to renounce it if it were not. But, however this might be, +his daughter's remark remains true, and is tolerably significant, that +the people whom (through anybody's mistake) he seems to have robbed were +all pretty much in the sunshine of the world's regard; there was no +attempt to benefit by darkness or twilight, and an intentional robber +must have known that the detection was inevitable. + +A second thing to be said in palliation of such plagiarisms, real or +fancied, intentional or not intentional, is this--that at least +Coleridge never insulted or derided those upon whose rights he is +supposed to have meditated an aggression. + +Coleridge has now been dead for more than fifteen years,[9] and he lived +through a painful life of sixty-three years; seventy-eight years it is +since he first drew that troubled air of earth, from which with such +bitter loathing he rose as a phoenix might be supposed to rise, that, +in retribution of some treason to his immortal race, had been compelled +for a secular period to banquet on carrion with ghouls, or on the spoils +of _vivisection_ with vampires. Not with less horror of retrospect than +such a phoenix did Coleridge, when ready to wing his flight from +earth, survey the chambers of suffering through which he had trod his +way from childhood to gray hairs. Perhaps amongst all the populous +nations of the grave not one was ever laid there, through whose bones so +mighty a thrill of shuddering anguish would creep, if by an audible +whisper the sound of earth and the memories of earth could reach his +coffin. Yet why? Was he not himself a child of earth? Yes, and by too +strong a link: _that_ it was which shattered him. For also he was a +child of Paradise, and in the struggle between two natures he could not +support himself erect. That dreadful conflict it was which supplanted +his footing. Had he been gross, fleshly, sensual, being so framed for +voluptuous enjoyment, he would have sunk away silently (as millions +sink) through carnal wrecks into carnal ruin. He would have been +mentioned oftentimes with a sigh of regret as that youthful author who +had enriched the literature of his country with two exquisite poems, +'Love' and the 'Ancient Mariner,' but who for some unknown reason had +not fulfilled his apparent mission on earth. As it was, being most +genial and by his physical impulses most luxurious; yet, on the other +hand, by fiery aspirations of intellect and of spiritual heart being +coerced as if through torments of magical spells into rising heavenwards +for ever, into eternal commerce with the grander regions of his own +nature, he found this strife too much for his daily peace, too imperfect +was the ally which he found in his will; treachery there was in his own +nature, and almost by a necessity he yielded to the dark temptations of +opium. That 'graspless hand,' from which, as already in one of his early +poems (November, 1794) he had complained-- + + 'Drop friendship's priceless pearls as hour-glass sands,' + +was made much _more_ graspless, and in this way the very graces of his +moral nature ministered eventually the heaviest of his curses. Most +unworldly he was, most unmercenary, and (as somebody has remarked) even +to a disease, and, in such a degree as if an organ had been forgotten by +Nature in his composition, disregardful of self. But even in these +qualities lay the baits for his worldly ruin, which subsequently caused +or allowed so much of his misery. Partly from the introversion of his +mind, and its habitual sleep of reverie in relation to all external +interests, partly from his defect in all habits of prudential +forecasting, resting his head always on the pillow of the _present_--he +had been carried rapidly past all openings that offered towards the +creation of a fortune before he even heard of them, and he first awoke +to the knowledge that such openings had ever existed when he looked back +upon them from a distance, and found them already irrecoverable for +ever. + +Such a case as this, as soon as it became known that the case stood +connected with so much power of intellect and so much of various +erudition, was the very ideal case that challenges aid from the public +purse. Mrs. Coleridge has feelingly noticed the philosophic fact. It was +the case of a man lame in the faculties which apply to the architecture +of a fortune, but lame through the very excess in some other faculties +that qualified him for a public teacher, or (which is even more +requisite) for a public stimulator of powers else dormant. + +A perfect romance it is that settles upon three generations of these +Coleridges; a romance of beauty, of intellectual power, of misfortune +suddenly illuminated from heaven, of prosperity suddenly overcast by the +waywardness of the individual. The grandfather of the present +generation, who for us stands forward as the founder of the family, +viz., the Rev. John Coleridge; even _his_ career wins a secret homage of +tears and smiles in right of its marvellous transitions from gloom to +sudden light, in right of its entire simplicity, and of its eccentric +consistency. Already in early youth, swimming against a heady current of +hindrances almost overwhelming, he had by solitary efforts qualified +himself for any higher situation that might offer. But, just as this +training was finished, the chances that it might ever turn to account +suddenly fell down to zero; for precisely then did domestic misfortunes +oblige his father to dismiss him from his house with one solitary +half-crown and his paternal benediction. What became of the half-crown +is not recorded, but the benediction speedily blossomed into fruit. The +youth had sat down by the roadside under the mere oppression of grief +for his blighted prospects. But gradually and by steps the most +unexpected and providential, he was led to pedagogy and through this to +his true destination--that of a clergyman of the English church--a +position which from his learning, his devotion, and even from his very +failings--failings in businesslike foresight and calculation--his +absence of mind, his charitable feelings, and his true docility of +nature, he was fitted to adorn; and, indeed, but for his eccentricities +and his complete freedom from worldly self-seeking, and indifference to +such considerations as are apt to weigh all too little with his fellows +of the cloth, he might have moved as an equal among the most eminent +scholars and thinkers. Beautiful are the alternate phases of a good +parish priest--now sitting at the bedside of a dying neighbour, and +ministering with guidance and consolation to the labouring spirit--now +sitting at midnight under the lamp of his own study, and searching the +holy oracles of inspiration for light inexhaustible. These pictures were +realized in J. Coleridge's life. + +Mr. Wordsworth has done much to place on an elevated pedestal a very +different type of parish priest--Walker of Seathwaite. The contrast +between him and John Coleridge is striking; and not only striking but +apt, from some points of view, to move something of laughter as well as +tears. The strangest thing is that, if some demon of mischief tempts us, +a hurly-burly begins again of laughter and mockery among that ancient +brotherhood of hills, like Handel's chorus in 'l'Allegro' of 'laughter +holding both his sides.' + + 'Old Skiddaw blows + His speaking-trumpet; back out of the clouds + On Glaramara, "_I say, Walker_" rings; + And Kirkstone "goes it" from his misty head.' + +The Rev. Walker, of Seathwaite, it is recorded, spent most of his time +in the parish church; but doing what? Why, spinning; _always_ spinning +wool on the steps of the altar, and only _sometimes_ lecturing his +younger parishioners in the spelling-book. So passed his life. And, if +you feel disposed to say, '_An innocent life_!' you must immediately add +from Mr. Wordsworth's 'Ruth,' '_An innocent life, but far astray_!' What +time had he for writing sermons? The Rev. John Coleridge wrote an +exegetical work on the Book of Judges; we doubt whether Walker could +have spelt _exegetical_. And supposing the Bishop of Chester, in whose +diocese his parish lay, had suddenly said, 'Walker, _unde derivatur_ +"_exegesis_"?' Walker must have been walked off into the corner, as a +punishment for answering absurdly. But luckily the Bishop's palace +stood ninety and odd miles south of Walker's two spinning-wheels. For, +observe, he had _two_ spinning-wheels, but he hadn't a single Iliad. Mr. +Wordsworth will say that Walker did something besides spinning and +spelling. What was it? Why, he read a little. A _very_ little, I can +assure you. For _when_ did he read? Never but on a Saturday afternoon. +And _what_ did Walker read? Doubtless now it was Hooker, or was it +Jeremy Taylor, or Barrow? No; it was none of these that Walker honoured +by his Saturday studies, but a magazine. Now, we all know what awful +rubbish the magazines of those days carted upon men's premises. It would +have been indictable as a nuisance if a publisher had laid it down +_gratis_ at your door. Had Walker lived in _our_ days, the case would +have been very different. A course of _Blackwood_ would have braced his +constitution; his spinning-wheel would have stopped; his spelling would +have improved into moral philosophy and the best of politics. This very +month, as the public is by this time aware, Walker would have read +something about himself that _must_ have done him good. We might very +truly have put an advertisement into the _Times_ all last month, saying, +'Let Walker look into the next _Blackwood_, and he will hear of +something greatly to his advantage.' But alas! Walker descended to +Hades, and most ingloriously as _we_ contend, before _Blackwood_ had +dawned upon a benighted earth. We differ therefore by an inexpressible +difference from Wordsworth's estimate of this old fellow. And we close +our account of him by citing two little sallies from his only known +literary productions, viz., two letters, one to a friend, and the other +to the Archbishop of York. In the first of these he introduces a child +of his own under the following flourish of rhetoric, viz., as 'a pledge +of conjugal endearment.' We doubt if his correspondent ever read such a +bit of sentiment before. In the other letter, addressed to the +Metropolitan of the province, Walker has the assurance to say that he +trusts the young man, his son (_not_ the aforesaid cub, the pledge of +conjugal endearment) will never disgrace the _paternal_ example, _i.e._, +Walker's example. Pretty strong _that_! And, if exegetically handled, it +must mean that Walker, junr., is to continue spinning and spelling, as +also once a week reading the _Town and Country Magazine_, all the days +of his life. Oh, Walker, you're a very sad fellow! And the only excuse +for you is, that, like most of your brethren in that mountainous nook of +England, so beautiful but so poor, you never saw the academic bowers of +either Oxford or Cambridge. + +Both in prose and verse, much prose and a short allowance of verse, has +Wordsworth celebrated this man, and he has held him aloft like the +saintly Herbert[10] as a shining model of a rural priest. We are glad, +therefore, for Wordsworth's sake, that no judge from the Consistorial +Court ever happened to meet with Walker when trudging over the Furness +Fells to Ulverston with a _long_ cwt. (120 lb. avoirdupois) of wool on +his back, a thing which he did in all weathers. The wool would have been +condemned as a good prize, and we much fear that Walker's gown would +have been stripped over his head; which is a sad catastrophe for a +pattern priest. Mr. John Coleridge came much nearer to Chaucer's model +of a _Parish_ Priest, whilst at the same time he did honour to the +Academic standard of such a priest. He loved his poor parishioners as +children confided to his pastoral care, but he also loved his library. +But, on the other hand, as to Walker, if ever _he_ were seen burning the +midnight oil, it was not in a gentleman's study--it was in a horrid +garret or cock-loft at the top of his house, disturbing the 'conjugal +endearments' of roosting fowl, and on a business the least spiritual +that can be imagined. By ancient usage throughout this sequestered +region, which is the Savoy of England (viz., Cumberland, Westmoreland, +and Furness) all accounts are settled annually at Candlemas, which means +the middle of February. From Christmas, therefore, to this period the +reverend pastor was employed in making out bills, receipts, leases and +releases, charges and discharges, wills and codicils to wills for most +of the hardworking householders amongst his flock. This work paid better +than spinning. By this night work, by the summer work of cutting peats +and mowing grass, by the autumnal work of reaping barley and oats, and +the early winter work of taking up potatoes, the reverend gentleman +could average seven shillings a day besides beer. But meantime our +spiritual friend was poaching on the manors of the following people--of +the chamber counsel, of the attorney, of the professional accountant, of +the printer and compositor, of the notary public, of the scrivener, and +sometimes, we fear, of the sheriff's officer in arranging for special +bail. These very uncanonical services one might have fancied sufficient, +with spinning and spelling, for filling up the temporal cares of any one +man's time. But this restless Proteus masqueraded through a score of +other characters--as seedsman, harvester, hedger and ditcher, etc. We +have no doubt that he would have taken a job of paving; he would have +contracted for darning old Christopher's silk stockings, or for a mile +of sewerage; or he would have contracted to dispose by night of the +sewage (which the careful reader must not confound with the sewerage, +that being the ship and the sewage the freight). But all this coarse +labour makes a man's hands horny, and, what is worse, the starvation, +or, at least, impoverishment, of his intellect makes his mind horny; +and, what is worst of all in a clergyman, who is stationed as a watchman +on a church-steeple expressly to warn all others against the +all-besetting danger of worldliness, such an incessant preoccupation of +the heart by coarse and petty cares makes the spiritual apprehensiveness +and every organ of spiritual sensibility more horny than the hoofs of a +rhinoceros. + +Kindliness of heart, no doubt, remained to the last with Mr. Walker, +_that_ being secured by the universal spirit of brotherly and social +feeling amongst the dalesmen of the lake district. He was even liberal +and generous, if we may rely upon the few instances reported by W. W. +His life of heroic money-getting had not, it seems, made his heart +narrow in that particular direction, though it must not be forgotten +that the calls upon him were rare and trivial. But however _that_ may +have been, the heart of stone had usurped upon the heart of flesh in all +that regarded the spiritualities of his office. He was conscientious, we +dare say, in what related to the _sacramentum militaire_ (as construed +by himself) of his pastoral soldiership. He would, perhaps, have died +for the doctrines of his church, and we do not like him the worse for +having been something of a bigot, being ourselves the most malignant of +Tories (thank Heaven for all its mercies!). But what tenderness or +pathetic breathings of spirituality _could_ that man have, who had no +time beyond a few stray quarters of an hour for thinking of his own +supreme relations to heaven, or to his flock on behalf of heaven? How +could that man cherish or deepen the motions of religious truth within +himself, whose thoughts were habitually turned to the wool market? +Ninety and odd years he lived on earth labouring like a bargeman or a +miner. Assuredly he was not one of the _faineans_. And within a narrow +pastoral circle he left behind him a fragrant memory that will, perhaps, +wear as long as most reputations in literature. Nay, he even acquired by +acclamation a sort of title, viz., the posthumous surname of the +_wonderful_; pointing, however, we fear, much less to anything in +himself than to the unaccountable amount of money which he left behind +him--unaccountable by comparison with any modes of industry which he +practised, all of which were indomitably persevering, but all humble in +their results. Finally, he has had the honour (which, much we fear, men +far more interesting in the same situation, but in a less homely way, +never _would_ have had) of a record from the pen of Wordsworth. We and +others have always remarked it as one of the austere Roman features in +the mind of Wordsworth, that of all poets he has the least sympathy, +effeminate or not effeminate, with romantic disinterestedness. He cannot +bear to hear of a man working by choice for nothing, which certainly +_is_ an infirmity, where at all it arises from want of energy or of just +self-appreciation, but still an amiable one, and in certain directions a +sublime one. Walker had no such infirmity. He laboured in those fields +which ensure instant payment. Verily he _had_ his reward: ten per cent., +at least, beyond all other men, without needing to think of reversions, +either above or below. The unearthly was suffocated in _him_ by the +earthly. Let us leave him, and return to a better man, viz., to the Rev. +John Coleridge, author of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case--a man equal +in simplicity oL habits and in humility, but better in the sight of God, +because he laboured in the culture of his higher and not his lower +faculties. + +Mr. John Coleridge married a second time; and we are perplexed to say +_when_. The difficulty is this: he had by his second wife ten children. +Now, as _the_ Coleridge, the youngest of the flock, was born in 1772, +the space between that year and 1760 seems barely adequate to such a +succession of births. Yet, on the other hand, _before_ 1760 he could not +probably have seen his second wife, unless, indeed, on some casual trip +to Devonshire. Her name was Anne Bowden; and she was of a respectable +family, that had been long stationary in Devonshire, but of a yeomanly +rank; and people of that rank a century back did not often make visits +as far as Southampton. The question is not certainly of any great +importance; and we notice it only to make a parade of our chronologic +acumen. Devilish sly is Josy Bagstock! It is sufficient that her last +child was her illustrious child; and, if S. T. C.'s theory has any +foundation, we must suppose him illustrious _because_ he was the last. +For he imagines that in any long series of children the last will, +according to all experience, have the leonine share of intellect. But +this contradicts our own personal observation; and, besides, it seems to +be unsound upon an _a priori_ ground, viz., that to be the first child +carries a meaning with it: _that_ place in the series has a real +physiologic value; and we have known families in which, from generation +to generation, the first-born child had physical advantages denied to +all that followed. But to be the last child must very often be the +result of accident, and has in reality no meaning in any sense known to +nature. The sixth child, let us suppose, is a blockhead. And soon after +the birth of this sixth child, his father, being drunk, breaks his neck. +That accident cannot react upon this child to invest him with the +privileges of absolute juniority. Being a blockhead, he will remain a +blockhead. Yet he is the youngest; but, then, nature is no party to his +being such, and probably she is no party (by means of any physical +change in the parents) once in a thousand births to a case of absolute +and predeterminate juniority. + +Whether with or without the intention of nature, S. T. C. was fated to +be the last of his family. He was the tenth child of the second flock, +and possibly there might have been an eleventh or even a twentieth, but +for the following termination of his father's career, which we give in +the words of his son. 'Towards the latter end of September, 1781, my +father went to Plymouth with my brother Francis, who was to go out as' +(a) 'midshipman under Admiral Graves--a friend of my father's. He +settled Frank as he wished, and returned on the 4th of October, 1781. He +arrived at Exeter about six o'clock, and was pressed to take a bed there +by the friendly family of the Harts; but he refused, and, to avoid their +entreaties, he told them that he had never been superstitious, but that +the night before he had had a dream, which had made a deep impression on +him. He dreamed that Death had appeared to him, as he is commonly +painted, and had touched him with his dart. Well, he returned home; and +all his family, _I_ excepted, were up. He told my mother his dream; but +he was in good health and high spirits; and there was a bowl of punch +made, and my father gave a long and particular account of his travels, +and that he had placed Frank under a religious captain, and so forth. At +length he went to bed, very well and in high spirits. A short time after +he had lain down, he complained of a pain to which he was subject. My +mother got him some peppermint water, which he took; and after a pause +he said, "I am much better now, my dear!" and lay down again. In a +minute my mother heard a noise in his throat, and spoke to him; but he +did not answer, and she spoke repeatedly in vain. Her shriek awaked me, +and I said, "Papa is dead!" I did not know of my father's return, but I +knew that he was expected. How I came to think of his death, I cannot +tell; but so it was. Dead he was. Some said it was gout in the heart; +probably it was a fit of apoplexy. He was an Israelite without guile, +simple, generous; and, taking some Scripture texts in their literal +sense, he was conscientiously indifferent to the good and evil of this +world.' + +This was the account of his father's sudden death in 1781, written by S. +T. Coleridge in 1797. 'Thirty years afterwards' (but after 1781 or after +1797?), says Mr. H. N. Coleridge, 'S. T. C. breathed a wish for such a +death, "if," he added, "like him I were an Israelite without guile!" and +then added, "The image of my father, my revered, kind, learned, +simple-hearted father, is a religion to me."' + +In his ninth year, therefore, thus early and thus suddenly, Coleridge +lost his father; and in the result, though his mother lived for many a +year after, he became essentially an orphan, being thrown upon the +struggles of this world, and for ever torn from his family, except as a +visitor when equally he and they had changed. Yet such is the world, and +so inevitably does it grow thorns amongst its earliest roses, that even +that dawn of life when he had basked in the smiles of two living +parents, was troubled for _him_ by a dark shadow that followed his steps +or ran before him, obscuring his light upon every path. This was Francis +Coleridge, one year older, that same boy whom his father had in his last +journey upon earth accompanied to Plymouth. + +We shall misconceive the character of Francis if we suppose him to have +been a boy of bad nature. He turned out a gallant young man, and +perished at twenty-one from over exertion in Mysore, during the first +war with Tippoo Sahib. How he came to be transferred from the naval to +the land service, is a romantic story, for which, as it has no relation +to _the_ Coleridge, we cannot find room. + +In that particular relation, viz., to _the_ Coleridge, Francis may seem +at first to have been unamiable, and especially since the little Samuel +was so entirely at the mercy of his superior hardiness and strength; +but, in fact, his violence arose chiefly from the contempt natural to a +bold adventurous nature for a nursery pet, and a contempt irritated by a +counter admiration which he could not always refuse. 'Frank,' says S. T. +C., looking back to these childish days, 'had a violent love of beating +me; but, whenever _that_ was superseded by any humour or circumstances, +he was always very fond of me, and used to regard me with a strange +mixture of admiration and contempt. Strange it was not; for he hated +books, and loved climbing, fighting, playing, robbing orchards, to +distraction.' + +In the latter part of 1778, when S. T. C. was six years old, and +recently admitted to King's School at Ottery, he and his brother George +(that brother to whom his early poems were afterwards dedicated) caught +a putrid fever at the same time. But on this occasion Frank displayed +his courageous kindness; for, in contempt of orders to the contrary, and +in contempt of the danger, he stole up to the bedside of little Samuel +and read Pope's 'Homer' to him. This made it evident that Frank's +partiality for thumping S. T. C. did really arise very much out of a +lurking love for him; since George, though a most amiable boy, and ill +of the same fever in another room, was left to get well in the usual +way, by medicine and slops, without any thumping certainly, but also +without any extra consolations from either Iliad or Odyssey. But what +ministered perpetual fuel to the thumping-mania of Francis Coleridge was +a furor of jealousy--strangely enough not felt by him, but felt _for_ +him by his old privileged nurse. She could not inspire her own passions +into Francis, but she could point his scorn to the infirmities of his +rival. Francis had once reigned paramount in the vicarage as universal +pet. But he had been dethroned by Samuel, who now reigned in his stead. +Samuel felt no triumph at that revolution; Francis no anger. But the +nurse suffered the pangs of a baffled stepmother, and looked with +novercal eyes of hatred and disgust upon little Sam that had stolen away +the hearts of men and women from one that in _her_ eyes was a thousand +times his superior. In that last point nurse was not so entirely wrong, +but that nine-tenths of the world (and therefore, we fear, of our +dearly-beloved readers) would have gone along with her, on which account +it is that we have forborne to call her 'wicked old nurse.' Francis +Coleridge, her own peculiar darling, was memorable for his beauty. All +the brothers were handsome--'remarkably handsome,' says S. T. C., 'but +_they_,' he adds, 'were as inferior to Francis as _I_ am to _them_.'[11] + +Reading this and other descriptions of Frank Coleridge's beauty (in our +Indian army he was known as the _handsome Coleridge_), we are disposed +to cry out with Juliet, + + 'Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical! + Dove-feathered raven!' + +when we find how very nearly his thoughtless violence had hurried poor +S. T. C. into an early death. The story is told circumstantially by +Coleridge himself in one of the letters to Mr. Poole; nor is there any +scene more picturesque than this hasty sketch in Brookes's 'Fool of +Quality.' We must premise that S. T. C. had asked his mother for a +particular indulgence requiring some dexterity to accomplish. The +difficulty, however, through _her_ cautious manipulations, had just been +surmounted, when Samuel left the room for a single instant, and found +upon his return that the beautiful Francis had confounded all Mama's +labours, and had defeated his own enjoyment. What followed is thus told +by Samuel nearly twenty years after: 'I returned, saw the exploit, and +flew at Frank. He pretended to have been seriously hurt by my blow, +flung himself upon the ground, and there lay with outstretched limbs.' +This is good comedy: the pugnacious Frank affecting to be an Abel, +killed by a blow from Cain such as doubtless would not have 'made a dint +in a pound of butter.' But wait a little. Samuel was a true penitent as +ever was turned off for fratricide at Newgate. 'I,' says the unhappy +murderer, 'hung over him mourning and in great fright;' but the murdered +Frank by accident came to life again. 'He leaped up, and with a hoarse +laugh gave me a severe blow in the face.' This was too much. To have +your grief flapped back in your face like a wet sheet is bad, but also +and at the same time to have your claret uncorked is unendurable. The +'Ancient Mariner,' then about seven years old, could not stand this. +'With _his_ cross-bow'--no, stop! what are we saying? Nothing better +than a kitchen knife was at hand--and 'this,' says Samuel, 'I seized, +and was running at him, when my mother came in and took me by the arm. I +expected a whipping, and, struggling from her, I ran away to a little +hill or slope, at the bottom of which the Otter flows, about a mile from +Ottery. There I stayed, my rage died away; but my obstinacy vanquished +my fears, and taking out a shilling book, which had at the end morning +and evening prayers, I very devoutly repeated them, thinking at the same +time with a gloomy inward satisfaction how miserable my mother must be. +I distinctly remember my feelings when I saw a Mr. Vaughan pass over the +bridge at about a furlong's distance, and how I watched the calves in +the fields beyond the river. It grew dark, and I fell asleep. It was +towards the end of October, and it proved a stormy night. I felt the +cold in my sleep, and dreamed that I was pulling the blanket over me, +and actually pulled over me a dry thorn-bush which lay on the ground +near me. In my sleep I had rolled from the top of the hill till within +three yards of the river, which flowed by the unfenced edge of the +bottom. I awoke several times, and, finding myself wet and cold and +stiff, closed my eyes again that I might forget it. + +'In the meantime my mother waited about half an hour, expecting my +return when the _sulks_ had evaporated. I not returning, she sent into +the churchyard and round the town. Not found! Several men and all the +boys were sent out to ramble about and seek me. In vain. My mother was +almost distracted, and at ten o'clock at night I was cried by the crier +in Ottery and in two villages near it, with a reward offered for me. No +one went to bed; indeed, I believe half the town were up all the night. +To return to myself. About five in the morning, or a little after, I was +broad awake, and attempted to get up and walk, but I could not move. I +saw the shepherds and workmen at a distance and cried, but so faintly +that it was impossible to hear me thirty yards off. And there I might +have lain and died, for I was now almost given over, the ponds, and even +the river (near which I was lying), having been dragged. But +providentially Sir Stafford Northcote, who had been out all night, +resolved to make one other trial, and came so near that he heard me +crying. He carried me in his arms for nearly a quarter of a mile, when +we met my father and Sir Stafford's servants. I remember, and never +shall forget, my father's face as he looked upon me while I lay in the +servant's arms--so calm, and the tears stealing down his face, for I was +the child of his old age. My mother, as you may suppose, was outrageous +with joy. Meantime in rushed a young lady, crying out, "_I hope you'll +whip him, Mrs. Coleridge_." This woman still lives at Ottery, and +neither philosophy nor religion has been able to conquer the antipathy +which I feel towards her whenever I see her.' So says Samuel. We +ourselves have not yet seen this young lady, and now in 1849, +considering that it is about eighty years from the date of her +wickedness, it seems unlikely that we shall. But _our_ antipathy we +declare to be also, alas! quite unconquerable by the latest supplements +to the Transcendental philosophy that we have yet received from +Deutschland. Whip the Ancient Mariner, indeed! A likely thing _that_: +and at the very moment when he was coming off such a hard night's duty, +and supporting a character which a classical Roman has pronounced to be +a spectacle for Olympus--viz., that of '_Puer bonus cum mala-fortuna +compositus_' (a virtuous boy matched in duel with adversity)! The sequel +of the adventure is thus reported: 'I was put to bed, and recovered in a +day or so. But I was certainly injured; for I was weakly and subject to +ague for many years after.' Yes; and to a worse thing than ague, as not +so certainly to be cured, viz., rheumatism. More than twenty years after +this cold night's rest, _a la belle etoile_, we can vouch that Coleridge +found himself obliged to return suddenly from a tour amongst the +Scottish Highlands solely in consequence of that painful rheumatic +affection, which was perhaps traceable to this childish misadventure. +Alas! Francis the beautiful scamp, that caused the misadventure, and +probably the bad young lady that prescribed whipping as the orthodox +medicine for curing it, and the poor Ancient Mariner himself--that had +to fight his way through such enemies at the price of ague, rheumatism, +and tears uncounted--are all asleep at present, but in graves how widely +divided! One near London; one near Seringapatam; and the young lady, we +suppose, in Ottery churchyard, but her offence, though beyond the power +of Philosophy to pardon, is not remembered, we trust, in her epitaph! + +We are sorry that S. T. C. having been so much of a darling with his +father, and considering that he looked back to the brief connection +between them as solemnized by its pathetic termination, had not reported +some parts of their graver intercourse. One such fragment he does +report; it is an elementary lesson upon astronomy, which his father gave +him in the course of a walk upon a starry night. This is in keeping with +the grandeur and responsibility of the paternal relation. But really, in +the only other example (which immediately occurs) of Papa's attempt to +bias the filial intellect, we recognise nothing but what is mystical; +and involuntarily we think of him in the modern slang character of +'governor,' rather than as a 'guide, philosopher, and friend.' It seems +that one Saturday, about the time when the Rev. Walker in Furness must +have been sitting down to his _exegesis_ of hard sayings in the _Town +and Country Magazine_, the Rev. Coleridge thought fit to reward S. T. C. +for the most singular act of virtue that we have ever heard imputed to +man or boy--to 'saint, to savage, or to sage'--viz., the act of eating +beans and bacon to a large amount. The stress must be laid on the word +_large_; because simply to masticate beans and bacon, we do not +recollect to have been regarded with special esteem by the learned +vicar; it was the liberal consumption of them that entitled Samuel to +reward. That reward was one penny, so that in degree of merit, after +all, the service may not have ranked high. But what perplexes us is the +_kind_ of merit. Did it bear some mystical or symbolic sense? Was it +held to argue a spirit of general rebellion against Philosophy, that S. +T. C. should so early in life, by one and the same act, proclaim +mutinous disposition towards two of the most memorable amongst earth's +philosophers--Moses and Pythagoras; of whom the latter had set his face +against beans, laying it down for his opinion that to eat beans and to +cut one's father's throat were acts of about equal atrocity; whilst the +other, who tolerated the beans, had expressly forbidden the bacon? We +are really embarrassed; finding the mere fact recorded with no further +declaration of the rev. governor's reasons, than that such an +'attachment' (an _attachment_ to beans and bacon!) 'ought to be +encouraged'; but upon what principle we no more understand than we do +the principle of the _Quale-quare-quidditive_ case. + +The letters in which these early memorabilia of Coleridge's life are +reported did not proceed beyond the fifth. We regret this greatly, for +they would have become instructively interesting as they came more and +more upon the higher ground of his London experience in a mighty world +of seven hundred boys--insulated in a sort of monastic but troubled +seclusion amongst the billowy world of London; a seclusion that in +itself was a wilderness to a home-sick child, but yet looking verdant as +an oasis amongst that other wilderness of the illimitable metropolis. + +It is good to be mamma's darling; but not, reader, if you are to leave +mamma's arms for a vast public school in childhood. It is good to be the +darling of a kind, pious, and learned father--but not if that father is +to be torn away from you for ever by a death without a moment's warning, +whilst as yet you yourself are but nine years old, and he has not +bestowed a thought on your future establishment in life. Upon poor S. T. +C. the Benjamin of his family, descended first a golden dawn within the +Paradise of his father's and his mother's smiles--descended secondly and +suddenly an overcasting hurricane of separation from both father and +mother for ever. How dreadful, if audibly declared, this sentence to a +poor nerve-shattered child: Behold! thou art commanded, before thy first +decennium is completed, to see father and mother no more, and to throw +thyself into the wilderness of London. Yet _that_ was the destiny of +Coleridge. At nine years old he was precipitated into the stormy arena +of Christ's Hospital. Amongst seven hundred boys he was to fight his way +to distinction; and with no other advantages of favour or tenderness +than would have belonged to the son of a footman. Sublime are these +democratic institutions rising upon the bosom of aristocratic England. +Great is the people amongst whom the foundations of kings _can_ assume +this popular character. But yet amidst the grandeur of a national +triumph is heard, at intervals, the moaning of individuals; and from +many a grave in London rises from time to time, in arches of sorrow +audible to God, the lamentation of many a child seeking to throw itself +round for comfort into some distant grave of the provinces, where rest +the ear and the heart of its mother. + +Concerning this chapter of Coleridge's childhood, we have therefore at +present no vestige of any record beyond the exquisite sketches of his +schoolfellow, Charles Lamb. The five letters, however, though going over +so narrow a space, go far enough to throw a pathetic light upon +Coleridge's frailties of temperament. They indicate the sort of nervous +agitation arising from contradictory impulses, from love too tender, and +scorn too fretful, by which already in childish days the inner peace had +been broken up, and the nervous system shattered. This revelation, +though so unpretending and simple in manner, of the drama substantially +so fearful, that was constantly proceeding in a quiet and religious +parsonage--the bare possibility that sufferings so durable in their +effects should be sweeping with their eternal storms a heart so +capacious and so passively unresisting--are calculated to startle and to +oppress us with the sense of a fate long prepared, vested in the very +seeds of constitution and character; temperament and the effects of +early experience combining to thwart all the morning promise of +greatness and splendour; the flower unfolding its silken leaves only to +suffer canker and blight; and to hang withering on the stalk, with only +enough of grace and colour left to tell pathetically to all that looked +upon it what it might have been. + + +EDITOR'S NOTE TO THIS ESSAY. + +Certainly this idea of De Quincey about the misfortune to Coleridge of +the early loss of his father, separation from his mother, and removal +from Devon to London, is fully borne out by the more personal utterances +to be found in Coleridge's poems. Looking through them with this idea in +view, we are surprised at the deposit left in them by this conscious +experience on Coleridge's part. Not to dwell at all on what might be +very legitimately regarded as _indirect_ expressions of the sentiment, +we shall present here, in order to add emphasis to De Quincey's +position, some of the extracts which have most impressed us. From the +poem in the Early Poems 'To an Infant,' are these lines: + + 'Man's breathing miniature! thou mak'st me sigh-- + A babe art thou--and such a thing am I, + To anger rapid and as soon appeased, + For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased, + Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow, + Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow.' + +Still more emphatic is this passage from the poem, 'Frost at Midnight': + + 'My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart + With tender gladness thus to look at thee, + And think that thou shalt learn far other lore, + And in far other scenes! For I was reared + In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, + And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. + But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze + By lakes and sandy shores beneath the crags + Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, + Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores + And mountain crags; so shalt thou see and hear + The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible + Of that eternal language, which thy God + Utters, who from eternity doth teach + Himself in all and all things in Himself. + Great Universal Teacher! he shall mould + Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.' + +In another place, when speaking of the love of mother for child and that +of child for mother, awakened into life by the very impress of that love +in voice and touch, he concludes with the line: + + 'Why was I made for Love and Love denied to me?' + +And, most significant of all, is that Dedication in 1803 of his Early +Poems to his brother, the Rev. George Coleridge of Ottery St. Mary, when +he writes, after having dwelt on the bliss this brother had enjoyed in +never having been really removed from the place of his early nurture: + + 'To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed + A different fortune, and more different mind-- + Me, from the spot where first I sprang to light + Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed + Its first domestic loves; and hence, through life + Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while + Some have preserved me from life's pelting ills, + But like a tree with leaves of feeble stem, + If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze + Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once + Dropped the collected shower: and some most false, + False and fair-foliaged as the manchineel, + Have tempted me to slumber in their shade + E'en 'mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps + Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven, + That I woke poisoned! But (all praise to Him + Who gives us all things) more have yielded me + Permanent shelter: and beside one friend, + Beneath the impervious covert of one oak + I've raised a lowly shed and know the name + Of husband and of father; not unhearing + Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice, + Which from my childhood to maturer years + Spake to me of predestinated wreaths, + Bright with no fading colours! + Yet, at times, + My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life + Still most a stranger, most with naked heart, + At mine own home and birthplace: chiefly then + When I remember thee, my earliest friend! + Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth; + Did'st trace my wanderings with a father's eye; + And, boding evil yet still hoping good, + Rebuked each fault and over all my woes + Sorrowed in silence!' + +And certainly all this only gains emphasis from the entry we have in the +'Table Talk' under date August 16, 1832, and under the heading, +'Christ's Hospital, Bowyer': + +'The discipline of Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan; all +domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Bowyer saying to +me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays. +"Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! +the school is your brother! the school is your sister! the school is +your first cousin, and all the rest of your relations! Let's have no +more crying!"' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Really now I can't say that. No; I couldn't have stood Cruger's +arguments. 'Ditto to Mr. Burke' is certainly not a very brilliant +observation, but still it's supportable, whereas I must have found the +pains of contradiction insupportable. + +[2] This sublimest of all Greek poets did really die, as some +biographers allege, by so extraordinary and, as one may say, so +insulting a mistake on the part of an eagle. + +[3] _Frankistan._--There is no word, but perhaps Frankistan might come +nearest to such a word, for expressing the territory of Christendom +taken jointly with that of those Mahometan nations which have for a long +period been connected with Christians in their hostilities, whether of +arms or of policy. The Arabs and the Moors belong to these nations, for +the circle of their political system has always been made up in part by +a segment from Christendom, their relations of war being still more +involved with such a segment. + +[4] 'Merry Wives of Windsor,' Act I., Sc. 4. Mrs. Quickly: '... An +honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house +withal; and I warrant you no tell-tale, nor no breed-hate; his worst +fault is, that he is given to prayer; he is something peevish that way; +but nobody but has his fault--but let that pass.'--ED. + +[5] '_Pun them into shivers_': Troilus and Cressida, Act II., Sc. 1. We +refer specially to the jolly boatswain, having already noticed the fact, +that sailors as a class, from retaining more of the simplicity and quick +susceptibility belonging to childhood, are unusually fond of waxen +exhibitions. Too much worldly experience indisposes men to the +playfulness and to the _toyfulness_ (if we may invent that word) of +childhood, not less through the ungenial churlishness which it gradually +deposits, than through the expansion of understanding which it promotes. + +[6] '_Science not always fathomable._' Several distinguished Frenchmen +have pursued a course of investigations into these fenestral phenomena, +which one might call the _Fata Morgana of Frost_; and, amongst these +investigators, some--not content with watching, observing, +recording--have experimented on these floral prolusions of nature by +arranging beforehand the circumstances and conditions into which and +under which the Frost Fairy should be allowed to play. But what was the +result? Did they catch the Fairy? Did they chase her into her secret +cells and workshops? Did they throw over the freedom of her motions a +harness of net-work of coercion as the Pagans over their pitiful +Proteus? So far from it, that the more they studied the less they +understood; and all the traps which they laid for the Fairy, did but +multiply her evasions. + +[7] The passage occurs at p. 354, vol. ii. of the _Lectures_; and we now +find, on looking to the place, that the illustration is drawn from 'a +dell of lazy Sicily.' The same remark has virtually been anticipated at +p. 181 of the same volume in the rule about 'converting mere +abstractions into persons.' + +[8] It is true that Mr. De Quincey _did_ make the mistake of supposing +Coleridge to have 'calculated on' a remark which Mrs. Coleridge justly +characterises as a blind one. It _was_ blind as compared with the fact +resulting from grounds not then known; else it was _not_ blind as a +reasonable inference under the same circumstances. + +[9] If for the words 'more than fifteen years' we say sixteen or +seventeen, as Coleridge died in 1834, this article would be written in +1850 or 1851.--ED. + +[10] 'The Saintly Herbert,' the brother, oddly enough, of the brilliant +but infidel Lord Herbert of Cherbury; which lord was a versatile man of +talent, but not a man of genius like the humble rustic--his unpretending +brother. + +[11] In saying this, Coleridge unduly disparaged his own personal +advantages. In youth, and before sorrow and the labour of thought had +changed him, he must have been of very engaging appearance. The _godlike +forehead_, which afterwards was ascribed to him, could not have been +wanting at any age. That exquisite passage in Wordsworth's description +of him, + + 'And a pale face, that seem'd undoubtedly + As if a blooming face it ought to be,' + +had its justification in those early days. If to be blooming was the +natural tendency and right of his face, blooming it then was, as we have +been assured by different women of education and taste, who saw him at +twenty-four in Bristol and Clifton. Two of these were friends of Hannah +More, and had seen all the world. They could judge: that is, they could +judge in conformity to the highest standards of taste; and both said, +with some enthusiasm, that he was a most attractive young man; one +adding, with a smile at the old pastoral name, 'Oh, yes, he was a +perfect Strephon.' Light he was in those days and agile as a feathered +Mercury; whereas he afterwards grew heavy and at times bloated; and at +that gay period of life his animal spirits ran up _naturally_ to the +highest point on the scale; whereas in later life, when most +tempestuous, they seemed most artificial. That this, which was the +ardent testimony of females, was also the true one, might have been +gathered from the appearance of his children. Berkeley died an infant, +and him only we never saw. The sole daughter of Coleridge, as she +inherited so much of her father's intellectual power, inherited also the +diviner part of his features. The upper part of her face, at seventeen, +when last we saw her, seemed to us angelic, and pathetically angelic; +for the whole countenance was suffused by a pensive nun-like beauty too +charming and too affecting ever to be forgotten. Derwent, the youngest +son, we have not seen since boyhood, but at that period he had a +handsome cast of features, and (from all we can gather) the +representative cast of the Coleridge family. But Hartley, the eldest +son, how shall we describe _him_? He was most intellectual and he was +most eccentric, and his features expressed all that in perfection. +Southey, in his domestic playfulness, used to call him the _Knave of +Spades_; and he certainly _had_ a resemblance to that well-known young +gentleman. But really we do not know that it would have been at all +better to resemble the knave of hearts. And it must be remembered that +the knave of spades may have a brother very like himself, and yet a +hundred times handsomer. There _are_ such things as handsome likenesses +of very plain people. Some folks pronounced Hartley Coleridge too +Jewish. But to be a Jew is to be an Arab. And our own feeling was, when +we met Hartley at times in solitary or desolate places of Westmoreland +and Cumberland, that here was a son of Ishmael walking in the wilderness +of Edom. The coruscating _nimbus_ of his curling and profuse black hair, +black as erebus, strengthened the Saracen impression of his features and +complexion. He wanted only a turban on his head, and a spear in his +right hand, to be perfect as a Bedouin. But it affected us as all things +are affecting which record great changes, to hear that for a long time +before his death this black hair had become white as the hair of +infancy. Much sorrow and much thought had been the worms that gnawed the +roots of that raven hair; that, in Wordsworth's fine way of expressing +the very same fact as to Mary Queen of Scots: + + 'Kill'd the bloom before its time, + And blanch'd, without the owner's crime, + The most resplendent hair.' + +Ah, wrecks of once blooming nurseries, that from generation to +generation, from John Coleridge the apostolic to S. T. C. the sunbright, +and from S. T. C. the sunbright to Hartley the starry, lie scattered +upon every shore! + + + + +_II. MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY OF GREECE._ + + +In attempting to appraise Mr. Finlay's work comprehensively, there is +this difficulty. It comes before us in two characters; first, as a +philosophic speculation upon history, to be valued against others +speculating on other histories; secondly, as a guide, practical +altogether and not speculative, to students who are navigating that +great trackless ocean the _Eastern_ Roman history. Now under either +shape, this work traverses so much ground, that by mere multiplicity of +details it denies to us the opportunity of reporting on its merits with +that simplicity of judgment which would have been available in a case of +severer unity. So many separate situations of history, so many critical +continuations of political circumstances, sweep across the field of Mr. +Finlay's telescope whilst sweeping the heavens of four centuries, that +it is naturally impossible to effect any comprehensive abstractions, as +to principles, from cases individual by their nature and separated by +their period not less than by their relations in respect to things and +persons. The mere necessity of the plan in such a work ensures a certain +amount of dissent on the part of every reader; he that most frequently +goes along with the author in his commentary, will repeatedly find +himself diverging from it in one point or demurring to its inferences in +another. Such, in fact, is the eternal disadvantage for an author upon +a subject which recalls the remark of Juvenal: + + 'Vester porro labor fecundior, historiarum + Scriptores: petit hic plus temporis, atque olei plus: + Sic _ingens rerum numerus_ jubet, atque operum lex.' + +It is this _ingens rerum numerus_ that constitutes at once the +attraction of these volumes, and the difficulty of dealing with them in +any adequate or satisfactory manner. + +Indeed, the vistas opened up by Mr. Finlay are infinite; in _that_ sense +it is that he ascribes inexhaustibility to the trackless savannahs of +history. These vast hunting-grounds for the imaginative understanding +are in fact but charts and surveyors' outlines meagre and arid for the +timid or uninspired student. To a grander intellect these historical +delineations are not maps but pictures: they compose a forest +wilderness, veined and threaded by sylvan lawns, 'dark with horrid +shades,' like Milton's haunted desert in the 'Paradise Regained,' at +many a point looking back to the towers of vanishing Jerusalem, and like +Milton's desert, crossed dimly at uncertain intervals by forms doubtful +and (considering the character of such awful deserts) suspicious. + +Perhaps the reader, being rather 'dense,' does not understand, but we +understand ourselves, which is the root of the matter. Let us try again: +these historical delineations are not lifeless facts, bearing no sense +or moral value, but living realities organized into the unity of some +great constructive idea. + +Perhaps we are obscure; and possibly (though it is treason in a writer +to hint such a thing, as tending to produce hatred or disaffection +towards his liege lord who is and must be his reader), yet, perhaps, +even the reader--that great character--may be 'dense.' 'Dense' is the +word used by young ladies to indicate a slight shade--a _soupcon_--of +stupidity; and by the way it stands in close relationship of sound to +_Duns_, the schoolman, who (it is well known) shared with King Solomon +the glory of furnishing a designation for men weak in the upper +quarters. But, reader, whether the fault be in you or in ourselves, +certain it is that the truth which we wish to communicate is not +trivial; it is the noblest and most creative of truths, if only we are +not a Duns Scholasticus for explanation, nor you (most excellent +reader!) altogether a Solomon for apprehension. Therefore, again lend us +your ears. + +It is not, it has not been, perhaps it never will be, understood--how +vast a thing is combination. We remember that Euler, and some other +profound Prussians, such as Lambert, etc., tax this word _combination_ +with a fault: for, say they, it indicates that composition of things +which proceeds two by two (viz., com-_bina_); whereas three by three, +ten by ten, fifty by fifty, is combination. It is so. But, once for all, +language is so difficult a structure, being like a mail-coach and four +horses required to turn round Lackington's counter[12]--required in one +syllable to do what oftentimes would require a sentence--that it must +use the artifices of a short-hand. The word _bini-ae-a_ is here but an +exponential or representative word: it stands for any number, for +_number_ in short generally as opposed to unity. And the secret truth +which some years ago we suggested, but which doubtless perished as +pearls to swine, is, that com_bina_tion, or com_terna_tion, or +com_quaterna_tion, or com_dena_tion, possesses a mysterious virtue quite +unobserved by men. All knowledge is probably within its keeping. What we +mean is, that where A is not capable simply of revealing a truth +(_i.e._, by way of direct inference), very possible it is that A viewed +by the light of B (_i.e._, in some mode of combination with B) shall be +capable; but again, if A + B cannot unlock the case, these in +combination with C shall do so. And if not A + B + C, then, perhaps, +shall A + B + C combined with D; and so on _ad infinitum_; or in other +words that pairs, or binaries, ternaries, quaternaries, and in that mode +of progression will furnish keys intricate enough to meet and to +decipher the wards of any lock in nature. + +Now, in studying history, the difficulty is about the delicacy of the +lock, and the mode of applying the key. We doubt not that many readers +will view all this as false refinement. But hardly, if they had much +considered the real experimental cases in history. For instance, suppose +the condition of a people known as respects (1) civilization, as +respects (2) relation to the sovereign, (3) the prevailing mode of its +industry, (4) its special circumstances as to taxation, (5) its physical +conformation and temperament, (6) its local circumstances as to +neighbours warlike or not warlike, (7) the quality and depth of its +religion, (8) the framework of its jurisprudence, (9) the machinery by +which these laws are made to act, (10) the proportion of its towns to +its rural labour, and the particular action of its police; these and +many other items, elements, or secondary features of a people being +known, it yet remains unknown which of these leads, which is inert, and +of those which are not inert in what order they arrange their action. +The _principium movendi_, the central force which organizes and assigns +its place in the system to all the other forces, these are quite +undetermined by any mere arithmetical recitation of the agencies +concerned. Often these primary principles can be deduced only +tentatively, or by a regress to the steps, historically speaking, +through which they have arisen. Sometimes, for instance, the population, +as to its principle of expansion, and as to its rate, together with the +particular influence socially of the female sex, exercises the most +prodigious influence on the fortunes of a nation, and its movement +backwards or forwards. Sometimes again as in Greece (from the oriental +seclusion of women) these causes limit their own action, until they +become little more than names. + +In such a case it is essential that the leading outlines at least should +be definite; that the coast line and the capes and bays should be +well-marked and clear, whatever may become of the inland waters, and the +separate heights in a continuous chain of mountains. + +But we are not always sure that we understand Mr. Finlay, even in the +particular use which he makes of the words 'Greece' and 'Grecian.' +Sometimes he means beyond a doubt the people of Hellas and the AEgean +islands, as _opposed_ to the mixed population of Constantinople. +Sometimes he means the Grecian element as opposed to the Roman element +_in_ the composition of this mixed Byzantine population. In this case +the Greek does not mean (as in the former case) the non-Byzantine, but +the Byzantine. Sometimes he means by preference that vast and most +diffusive race which throughout Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, the Euxine and +the Euphrates, represented the Graeco-Macedonian blood from the time of +Alexander downwards. But why should we limit the case to an origin from +this great Alexandrian aera? Then doubtless (330 B.C.) it received a +prodigious expansion. But already, in the time of Herodotus (450 B.C.), +this Grecian race had begun to sow itself broadcast over Asia and +Africa. The region called _Cyrenaica_ (viz., the first region which you +would traverse in passing from the banks of the Nile and the Pyramids to +Carthage and to Mount Atlas, _i.e._, Tunis, Algiers, Fez and Morocco, or +what we now call the Barbary States) had been occupied by Grecians +nearly seven hundred years before Christ. In the time of Croesus (say +560 B.C.) it is clear that Grecians were swarming over Lydia and the +whole accessible part of Asia Minor. In the time of Cyrus the younger +(say 404 B.C.) his Grecian allies found their fiercest opponents in +Grecian soldiers of Artaxerxes. In the time of Alexander, just a +septuagint of years from the epoch of this unfortunate Cyrus, the most +considerable troops of Darius were Greeks. The truth is, that, though +Greece was at no time very populous, the prosperity of so many little +republics led to as ample a redundancy of Grecian population as was +compatible with Grecian habits of life; for, deceive not yourself, the +_harem_, what we are accustomed to think of as a Mahometan institution, +existed more or less perfectly in Greece by seventeen centuries at least +antecedently to Mahometanism. Already before Homer, before Troy, before +the Argonauts, woman was an abject, dependent chattel in Greece, and +living in nun-like seclusion. There is so much of _intellectual_ +resemblance between Greece and Rome, shown in the two literatures, the +two religions, and the structure of the two languages, that we are apt +to overlook radical repulsion between their _moral_ systems. But such a +repulsion did exist, and the results of its existence are 'writ large' +in the records, if they are studied with philosophic closeness and +insight, and could be illustrated in many ways had we only time and +space for such an exercise. But we must hurry on to remark that Mr. +Finlay's indefiniteness in the use of the terms 'Greece' and 'Grecian' +is almost equalled by his looseness in dealing with institutions and the +principles which determined their character. He dwells meditatively upon +that tenacity of life which he finds to characterize them--a tenacity +very much dependent upon physical[13] circumstances, and in that respect +so memorably inferior to the social economy of Jewish existence, that +we have been led to dwell with some interest upon the following +distinctions as applicable to the political existence of all nations who +are in any degree civilized. It seems to us that three forces, amongst +those which influence the movement of nations, are practically +paramount; viz., first, the _legislation_ of a people; secondly, the +_government_ of a people; thirdly, the _administration_ of a people. By +the quality of its legislation a people is moulded to this or that +character; by the quality of its government a people is applied to this +or that great purpose; by the quality of its administration a people is +made disposable readily and instantly and completely for every purpose +lying within the field of public objects. _Legislation_ it is which +shapes or qualifies a people, endowing them with such qualities as are +more or less fitted for the ends likely to be pursued by a national +policy, and for the ends suggested by local relations when combined with +the new aspects of the times. _Government_ it is which turns these +qualifications to account, guiding them upon the new line of tendencies +opening spontaneously ahead, or (as sometimes we see) upon new +tendencies created deliberately and by forethought. But _administration_ +it is which organizes between the capacities of the people on the one +hand, and the enlightened wishes of the government on the other--that +intermediate _nexus_ of social machinery without which both the amplest +powers in a nation and the noblest policy in a government must equally +and continually fall to the ground. A general system of instruments, or +if we may use the word, system of instrumentation and concerted +arrangements--behold the one sole _conditio sine qua non_ for giving a +voice to the national interests, for giving a ratification to the +national will, for giving mobility to the national resources. Amongst +these three categories which we have here assigned as summing up the +relations of the public will in great nations to the total system of +national results, this last category of _administration_ is that which +(beyond the rest) postulates and presupposes vast developments of +civilization. Instincts of nature, under favourable circumstances, as +where the national mind is bold, the temper noble, veracity adorning the +speech, and simplicity the manners, may create and _have_ created good +elementary laws; whilst it is certain that, where any popular freedom +exists, the government must resemble and reflect the people. Hence it +cannot be denied that, even in semi-barbarous times, good legislation +and good government may arise. But good administration is not +conceivable without the aids of high civilization. How often have piracy +by sea, systematic robbery by land, tainted as with a curse the +blessings of life and property in great nations! Witness the state of +the Mediterranean under the Cilicians during the very sunset of Marius; +or, again, of the Caribbean seas, in spite of a vast Spanish empire, of +Buccaneers and Filibusters. Witness Bagandae in Roman Spain, or the cloud +of robbers gathering in France through twelve centuries after _every_ +period of war; witness the scourges of public peace in Italy, were it in +papal Rome or amongst the Fra Diavolos of Naples. + +We believe that, so far from possessing any stronger principle of +vitality than the Roman institutions, those of Greece Proper (meaning +those originally and authentically Greek) had any separate advantage +only when applied locally. They were essentially _enchorial_ +institutions, and even _physically_ local (_i.e._, requiring the same +place as well as the same people); just as the ordinances of Mahomet +betray his unconscious frailty and ignorance by presuming and +postulating a Southern climate as well as an Oriental temperament. The +Greek usages and traditionary monuments of civilization had adapted +themselves from the first to the singular physical conformation of +Hellas--as a 'nook-shotten'[14] land, nautically accessible and laid +down in seas that were studded with islands systematically adjusted to +the continental circumstances, whilst internally her mountainous +structure had split up almost the whole of her territory into separate +chambers or wards, predetermining from the first that galaxy of little +republics into which her splintered community threw itself by means of +the strong mutual repulsion derived originally from battlements of +hills, and, secondarily, from the existing state of the military art. +Having these advantages to begin with, reposing upon these foundations, +the Greek civil organization sustained itself undoubtedly through an +astonishing tract of time; before the ship _Argo_ it had commenced; +under the Ottoman Turks it still survived: for even in the Trojan aera, +and in the pre-Trojan or Argonautic aera, already (and perhaps for many +centuries before) the nominal kingdoms were virtually republics, the +princes being evidently limited in their authority by the 'sensus +communis' of the body politic almost as much as the Kings of Sparta were +from the time of Lycurgus to the extinction of the Peloponnesian +independence. + +Accidents, therefore, although accidents of a permanent order (being +founded in external nature), gave to Greece a very peculiar advantage. +On her own dunghill her own usages had a tenacity of life such as is +seen in certain weeds (couch-grass, for instance). This natural +advantage, by means of intense local adaptation, did certainly prove +available for Greece, under the circumstances of a hostile invasion. +Even had the Persian invasion succeeded, it is possible that Grecian +civilization would still have survived the conquest, and would have +predominated, as actually it did in Ionia, etc. + +So far our views seem to flow in the channel of Mr. Finlay's. But these +three considerations occur: + +1st. That oftentimes Greece escaped the ravages of barbarians, not so +much by any quality of her civil institutions, whether better or worse, +as by her geographical position. It is 'a far cry to Loch Awe'; and had +Timon of Athens together with Apemantus clubbed their misanthropies, +joint and several, there would hardly have arisen an impetus strong +enough to carry an enemy all the way from the Danube to the Ilyssus; yet +so far, at least, every European enemy of Thebes and Athens had to +march. Nay, unless Monsieur le Sauvage happened to possess the mouths of +the Danube, so as to float down 'by the turn of tide' through the +Euxine, Bosphorus, Propontis, Hellespont, etc., he would think twice +before he would set off a-gallivanting to the regions of the South, +where certainly much sunshine was to be had of undeniable quality, but +not much of anything else. The Greeks were never absolute paupers, +because, however slender their means, their social usages never led to +any Irish expansion of population; but under no circumstances of +government were they or could they have been rich. Plunder therefore, +that could be worth packing and cording, there was little or none in +Greece. People do not march seven hundred miles to steal old curious +bedsteads, swarming, besides, with fleas. Sculptured plate was the +thing. And, from the times of Sylla, _that_ had a strange gravitation +towards Rome. It is, besides, worth noticing--as a general rule in the +science of robbery--that it makes all the difference in the world which +end of a cone is presented to the robber. Beginning at the apex of a +sugar-loaf, and required to move rapidly onwards to the broad basis +where first he is to halt and seek his booty, the robber locust advances +with hope and cheerfulness. Invert this order, and from the vast base of +the Danube send him on to the promontory of Sunium--a tract perpetually +dwindling in its breadth through 500 miles--and his reversion of booty +grows less valuable at every step. Yet even this feature was not the +most comfortless in the case. That the zone of pillage should narrow +with every step taken towards its proper ground, this surely was a bad +look-out. But it was a worse, that even this poor vintage lay hid and +sheltered under the AEgis of the empire. The whole breadth of the empire +on that side of the Mediterranean was to be traversed before one cluster +of grapes could be plucked from Greece; whereas, upon all the horns of +the Western Empire, plunder commenced from the moment of crossing the +frontier. Here, therefore, lies one objection to the supposed excellence +of Grecian institutions: they are valued, upon Mr. Finlay's scale, by +their quality of elastic rebound from violence and wrong; but, in order +that this quality might be truly tested, they ought to have been equally +and fairly tried: now, by comparison with the Western provinces, that +was a condition not capable of being realized for Greece, having the +position which she had. + +2ndly. The reader will remark that the argument just used is but +negative: it does not positively combat the superiority claimed for the +Greek organization; that superiority may be all that it is described to +be; but it is submitted that perhaps the manifestation of this advantage +was not made on a sufficient breadth of experiment. + +Now let us consider this. Upon the analogy of any possible precedent, +under which Rome could be said to have taken seven centuries in +unfolding her power, our Britain has taken almost fourteen. So long is +the space between the first germination of Anglo-Saxon institutions and +the present expansion of British power over the vast regions of +Hindostan. Most true it is that a very small section of this time and a +very small section of British energies has been applied separately to +the Indian Empire. But precisely the same distinction holds good in the +Roman case. The total expansion of Rome travelled, perhaps, through +eight centuries; but five of these spent themselves upon the mere +_domestic_ growth of Rome; during five she did not so much as attempt +any foreign appropriation. And in the latter three, during which she +did, we must figure to ourselves the separate ramifications of her +influence as each involving a very short cycle indeed of effort or +attention, though collectively involving a long space, separately as +involving a very brief one. If the eye is applied to each conquest +itself, nothing can exhibit less of a slow or gradual expansion than the +Roman system of conquest. It was a shadow which moved so rapidly on the +dial as to be visible and alarming. Had newspapers existed in those +days, or had such a sympathy bound nations together[15] as could have +supported newspapers, a vast league would have been roused by the +advance of Rome. Such a league _was_ formed where something of this +sympathy existed. The kingdoms formed out of the inheritance of +Alexander being in a sense Grecian kingdoms--Grecian in their language, +Grecian by their princes, Grecian by their armies (in their privileged +sections)--_did_ become alarming to the Greeks. And what followed? The +Achaean league, which, in fact, produced the last heroes of +Greece--Aratus, Philopoemen, Cleomenes. But as to Rome, she was too +obscure, too little advertised as a danger, to be separately observed. +But, partly, this arose from her rapidity. Macedonia was taken +separately from Greece. Sicily, which was the advanced port of Greece to +the West, had early fallen as a sort of appanage to the Punic struggle. +And all the rest followed by insensible degrees. In Syria, and again in +Pontus, and in Macedonia, three great kingdoms which to Greece seemed +related rather as enemies than as friends, and which therefore roused no +spirit of resistance in Greece, through Rome had already withdrawn all +the contingent proper from Greece. Had these powers concerted with Egypt +and with Greece a powerful league, Rome would have been thrown back +upon her Western chambers. + +The reason why the Piratic power arose, we suppose to have been this, +and also the reason why such a power was not viewed as extra-national. +The nautical profession as such flowed in a channel altogether distinct +from the martial profession. It was altogether and exclusively +commercial in its general process. Only, upon peculiar occasions arose a +necessity for a nautical power as amongst the resources of empire. +Carthage reared upon the basis of her navy, as had done Athens, Rhodes, +Tyre, some part of her power: and Rome put forth so much of this power +as sufficed to meet Carthage. But that done, we find no separate +ambition growing up in Rome and directing itself to naval war. +Accidentally, when the war arose between Caesar and Pompey, it became +evident that for rapidly transferring armies and for feeding these +armies, a navy would be necessary. And Cicero, but for _this crisis_, +and not as a _general_ remark, said--that 'necesse est qui mare tenuit +rerum potiri.' + +Hence it happened--that as no permanent establishment could arise where +no permanent antagonist could be supposed to exist--oftentimes, and +indeed always, unless when some new crisis arose, the Roman navy went +down. In one of these intervals arose the Cilician piracy. Mr. Finlay +suggests that in part it arose out of the fragments from Alexander's +kingdoms, recombining: partly out of the Isaurian land pirates already +established, and furnished with such astonishing natural fortresses as +existed nowhere else if we except those aerial caves--a sort of mountain +nests on the side of declivities, which Josephus describes as harbouring +Idumean enemies of Herod the Great, against whom he was obliged to +fight by taking down warriors in complete panoply ensconced in baskets +suspended by chains; and partly arising on the temptation of rich +booties in the commerce of the Levant, or of rich temples on shore +amidst unwarlike populations. These elements of a warlike form were +required as the means of piracy, these fortresses and Isaurian caves as +the resources of piracy, these notorious cargoes or temples stored with +wealth as temptations to piracy, before a public nuisance could arise +demanding a public chastisement. And yet, because this piracy had a +local settlement and nursery, it seemed hardly consonant to the spirit +of public (or international) law, that all civil rights should be denied +them. + +Not without reason, not without a profound purpose, did Providence +ordain that our two great precedents upon earth should be Greece and +Rome. In all planets, if you could look into them, doubt not (oh, reader +of ours!) that something exists answering to Greece and Rome. Odd it +would be--_curioes_! as the Germans say--if in Jupiter--or Venus--those +precedents should exist under the same _names_ of Greece and Rome. Yet, +why not? Jovial--and Venereal--people may be better in some things than +our people (which, however, we doubt), but certainly a better language +than the Greek man cannot have invented in either planet. Falling back +from cases so low and so lofty (Venus an inferior, Jupiter a far +superior planet) to our own case, the case of poor mediocre Tellurians, +perhaps the reader thinks that other nations might have served the +purpose of Providentia. Other nations might have furnished those +Providential models which the great drama of earth required. No. +Haughtily and despotically we say it--No. Take France. _There_ is a +noble nation. We honour it exceedingly for that heroic courage which on +a morning of battle does not measure the strength of the opposition; +which, when an enemy issues from the darkness of a wood, does not stop +to count noses, but like that noblest of animals, the British bull-dog, +flies at his throat, careless whether a leopard, a buffalo, or a tiger +of Bengal. This we vehemently admire. This we feel to be an echo, an +iteration, of our own leonine courage, concerning which--take you note +of this, oh, chicken-hearted man! (if any such is amongst _our_ +readers)--that God sees it with pleasure, blesses it, and calls it 'very +good!' Next, when we come to think at odd times of that other courage, +the courage of fidelity, which stands for hours under the storm of a +cannonade--British courage, Russian courage--in mere sincerity we cannot +ascribe this to the Gaul. All this is true: we feel that the French is +an imperfect nation. But suppose it _not_ imperfect, would the French +therefore have fulfilled for us the mission of the Greek and the Roman? +Undoubtedly they would not. Far enough are we from admiring either Greek +or Roman in that degree to which the ignorance, but oftener the +hypocrisy, of man has ascended. + +We, reader, are misanthropical--intensely so. No luxury known amongst +men--neither the paws of bears nor the tails of sheep--to us is so sweet +and dear as that of hating (yet much oftener of despising) our excellent +fellow-creatures. Oftentimes we exclaim in our dreams, where excuse us +for expressing our multitude by unity, 'Homo sum; humani nihil mihi +tolerandum puto.' We kick backwards at the human race, we spit upon +them; we void our rheum upon their ugly gaberdines. Consequently we do +not love either Greek or Roman; we regard them in some measure as +humbugs. But although it is no cue of ours to admire them (viz., in any +English sense of that word known to Entick's Dictionary), yet in a +Grecian or Roman sense we may say that [Greek: thaumazomen], +_admiramur_, both of these nations: we marvel, we wonder at them +exceedingly. Greece we shall omit, because to talk of the arts, and +Phidias, and Pericles, and '_all that_,' is the surest way yet +discovered by man for tempting a vindictive succession of kicks. Exposed +to the world, no author of such twaddle could long evade assassination. +But Rome is entitled to some separate notice, even after all that has +been written about her. And the more so in this case, because Mr. Finlay +has scarcely done her justice. He says: 'The Romans were a tribe of +warriors. All their institutions, even those relating to property, were +formed with reference to war.' And he then goes on to this invidious +theory of their history--that, as warriors, they overthrew the local +institutions of all Western nations, these nations being found by the +Romans in a state of civilization much inferior to their own. But +eastwards, when conquering Greece, her institutions they did _not_ +overthrow. And what follows from that memorable difference? Why, that in +after days, when hives of barbarians issued from central Europe, all the +Western provinces (as not cemented by any native and home-bred +institutions, but fighting under the harness of an exotic organization) +sank before them; whereas Greece, falling back on the natural resources +of a system self-evolved and _local_, or epichorial in its origin, not +only defied these German barbarians for the moment, but actually after +having her throat cut in a manner rose up magnificently (as did the +Lancashire woman after being murdered by the M'Keans of Dumfries)[16], +staggered along for a considerable distance, and then (as the +Lancashire woman did not) mounted upon skates, and skated away into an +azure infinite of distance (quite forgetting her throat), so as to--do +what? It is really frightful to mention: so as to come safe and sound +into the nineteenth century, leaping into the centre of us all like the +ghost of a patriarch, setting her arms a-kimbo, and crying out: 'Here I +come from a thousand years before Homer.' All this is really true and +undeniable. It is past contradiction, what Mr. Finlay says, that Greece, +having weathered the following peoples, to wit, the Romans; secondly, +the vagabonds who persecuted the Romans for five centuries; thirdly, the +Saracens; fourthly and fifthly, the Ottoman Turks and Venetians; +sixthly, the Latin princes of Constantinople--not to speak seventhly and +eighthly of Albanian or Egyptian Ali Pashas, or ninthly, of Joseph Humes +and Greek loans, is now, viz., in March, 1844, alive and kicking. Think +of a man, reader, at a _soiree_ in the heavenly spring of '44 (for +heavenly it _will_ be), wearing white kid gloves, and descended from +Deucalion or Ogyges! + +Amongst the great changes wrought in every direction by Constantine, it +is not to be supposed that Mr. Finlay could overlook those which applied +a new organization to the army. Rome would not be Rome; even a product +of Rome would not be legitimate; even an offshoot from Rome would be of +suspicious derivation, which _could_ find that great master-wheel of the +state machinery a secondary force in its system. It is wonderful to mark +the martial destiny of all which inherited, or upon any line descended +from Rome in every age of that mighty evolution. War not barbaric, war +exquisitely systematic, war according to the vigour of all science as +yet published to man, was the talisman by which Rome and the children +of Rome prospered: the S.P.Q.R. on the legionary banners was the sign +set in the rubric of the heavens by which the almighty nation, looking +upwards, read her commission from above: and if ever that sign shall +grow pale, then look for the coming of the end, whispered the prophetic +heart of Rome to herself even from the beginning. But are not all great +kingdoms dependent on their armies? No. Some have always been protected +by their remoteness, many by their adjacencies. Germany, in the first +century from Augustus, retreated into her mighty forests when closely +pressed, and in military phrase 'refused herself' to the pursuer. Persia +sheltered herself under the same tactics for ages;[17] scarcely needed +to fight, unless she pleased, and, when she did so, fought in alliance +with famine--with thirst--and with the confusion of pathless deserts. +Other empires, again, are protected by their infinity; America was found +to have no local existence by ourselves: she was nowhere because she was +everywhere. Russia had the same illimitable ubiquity for Napoleon. And +Spain again is so singularly placed with regard to France, a chamber +within a chamber, that she cannot be approached by any power not +maritime except on French permission. Manifold are the defensive +resources of nations beyond those of military systems. But for the Roman +empire, a ring fence around the Mediterranean lake, and hemmed in upon +every quarter of that vast circuit by an _indago_ of martial hunters, +nature and providence had made it the one sole available policy to stand +for ever under arms, eternally 'in procinctu,' and watching from the +specular altitude of her centre upon which radius she should slip her +wolves to the endless circumference. + +Mr. Finlay, in our judgment, not only allows a most disproportionate +weight to vicious taxation, which is but one wheel amongst a vast system +of wheels in the machinery of administration, and which, like many +similar agencies, tends oftentimes to react by many corrections upon its +own derangements; but subsequently he views as through a magnifying +glass even these original exaggerations when measured upon the scale of +moral obligations. Not only does false taxation ruin nations and defeat +the possibility of self-defence--which is much--but it cancels the +duties of allegiance. He tells us (p. 408) that 'amidst the ravages of +the Goths, Huns, and Avars, the imperial tax-gatherers had never failed +to enforce payment of the tribute as long as anything remained +undestroyed; though according to the rules of justice, the Roman +government had really forfeited its right to levy the taxes, as soon as +it failed to perform its duty in defending the population.' We do not +believe that the government succeeded in levying tribute vigorously +under the circumstances supposed; the science and machinery of +administration were far from having realized that degree of exquisite +skill. But, if the government _had_ succeeded, we cannot admit that this +relation of the parties dissolved their connection. To have failed at +any time in defending a province or an outwork against an overwhelming +enemy, _that_ for a prince or for a minister is a great misfortune. +Shocking indeed it were if this misfortune could be lawfully +interpreted as his crime, and made the parent of a second misfortune, +ratifying the first by authorizing revolt of the people; and the more +so, as that first calamity would encourage traitors everywhere to +prepare the way for the second as a means of impunity for their own +treason. In the prospect of escaping at once from the burdens of war, +and from the penalties of broken vows to their sovereign, multitudes +would from the first enter into compromise and collusion with an +invader; and in this way they would create the calamity which they +charged upon their rulers as a desertion; they would create the +embarrassments for their government by which they hoped to profit, and +they would do this with an eye to the reversionary benefit anticipated +under the maxim here set up. True, they would often find their heavy +disappointment in the more grievous yoke of that invader whom they had +aided. But the temptation of a momentary gain would always exist for the +improvident many, if such a maxim were received into the law of nations; +and, if it would not always triumph, we should owe it in that case to +the blessing that God has made nations proud. Even in the case where men +had received a license from public law for deserting their sovereign, +thanks be to the celestial pride which is in man, few and anomalous +would be the instances in which they really _would_ do so. In reality it +must be evident that, under such a rule of Publicists, subjects must +stand in perpetual doubt whether the case had emerged or not which law +contemplated as the dissolution of their fealty. No man would say that a +province was licensed to desert, because the central government had lost +a battle. But a whole campaign, or ten campaigns, would stand in the +same predicament as a solitary battle, so long as the struggle was not +formally renounced by the sovereign. How many years of absolute +abandonment might justify a provincial people in considering themselves +surrendered to their own discretion, is a question standing on the +separate circumstances of each separate case. But generally it may be +said, that a ruler will be presumed justly _not_ to have renounced the +cause of resistance so long as he makes no treaty or compromise with the +enemy, and so long as he desists from open resistance only through +momentary exhaustion, or with a view to more elaborate preparation. +Would ten battles, would a campaign, would ten campaigns lost, furnish +the justifying motive? Certainly it would be a false casuistry that +would say so. + +Why did the Romans conquer the Greeks? By _why_ we mean, Upon what +principle did the children of Romulus overthrow the children of Ion, +Dorus, AEolus? Why did not these overthrow those? We, speak _Latino +more_--Vellem ostenderes quare _hi_ non profligaverint _illos_? The +answer is brief: the Romans were _one_, the Greeks were _many_. Whilst +no weighty pressure from without had assaulted Greece, it was of +particular service to that little rascally system that they were split +into sections more than ever we _have_ counted or mean to count. They +throve by mutual repulsion, according to the ballad: + + When Captain X. kick'd Miss Roe, Miss Roe kick'd Captain X. again.' + +Internally, for pleasant little domestic quarrels, the principle of +division was excellent; because, as often as the balance tended to +degravitation (a word we learned, as Juliet tells her nurse, 'from one +we danc'd withal'), _instanter_ it was redressed and trimmed by some +renegade going over to the suffering side. People talk of Athens being +beaten by the Spartans in the person of Lysander; and the vulgar notion +is, that the Peloponnesian war closed by an eclipse total and central +for our poor friend Athens. Nonsense! she had life left in her to kick +twenty such donkeys to death; and, if you look a very little ahead, +gazettes tell you, that before the peace of Antalcidas, those villains, +the Spartans (whom may heaven confound!) had been licked almost too +cruelly by the Athenians. And there it is that we insist upon closing +that one great intestine[18] war of the Greeks. So of other cases: +absolute defeat, final overthrow, we hold to be impossible for a Grecian +state, as against a Grecian state, under the conditions which existed +from the year 500 B.C. But when a foreign enemy came on, the +possibilities might alter. The foreigner, being one, and for the moment +at least united, would surely have a great advantage over the crowd of +little pestilent villains--right and left--that would be disputing the +policy of the case. There lay the original advantage of the Romans; +_one_ they were, and _one_ they were to the end of Roman time. Did you +ever hear of a Roman, unless it were Sertorius, that fought against +Romans? Whereas, scoundrel Greeks were always fighting against their +countrymen. Xenophon, in Persia, Alexander, seventy years later, met +with their chief enemies in Greeks. We may therefore pronounce with +firmness, that unity was one cause of the Roman superiority. What was +the other? Better military institutions. These, if we should go upon the +plan of rehearsing them, are infinite. But let us confine our view to +the separate mode in each people of combining their troops. In Greece, +the _phalanx_ was the ideal tactical arrangement; for Rome, the +_legion_. Everybody knows that Polybius, a Greek, who fled from the +Peloponnesus to Rome a little before the great Carthaginian war, +terminated by Scipio Africanus, has left a most interesting comparison +between the two forms of tactical arrangement: and, waiving the details, +the upshot is this--that the phalanx was a holiday arrangement, a +tournament arrangement, with respect to which you must suppose an excess +of luck if it could be made available, unless by mutual consent, under a +known possibility of transferring the field of battle to some smooth +bowling-green in the neighbourhood. But, on the other hand, the legion +was available everywhere. The _phalanx_ was like the organ, an +instrument almighty indeed where it can be carried; but it cost eight +hundred years to transfer it from Asia Minor to the court of Charlemagne +(_i.e._, Western Europe), so that it travelled at the rate of two miles +_per annum_; but the _legion_ was like the violin, less terrifically +tumultuous, but more infinite than the organ, whilst it is in a perfect +sense portable. Pitch your camp in darkness, on the next morning +everywhere you will find ground for the _legion_, but for the fastidious +_phalanx_ you need as much choice of ground as for the arena of an opera +stage. + +And the same influence that had tended to keep the Greeks in division, +without a proper unity, operated also to infect the national character +at last with some lack of what may be called self-sufficiency. They were +in their later phases subtle, but compliant, more ready to adapt +themselves to changes than to assert a position and risk all in the +effort to hold it. Hence it came that even the most honourable and +upright amongst a nation far nobler in a moral sense (nobler, for +instance, on the scale of capacity for doing and suffering) never rose +to a sentiment of respect for the ordinary Grecian. The Romans viewed +him as essentially framed for ministerial offices. Am I sick? Come, +Greek, and cure me. Am I weary? Amuse me. Am I diffident of power to +succeed? Cheer me with flattery. Am I issuing from a bath? Shampoo me. + +The point of view under which we contemplate the Romans is one which +cannot be dispensed with in that higher or transcendental study of +history now prompted by the vast ferment of the meditative mind. Oh, +feeble appreciators of the public mind, who can imagine even in dreams +that this generation--self-questioned, agitated, haunted beyond any +other by the elementary problems of our human condition, by the awful +_whence_ and the more awful _whither_, by what the Germans call the +'riddle of the universe,' and oppressed into a rebellious impatience by + + 'The burthen of the mystery + Of all this unintelligible world,' + +--that this, above all generations, is shallow, superficial, unfruitful? +That was a crotchet of the late S. T. Coleridge's; that was a crotchet +of the present W. Wordsworth's, but which we will venture to guess that +he has now somewhat modified since this generation has become just to +himself. No; as to the multitude, in no age can it be other than +superficial. But we do contend, with intolerance and scorn of such +opposition as usually we meet, that the tendencies of this generation +are to the profound; that by all its natural leanings, and even by its +infirmities, it travels upwards on the line of aspiration and downwards +in the direction of the unfathomable. These tendencies had been +awakened and quickened by the vast convulsions that marked the close of +the last century. But war is a condition too restless for sustained +meditation. Even the years _after_ war, if that war had gathered too +abundantly the vintages of tears and tragedy and change, still rock and +undulate with the unsubsiding sympathies which wars such as we have +known cannot but have evoked. Besides that war is by too many issues +connected with the practical; the service of war, by the arts which it +requires, and the burthen of war, by the discussions which it prompts, +almost equally tend to alienate the public mind from the speculation +which looks beyond the interests of social life. But when a new +generation has grown up, when the forest trees of the elder generation +amongst us begin to thicken with the intergrowth of a younger shrubbery +that had been mere ground-plants in the aera of war, _then_ it is, viz., +under the heavenly lull and the silence of a long peace, which in its +very uniformity and the solemnity of its silence has something analogous +to the sublime tranquillity of a Zaarrah, that minds formed for the +great inquests of meditation--feeling dimly the great strife which they +did not witness, and feeling it the more deeply because for _them_ an +idealized retrospect, and a retrospect besides being potently contrasted +so deeply with the existing atmosphere, peaceful as if it had never +known a storm--are stimulated preternaturally to those obstinate +questionings which belong of necessity to a complex state of society, +turning up vast phases of human suffering under all varieties, phases +which, having issued from a chaos of agitation, carry with them too +certain a promise of sooner or later revolving into a chaos of equal +sadness, universal strife. It is the relation of the immediate isthmus +on which we stand ourselves to a past and (prophetically speaking) to a +coming world of calamity, the relation of the smiling and halcyon calm +which we have inherited to that darkness and anarchy out of which it +arose, and towards which too gloomily we augur its return--this relation +it is which enforces the other impulses, whether many or few, connecting +our own transitional stage of society with objects always of the same +interest for man, but not felt to be of the same interest. The sun, the +moon, and still more the starry heavens alien to our own peculiar +system--what a different importance in different ages have they had for +man! To man armed with science and glasses, labyrinths of anxiety and +study; to man ignorant or barbarous less interesting than glittering +points of dew. At present those 'other impulses,' which the permanent +condition of modern society, so multitudinous and feverish, adds to the +meditative impulses of our particular and casual condition as respects a +terrific revolutionary war, are _not_ few, but many, and are all in one +direction, all favouring, none thwarting, the solemn fascinations by +which with spells and witchcraft the shadowy nature of man binds him +down to look for ever into this dim abyss. The earth, whom with +sublimity so awful the poet apostrophized after Waterloo, as 'perturbed' +and restless exceedingly, whom with a harp so melodious and beseeching +he adjured to rest--and again to rest from instincts of war so deep, +haunting the very rivers with blood, and slumbering not through +three-and-twenty years of woe--is again unsealed from slumber by the +mere reaction of the mighty past working together with the too probable +future and with the co-agencies from the unintelligible present. The +fervour and the strife of human thought is but the more subtle for +being less derived from immediate action, and more so from hieroglyphic +mysteries or doubts concealed in the very shows of life. The centres of +civilization seethe, as it were, and are ebullient with the agitation of +the self-questioning heart. + +The fervour is universal; the tumult of intellectual man, self-tormented +with unfathomable questions, is contagious everywhere. And both from +what we know, it might be perceived _a priori_, and from what we see, it +may be known experimentally, that never was the mind of man roused into +activity so intense and almost morbid as in this particular stage of our +progress. And it has added enormously to this result--that it is +redoubled by our own consciousness of our own state so powerfully +enforced by modern inventions, whilst the consciousness again is +reverberated from a secondary mode of consciousness. All studies +prosper; all, with rare exceptions, are advancing only too impetuously. +Talent of every order is almost become a weed amongst us. + +But this would be a most unreasonable ground for charging it upon our +time and country that they are unprogressive and commonplace. Nay, +rather, it is a ground for regarding the soil as more prepared for the +seed that is sown broadcast. And before our England lies an ample +possibility--to outstrip even Rome itself in the extent and the grandeur +of an empire, based on principles of progress and cohesion such as Rome +never knew. + + +FURTHER NOTES FOR ARTICLE ON MR. FINLAY'S HISTORY. + +_Civilization._--Now about prisoners, strange as this may seem, it +really is not settled whether and how far it is the duty in point of +honour and reasonable forbearance to make prisoners. At Quatre Bras very +few were made by the French, and the bitterness, the frenzy of hatred +which this marked, led of necessity to a reaction. + +But the strangest thing of all is this, that in a matter of such a +nature it should be open to doubt and mystery whether it is or is not +contradictory, absurd, and cancellatory or obligatory to make prisoners. +Look here, the Tartars in the Christian war, not from cruelty--at least, +no such thing is proved--but from mere coercion of what they regarded as +good sense the Tartars thought it all a blank contradiction to take and +not kill enemies. It seemed equal to taking a tiger laboriously and at +much risk in a net, then next day letting him go. Strange it is to say, +but it really requires an express experience to show the true practical +working of the case, and this demonstrates (inconceivable as that would +have been to the Tartars) that the capture is quite equal (quoad damage +to the enemy) to the killing. + +(1.) As to durability, was it so? The Arabs were not strong except +against those who were peculiarly weak; and even in Turkey the Christian +Rajah predominates. + +(2.) As to bigotry and principles of toleration Mr. Finlay says--and we +do not deny that he is right in saying--they arose in the latter stages. +This, however, was only from policy, because it was not safe to be so; +and repressed only from caution. + +(3) About the impetuosity of the Arab assaults. Not what people think. + +(4.) About the permanence or continuance of this Mahometan system--we +confound the religious system with the political. The religious movement +engrafted itself on other nations, translated and inoculated itself upon +other political systems, and thus, viz., as a principle travelling +through or along new machineries, propagated itself. But here is a deep +delusion. What should we Europeans think of an Oriental historian who +should talk of the Christians amongst the Germans, English, French, +Spaniards, as a separate and independent nation? My friend, we should +say, you mistake that matter. The Christians are not a local tribe +having an insulated local situation amongst Germans, French, etc. The +Christians _are_ the English, Germans, etc., or the English, Germans, +French, _are_ the Christians. So do many readers confer upon the Moslems +or Mahometans of history a separate and independent unity. + +(_a_) Greek administration had a vicarious support. + +(_b_) Incapacity of Eastern nations to establish primogeniture. + +(_c_) Incapacity of Eastern nations to be progressive. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[12] '_Lackington's counter_': Lackington, an extensive seller of old +books and a Methodist (see his _Confessions_) in London, viz., at the +corner of Finsbury Square, about the time of the French Revolution, +feeling painfully that this event drew more attention than himself, +resolved to turn the scale in his own favour by a _ruse_ somewhat +unfair. The French Revolution had no counter; he _had_, it was circular, +and corresponded to a lighted dome above. Round the counter on a summer +evening, like Phaeton round the world, the Edinburgh, the Glasgow, the +Holyhead, the Bristol, the Exeter, and the Salisbury Royal Mails, all +their passengers on board, and canvas spread, swept in, swept round, and +swept out at full gallop; the proximate object being to publish the +grandeur of his premises, the ultimate object to publish himself. + +[13] 'Dependent upon _physical_ circumstances,' and, amongst those +physical circumstances, intensely upon climate. The Jewish ordinances, +multiplied and burthensome as they must have been found under any +mitigations, have proved the awfulness (if we may so phrase it) of the +original projectile force which launched them by continuing to revolve, +and to propagate their controlling functions through forty centuries +under all latitudes to which any mode of civilization has reached. But +the _Greek_ machineries of social life were absolutely and essentially +limited by nature to a Grecian latitude. Already from the earliest +stages of their infancy the Greek cities or rural settlements in the +Tauric Chersonese, and along the shores (Northern and Eastern) of the +Black Sea, had been obliged to unrobe themselves of their native Grecian +costumes in a degree which materially disturbed the power of the Grecian +literature as an influence for the popular mind. This effect of a new +climate to modify the influence of a religion or the character of a +literature is noticed by Mr. Finlay. Temples open to the heavens, +theatres for noonday light and large enough for receiving 30,000 +citizens--these could no longer be transplanted from sunny regions of +Hymettus to the churlish atmospheres which overcast with gloom so +perpetual poor Ovid's sketches of his exile. Cherson, it is true, in the +Tauric Chersonese, survived down to the middle of the tenth century; so +much is certain from the evidence of a Byzantine emperor; and Mr. Finlay +is disposed to think that this famous little colonial state retained her +Greek 'municipal organization.' If this could be proved, it would be a +very interesting fact; it is, at any rate, interesting to see this saucy +little outpost of Greek civilization mounting guard, as it were, at so +great a distance from the bulwark of Christianity (the city of +Constantine), under whose mighty shadow she had so long been sheltered, +and maintaining _by whatever means_ her own independence. But, if her +municipal institutions were truly and permanently Greek, then it would +be a fair inference that to a Grecian mechanism of society she had been +indebted for her Grecian tenacity of life. And this is Mr. Finlay's +inference. Otherwise, and for our own parts, we should be inclined to +charge her long tenure of independence upon her strong situation, +rendered for _her_ a thousand times stronger by the two facts of her +commerce in the first place, and secondly, of her commerce being +maritime. Shipping and trade seem to us the two anchors by which she +rode. + +[14] 'Nook-shotten,' an epithet applied by Shakspeare to England. + +[15] Christianity is a force of unity. But was Paganism such? No. To be +idolatrous is no bond of union. + +[16] See Murder as one of the Fine Arts. (Postscript in 1854.) + +[17] '_Under the same tactics_'--the tactics of 'refusing' her columns +to the enemy. On this subject we want an elaborate memoir +historico-geographical revising every stage of the Roman warfare in +Pers-Armenia, from Crassus and Ventidius down to Heraclius--a range of +six and a half centuries; and specifically explaining why it was that +almost always the Romans found it mere destruction to attempt a passage +much beyond the Tigris or into central Persia, whilst so soon after +Heraclius the immediate successors of Mahomet overflowed Persia like a +deluge. + +[18] 'Intestine war.' Many writers call the Peloponnesian war (by the +way, a very false designation) the great _civil_ war of Greece. +'Civil'!--it might have been such, had the Grecian states had a central +organ which claimed a common obedience. + + + + +_III. THE ASSASSINATION OF CAESAR._ + + +The assassination of Caesar, we find characterized in one of his latter +works (_Farbenlehre_, Theil 2, p. 126) by Goethe, as '_die +abgeschmackteste That die jemals begangen worden_'--_the most +outrageously absurd act that ever was committed_. Goethe is right, and +more than right. For not only was it an atrocity so absolutely without a +purpose as never to have been examined by one single conspirator with a +view to its probable tendencies--in that sense therefore it was absurd +as pointing to no result--but also in its immediate arrangements and +precautions it had been framed so negligently, with a carelessness so +total as to the natural rebounds and reflex effects of such a tragic +act, that the conspirators had neither organized any resources for +improving their act, nor for securing their own persons from the first +blind motions of panic, nor even for establishing a common rendezvous. +When they had executed their valiant exploit, the very possibility of +which from the first step to the last they owed to the sublime +magnanimity of their victim--well knowing his own continual danger, but +refusing to evade it by any arts of tyranny or distrust--when they had +gone through their little scenic mummery of swaggering with their +daggers--cutting '5,' '6' and 'St. George,' and 'giving point'--they had +come to the end of the play. _Exeunt omnes: vos plaudite_. Not a step +further had they projected. And, staring wildly upon each other, they +began to mutter, 'Well, what are you up to next?' We believe that no act +so thoroughly womanish, that is, moving under a blind impulse without a +thought of consequences, without a concerted succession of steps, and no +_arriere pensee_ as to its final improvement, ever yet had a place or +rating in the books of Conspiracy, far less was attended (as by accident +this was) with an equipage of earth-shattering changes. Even the poor +deluded followers of the Old Mountain Assassin, though drugged with +bewildering potions, such men as Sir Walter Scott describes in the +person of that little wily fanatic gambolling before the tent of Richard +_Coeur-de-lion_, had always settled which way they would run when the +work was finished. And how peculiarly this reach of foresight was +required for these anti-Julian conspirators--will appear from one fact. +Is the reader aware, were these boyish men aware, that--besides, what we +all know from Shakespeare, a mob won to Caesar's side by his very last +codicils of his will; besides a crowd of public magistrates and +dependents charged upon the provinces, etc., for two years deep by +Caesar's act, though in requital of no services or attachment to himself; +besides a distinct Caesarian party; finally, besides Antony, the express +representative and assignee of Caesar, armed at this moment with the +powers of Consul--there was over and above a great military officer of +Caesar's (Lentulus), then by accident in Rome, holding a most potent +government through the mere favour of Caesar, and pledged therefore by an +instant interest of self-promotion, backed by a large number of Julian +troops at that instant billeted on a suburb of Rome--veterans, and +fierce fellows that would have cut their own fathers' throats 'as soon +as say dumpling' (see Lucan's account of them in Caesar's harangue before +Pharsalia)? Every man of sense would have predicted ruin to the +conspirators. '_You'll tickle it for your concupy_' (Thersites in 'Troil +and Cress.') would have been the word of every rational creature to +these wretches when trembling from their tremulous act, and reeking from +their bloody ingratitude. For most remarkable it is that not one +conspirator but was personally indebted to Caesar for eminent favours; +and many among them had even received that life from their victim which +they employed in filching away _his_. Yet after that feature of the +case, so notorious as it soon became, historians and biographers are all +ready to notice of the centurion who amputated Cicero's head that, he +had once been defended by Cicero. What if he had, which is more than we +know--must _that_ operate as a perpetual retaining fee on Cicero's +behalf? Put the case that we found ourselves armed with a commission (no +matter whence emanating) for abscinding the head of Mr. Adolphus who now +pleads with so much lustre at the general jail delivery of London and +Middlesex, or the head of Mr. Serjeant Wild, must it bar our claim that +once Mr. Adolphus had defended us on a charge of sheep-stealing, or that +the Serjeant had gone down 'special' in our cause to York? Very well, +but doubtless they had their fees. 'Oh, but Cicero could not receive +fees by law.' Certainly not by law; but by custom many _did_ receive +them at dusk through some postern gate in the shape of a huge cheese, or +a guinea-pig. And, if the 'special retainer' from Popilius Laenas is +somewhat of the doubtfullest, so is the 'pleading' on the part of +Cicero. + +However, it is not impossible but some will see in this desperate game +of hazard a sort of courage on the part of the conspirators which may +redeem their knavery. But the courage of desperation is seldom genuine, +and least of all where the desperation itself was uncalled for. Yet even +this sort of merit the conspirators wanted. The most urgent part of the +danger was that which in all probability they had not heard of, viz., +the casual presence at Rome of Julian soldiers. Pursuing no inquiries at +all, they would hear not; practising no caution, they would keep no +secret. The plot had often been betrayed, we will swear: but Caesar and +Caesar's friends would look upon all such stories as the mere expressions +of a permanent case, so much inevitable exposure on _their_ part--so +much possibility of advantage redounding to the other side. And out of +these naked possibilities, as some temptation would continually arise to +use them profitably, much more would arise to use them as delightful +offsets to the sense of security and power. + + [Mommsen is more at one with De Quincey here than Merivale, + who, at p. 478, vol. ii., writes: 'We learn with pleasure + that the conspirators did not venture even to sound Cicero'; + but at vol. iii., p. 9, he has these significant words: + 'Cicero, himself, we must believe, was not ashamed to lament + the scruples which had denied him initiation into the plot.' + Forsyth writes of Cicero's views: 'He was more than ever + convinced of the want of foresight shown by the + conspirators. Their deed, he said, was the deed of men, + their counsels were the counsels of children,' 'Life of + Cicero,' 3rd edition, pp. 435-6.--ED.] + + + + +_IV. CICERO (SUPPLEMENTARY TO PUBLISHED ESSAY)._ + + +Some little official secrets we learn from the correspondence of Cicero +as Proconsul of Cilicia.[19] And it surprises us greatly to find a man, +so eminently wise in his own case, suddenly turning romantic on behalf +of a friend. How came it--that he or any man of the world should fancy +any substance or reality in the public enthusiasm for one whose +character belonged to a past generation? Nine out of ten amongst the +Campanians must have been children when Pompey's name was identified +with national trophies. For many years Pompey had done nothing to +sustain or to revive his obsolete reputation. Capua or other great towns +knew him only as a great proprietor. And let us ask this one searching +question--Was the poor spirit-broken insolvent, a character now so +extensively prevailing in Italian society, likely to sympathize more +heartily with the lordly oligarch fighting only for the exclusive +privileges of his own narrow order, or with the great reformer who +amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was +well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the +hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen, +crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations, +could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators +panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he +beheld--taking the field on the opposite quarter--one, the greatest of +men, who spoke authentically to all classes alike, authorizing all to +hope and to draw their breath in freedom under that general recast of +Roman society which had now become inevitable! As between such +competitors, which way would the popularity be likely to flow? Naturally +the mere merits of the competition were decisive of the public opinion, +although the petty aristocracy of the provincial boroughs availed +locally to stifle those tumultuous acclamations which would else have +gathered about the name of Caesar. But enough transpired to show which +way the current was setting. Cicero does not dissemble that. He +acknowledges that all men's hopes turned towards Caesar. And Pompey, who +was much more forced into towns and public scenes, had even less +opportunity for deceiving himself. He, who had fancied all Campania +streaming with incense to heaven on his own personal account, now made +the misanthropical discovery--not only that all was hollow, and that his +own name was held in no esteem--but absolutely that the barrier to any +hope of popularity for himself was that very man whom, on other and +previous grounds, he had for some time viewed as his own capital +antagonist. + +Here then, in this schism of the public affections, and in the +mortifying discovery so abruptly made by Pompey, lay the bitter affront +which he could not digest--the injury which he purposed to avenge. What +barbed this injury to his feelings, what prepared him for exhausting +its bitterness, was the profound delusion in which he had been +previously laid asleep by flattering friends--the perfect faith in his +own uniform popularity. And now, in the very teeth of all current +representations, we advance this proposition: That the quality of his +meditated revenge and its horrid extent were what originally unveiled to +Cicero's eyes the true character of Pompey and his partisans. + + * * * * * + +The last letter of the sixth book is written from Athens, which city, +after a voyage of about a fortnight, Cicero reached precisely in the +middle of October, having sailed out of Ephesus on the 1st. He there +found a letter from Atticus, dated from Rome on the 18th of September; +and his answer, which was 'by return of post,' closes with these words: +'Mind that you keep your promise of writing to me fully about my darling +Tullia,' which means of course about her new husband Dolabella; next +about the Commonwealth, which by this time I calculate must be entering +upon its agony; and then about the Censors, etc. Hearken: 'This letter +is dated on the 16th of October; that day on which, by your account, +Caesar is to reach Placentia with four legions. What, I ask myself for +ever, is to become of us? My own situation at this moment, which is in +the Acropolis of Athens, best meets my idea of what is prudent under the +circumstances.' + +Well it would have been for Cicero's peace of mind if he could seriously +have reconciled himself to abide by that specular station. Had he +pleaded ill-health, he might have done so with decorum. As it was, +thinking his dignity concerned in not absenting himself from the public +councils at a season so critical, after a few weeks' repose he sailed +forward to Italy, which he reached on the 23rd of November. And with +what result? Simply to leave it again with difficulty and by stratagem, +after a winter passed in one continued contest with the follies of his +friends, nothing done to meet his own sense of the energy required, +every advantage forfeited as it arose, ruined in the feeble execution, +individual activity squandered for want of plan, and (as Cicero +discovered in the end) a principle of despair, and _the secret reserve +of a flight operating_ upon the leaders _from the very beginning_. The +key to all this is obvious for those who read with their eyes awake. +Pompey and the other consular leaders were ruined for action by age and +by the derangement of their digestive organs. Eating too much and too +luxuriously is far more destructive to the energies of action than +intemperance as to drink. Women everywhere alike are temperate as to +eating; and the only females memorable for ill-health from luxurious +eating have been Frenchwomen or Belgians--witness the Duchess of +Portsmouth, and many others of the two last centuries whom we could +name. But men everywhere commit excesses in this respect, if they have +it in their power. With the Roman nobles it was almost a necessity to do +so. Could any popular man evade the necessity of keeping a splendid +dinner-table? And is there one man in a thousand who can sit at a festal +board laden with all the delicacies of remotest climates, and continue +to practise an abstinence for which he is not sure of any reward? All +his abstinence may be defeated by a premature fate, and in the meantime +he is told, with some show of reason, that a life defrauded of its +genial enjoyments is _not_ life, is at all events a present loss, whilst +the remuneration is doubtful, except where there happen to be powerful +intellectual activities to reap an _instant_ benefit from such +sacrifices. Certainly it is the last extremity of impertinence to attack +men's habits in this respect. No man, we may be assured, has ever yet +practised any true self-denial in such a case, or ever will. Either he +has been trained under a wholesome poverty to those habits which +intercept the very development of a taste for luxuries, which evade the +very possibility therefore of any; or if this taste has once formed +itself, he would find it as impossible in this as in any other case to +maintain a fight with a temptation recurring _daily_. Pompey certainly +could not. He was of a slow, torpid nature through life; required a +continual supply of animal stimulation, and, if he had _not_ required +it, was assuredly little framed by nature for standing out against an +_artificial_ battery of temptation. There is proof extant that his +system was giving way under the action of daily dinners. Cicero mentions +the fact of his suffering from an annual illness; what may be called the +_etesian_ counter-current from his intemperance. Probably the liver was +enlarged, and the pylorus was certainly not healthy. Cicero himself was +not free from dyspeptic symptoms. If he had survived the Triumvirate, he +would have died within seven years from some disease of the intestinal +canal. Atticus, we suspect, was troubled with worms. Locke, indeed, than +whom no man ever less was acquainted with Greek or Roman life, pretends +that the ancients seldom used a pocket-handkerchief; knew little of +catarrhs, and even less of what the French consider indigenous to this +rainy island--_le catch-cold_. Nothing can be more unfounded. Locke was +bred a physician, but his practice had been none; himself and the cat +were his chief patients. Else we, who are no physicians, would wish to +ask him--what meant those continual _febriculae_ to which all Romans of +rank were subject? What meant that _fluenter lippire_, a symptom so +troublesome to Cicero's eyes, and always arguing a functional, if not +even an organic, derangement of the stomach? Take this rule from us, +that wherever the pure white of the eye is clouded, or is veined with +red streaks, or wherever a continual weeping moistens the eyelashes, +there the digestive organs are touched with some morbid affection, +probably in it's early stages; as also that the inferior viscera, _not_ +the stomach, must be slightly disordered before toothache _can_ be an +obstinate affection. And as to _le catch-cold_, the-most dangerous shape +in which it has ever been known, resembling the English _cholera +morbus_, belongs to the modern city of Rome from situation; and probably +therefore to the ancient city from the same cause. Pompey, beyond all +doubt, was a wreck when he commenced the struggle. + +Struggle, conflict, for a man who needed to be in his bed! And struggle +with whom? With that man whom his very enemies viewed as a monster +([Greek: teras] is Cicero's own word), as preternaturally endowed, in +this quality of working power. But how then is it consistent with our +view of Roman dinners, that Caesar should have escaped the universal +scourge? We reply, that one man is often stronger than another; every +man is stronger in some one organ; and secondly, Caesar had lived away +from Rome through the major part of the last ten years; and thirdly, the +fact that Caesar _had_ escaped the contagion of dinner luxury, however it +may be accounted for, is attested in the way of an exception to the +general order of experience, and with such a degree of astonishment, as +at once to prove the general maxim we have asserted, and the special +exemption in favour of Caesar. He _only_, said Cato, he, as a +contradiction to all precedents--to the Gracchi, to Marius, to Cinna, to +Sylla, to Catiline--had come in a state of temperance (_sobrius_) to the +destruction of the state; not meaning to indicate mere superiority to +wine, but to _all_ modes of voluptuous enjoyment. Caesar practised, it is +true, a refined epicureanism under the guidance of Greek physicians, as +in the case of his emetics; but this was by way of evading any gross +effects from a day of inevitable indulgence, not by way of aiding them. +Besides, Pompey and Cicero were about seven years older than Caesar. They +stood upon the threshold of their sixtieth year at the _opening_ of the +struggle; Caesar was a hale young man of fifty-two. And we all know that +Napoleon at forty-two was incapacitated for Borodino by incipient +disease of the stomach; so that from that day he, though junior by +seventeen years to Pompey, yet from Pompey's self-indulgence (not +certainly in splendid sensuality, but in the gross modes belonging to +his obscure youth) was pronounced by all the judicious, superannuated as +regarded the indispensable activity of martial habits. If he cannot face +the toils of military command, said his officers, why does he not +retire? Why does he not make room for others? Neither was the campaign +of 1813 or 1814 any refutation of this. Infinite are the cases in which +the interests of nations or of armies have suffered through the dyspepsy +of those who administered them. And above all nations the Romans laid +themselves open to this order of injuries from a dangerous oversight in +their constitutional arrangements, which placed legal bars on the +youthful side of all public offices, but none on the aged side. Of all +nations the Romans had been most indebted to men emphatically young; of +all nations they, by theory, most exclusively sanctioned the pretensions +of old ones. Not before forty-three could a man stand for the +consulship; and we have just noticed a case where a man of pestilent +activity in our own times had already become dyspeptically incapable of +command at forty-two. Besides, after laying down his civil office +(which, by itself, was often in the van of martial perils), the consul +had to pass into some province as military leader, with the prospect by +possibility of many years' campaigning. It is true that some men far +anticipated the legal age in assuming offices, honours, privileges. But +this, being always by infraction of fundamental laws, was no subject of +rejoicing to a patriotic Roman. And the Roman folly at this very crisis, +in trusting one side of the quarrel to an elderly, lethargic invalid, +subject to an annual struggle for his life, was appropriately punished +by that catastrophe which six years after threw them into the hands of a +schoolboy. + +Yet on the other hand it may be asked, by those who carry the proper +spirit of jealousy into their historical reading, was Cicero always +right in these angry comments upon Pompey's strategies? Might it not be, +that where Cicero saw nothing but groundless procrastination, in reality +the obstacle lay in some overwhelming advantage of Caesar's? That, where +his reports to Atticus read the signs of the time into the mere panic of +a Pompey, some more impartial report would see nothing to wonder at but +the overcharged expectations of a Cicero? Sometimes undoubtedly this is +the plain truth. Pompey's disadvantages were considerable; he had no +troops upon which he could rely; that part which had seen service +happened to be a detachment from Caesar's army, sent home as a pledge for +his civic intentions at an earlier period, and their affection was still +lively to their original leader. The rest were raw levies. And it is a +remarkable fact, that the insufficiency of such troops was only now +becoming matter of notoriety. In foreign service, where the Roman +recruits were incorporated with veterans, as the natives in our Eastern +army, with a small proportion of British to steady them, they often +behaved well, and especially because they seldom acted against an enemy +that was not as raw as themselves. But now, in civil service against +their own legions, it was found that the mere novice was worth nothing +at all; a fact which had not been fully brought out in the strife of +Marius and Sylla, where Pompey had himself played a conspicuous and +cruel part, from the tumultuary nature of the contest; besides which the +old legions were then by accident as much concentrated on Italian ground +as now they were dispersed in transmarine provinces. Of the present +Roman army, ten legions at least were scattered over Macedonia, Achaia, +Cilicia, and Syria; five were in Spain; and six were with Caesar, or +coming up from the rear. To say nothing of the forces locked up in +Sicily, Africa, Numidia, etc. It was held quite unadvisable by Pompey's +party to strip the distant provinces of their troops, or the great +provincial cities of their garrisons. All these were accounted as so +many reversionary chances against Caesar. But certainly a bolder game was +likely to have prospered better; had large drafts from all these distant +armies been ordered home, even Caesar's talents might have been +perplexed, and his immediate policy must have been so far baffled as to +force him back upon Transalpine Gaul. Yet if such a plan were eligible, +it does not appear that Cicero had ever thought of it; and certainly it +was not Pompey, amongst so many senatorial heads, who could be blamed +for neglecting it. Neglect he did; but Pompey had the powers of a +commander-in-chief for the immediate arrangements; but in the general +scheme of the war he, whose game was to call himself the servant of the +Senate, counted but for one amongst many concurrent authorities. +Combining therefore his limited authority with his defective materials, +we cannot go along with Cicero in the whole bitterness of his censure. +The fact is, no cautious scheme whatever, no practicable scheme could +have kept pace with Cicero's burning hatred to Caesar. 'Forward, forward! +crush the monster; stone him, stab him, hurl him into the sea!' This was +the war-song of Cicero for ever; and men like Domitius, who shared in +his hatreds, as well as in his unseasonable temerity, by precipitating +upon Caesar troops that were unqualified for the contest, lost the very +_elite_ of the Italian army at Corfinium; and such men were soon found +to have been embarked upon the ludicrous enterprise of 'catching a +Tartar;' following and seeking those + + 'Quos opimus + Fallere et effugere est triumphus.' + + +ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR CICERO. + + +I. + +Bribery was it? which had been so organized as the sole means of +succeeding at elections, and which, once rendered necessary as the organ +of assertion for each man's birthright, became legitimate; in which +Cicero himself declared privately that there was '[Greek: exoche] in +nullo,' no sort of pre-eminence, one as bad as another, _pecunia +exaequet omnium dignitatem_. Money was the universal leveller. Was it +gladiators bought for fighting with? These were bought by his friend +Milo as well as his enemy Clodius, by Sextus Pompey on one side as much +as by Caesar on the other. Was it neglect of _obnunciatio_? And so far as +regards treating, Cicero himself publicly justified it against the +miserable theatrical Cato. How ridiculous to urge that against a popular +man as a crime, when it was sometimes enjoined by the Senate with +menaces as a duty! Was it the attacking all obnoxious citizens' houses? +That was done by one side quite as much as by the other, and signifies +little, for the attack always fell on some leading man in wealth; and +such a man's house was a fortress. Was it accepting provinces from the +people? Cicero would persuade us that this was an unheard of crime in +Clodius. But how came it that so many others did the same thing? Nay, +that the Senate abetted them in doing it; saying to such a person, 'Oh, +X., we perceive that you have extorted from the people.' + + +II. + +Then his being recalled; what if a man should say that his nephew was +for it, and all his little nieces, not to mention his creditors? The +Senate were for it. But why not? Had the Senate exiled him? And, +besides, he was their agent. + + +III. + +It was 'an impious bargain' are the words of Middleton, and Deiotarus +who broke it was a prince of noble character. What was he noble for? We +never heard of anything very noble that he did; and we doubt whether Dr. +Conyers knew more about him than we. But we happen to know why he calls +him noble. Cicero, who long afterwards came to know this king personally +and gave him a good dinner, says now upon hearsay (for he had then never +been near him, and could have no accounts of him but from the wretched +Quintus) that _in eo multa regia fuerunt_. Why yes, amputating heads was +in those parts a very regal act. But what he chiefly had in his eye, +comes out immediately after. Speaking to Clodius, he says that the visit +of this king was so bright, _maxime quod tibi nullum nummum dedit_. + + +IV. + +Wicked Middleton says that Cicero followed his conscience in following +Pompey and the cause approved by what in the odious slang of his own +days he calls 'the honest men.' But be it known unto him that he tells a +foul falsehood. He followed his personal gratitude. This he is careful +to say over and over again. Some months before he had followed what he +deemed the cause of the Commonwealth and of the _boni_. The _boni_ were +vanished, he sought them and found only a heap of selfish nobles, half +crazy with fear and half crazy with pride. These were gone, but Pompey +the man remained that he clung to. And in his heart of hearts was +another feeling--hatred to Caesar. + + +V. + +403. 'Cicero had only stept aside' was the technical phrase for lurking +from creditors. So Bishop Burnet of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, it was +thought he might have stept aside for debt. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[19] Cicero entered on the office of Proconsul of Cilicia on the last +day of July, 703 A.U.C.; he resigned it on the last day but one of July, +704.--ED. + + + + +_V. MEMORIAL CHRONOLOGY._ + + +I. _The Main Subject Opened._ What is Chronology, and how am I to teach +it? The _what_ is poorly appreciated, and chiefly through the defects of +the _how_. Because it is so ill-taught, therefore in part it is that +Chronology is so unattractive and degraded. Chronology is represented to +be the handmaid of history. But unless the machinery for exhibiting this +is judicious, the functions, by being obscured, absolutely lose all +their value, flexibility, and attraction. Chronology is not meant only +to enable us to refer each event to its own particular era--that may be +but trivial knowledge, of little value and of slight significance in its +application; but chronology has higher functions. It teaches not only +when A happened, but also with what other events, B, C, or D, it was +associated. It may be little to know that B happened 500 years before +Christ, but it may be a most important fact that A and B happened +concurrently with D, that both B and D were prepared by X, and that +through their concurrent operation arose the ultimate possibility of Z. +The mere coincidences or consecutions, mere accidents of simultaneity or +succession, of precession or succession, maybe less than nothing. But +the co-operation towards a common result, or the relation backwards to a +common cause, may be so important as to make the entire difference +between a story book, on the one hand, and a philosophic history, on the +other, of man as a creature. + +History is not an anarchy; man is not an accident. The very motions of +the heavenly bodies for many a century were thought blind and without +law. Now we have advanced so far into the light as to perceive the +elaborate principles of their order, the original reason of their +appearing, the stupendous equipoise of their attraction and repulsion, +the divine artifice of their compensations, the original ground of their +apparent disorder, the enormous system of their reactions, the almost +infinite intricacy of their movements. In these very anomalies lies the +principle of their order. A curve is long in showing its elements of +fluxion; we must watch long in order to compute them; we must wait in +order to know the law of their relations and the music of the deep +mathematical principles which they obey. A piece of music, again, from +the great hand of Mozart or Beethoven, which seems a mere anarchy to the +dull, material mind, to the ear which is instructed by a deep +sensibility reveals a law of controlling power, determining its +movements, its actions and reactions, such as cannot be altogether +hidden, even when as yet it is but dimly perceived. + +So it is in history, though the area of its interest is yet wider, and +the depths to which it reaches more profound; all its contradictory +phenomena move under one embracing law, and all its contraries shall +finally be solved in the clear perception of this law. + + * * * * * + +Reading and study ill-conducted run to waste, and all reading and study +are ill-conducted which do not plant the result as well as the fact or +date in the memory. With no form of knowledge is this more frequently +the case than with history. Such is the ill-arranged way of telling all +stories, and so perfectly without organization is the record of history, +that of what is of little significance there is much, and of what is of +deep and permanent signification there is little or nothing. + +The first step in breaking ground upon this almost impracticable +subject, is--to show the student a true map of the field in which his +labours are to lie. Most people have a vague preconception, peopling the +fancy with innumerable shadows, of some vast wilderness or Bilidulgerid +of trackless time, over which are strewed the wrecks of events without +order, and persons without limit. _Omne ignotum_, says Tacitus, _pro +magnifico_; that is, everything which lies amongst the shades and +darkness of the indefinite, and everything which is in the last degree +confused, seems infinite. But the gloom of uncertainty seems far greater +than it really is. + +One short distribution and circumscription of historical ages will soon +place matters in a more hopeful aspect. Fabulous history ceases, and +authentic history commences, just three-quarters of a millennium before +Jesus Christ; that is, just 750 years. Let us call this space of time, +viz., the whole interval from the year 750 B.C. up to the Incarnation of +Christ, the first chamber of history. I do not mean that precisely 750 +years before our Saviour's birth, fabulous and mythological history +started like some guilty thing at the sound of a cock-crowing, and +vanished as with the sound of harpies' wings. It vanished as the natural +darkness of night vanishes. A stealthy twilight first began to divide +and give shape to the formless shadows: what previously had been one +blank mass of darkness began to break into separate forms: outlines +became perceptible, groups of figures started forward into relief; chaos +began to shape and organize its gloomy masses. Next, and by degrees, +came on the earliest dawn. This ripened imperceptibly into a rosy aurora +that gave notice of some mightier power approaching. And at length, but +not until the age of Cyrus, five centuries and a half before Christ, +precisely one century later, the golden daylight of authentic history +sprang above the horizon and was finally established. Since that time, +whatever want of light we may have to lament is due to the _loss_ of +records, not to their original _absence_; due to the victorious +destructions of time, not[20] to the error of the human mind confounding +the provinces of Fable and of History. + +Let the first chamber of history therefore be that which stretches from +the year 750 B.C. to the era of His Incarnation. I say 750 for the +present, because it would be quite idle, in dealing with intervals of +time so vast, to take notice of any little excess or defect by which the +actual period differed from the ideal; strictly speaking, the period of +authentic history commences sixteen or seventeen years earlier. But for +the present let us say in round numbers that this period commenced 750 +years B.C. And let the first chamber of history be of that duration. + +B. Next let us take an equal space _after_ Christ. This will be the +second chamber of history. Starting from the birth of our Saviour, it +will terminate in the middle of the eighth century, or in the early +years of Charlemagne. These surely are most remarkable eras. + +C. Then passing for the present without explanation to the year 1100 for +the first Crusade, let us there fix one foot of our 'golden compasses,' +and with the other mark off an equal period of 750 years. This carries +us up nearly to the reign of George III, of England. And this will be +the third great chamber of history. + +D. Fourthly, there will now remain a period just equal to one-half of +such a chamber, viz.: 350 years between Charlemagne's cradle and the +first Crusade, the terminal era of the second chamber and the inaugural +era of the third. This we will call the ante-chamber of No. 3. + +Now, upon reviewing these chambers and antechambers, the first important +remark for the student is, that the second chamber is nearly empty of +all incidents. Take away the migrations and invasions of the several +Northern nations who overran the Western Empire, broke it up, and laid +the foundations of the great nations of Christendom--England, France, +Spain--and take away the rise of Mahommedanism, and there would remain +scarcely anything memorable. + +From all this we draw the following inference: that memory is, in +certain cases, connected with great effort, in others, with no effort at +all. Of one class we may say, that the facts absolutely deposit +themselves in the memory; they settle in our memories as a sediment or +deposition from a liquor settles in a glass; of another we may say that +the facts cannot maintain their place in the memory without continued +exertion, and with something like violence to natural tendencies. Now, +beyond all other facts, the facts of dates are the most severely of this +latter class. Oftentimes the very actions or sufferings of a man, +empire, army, are hard to be remembered because they are +non-significant, non-characteristic: they belong by no more natural or +intellectual right to that man, empire, army, than to any other man, +empire, army. We remember, for instance, the simple diplomacy of Greece, +when she summoned all States to the grand duty of exterminating the +barbarian from her limits, and throwing back the tides of barbarism +within its natural limits; for this appealed to what was noblest in +human nature. We forget the elaborate intrigues which preceded the +Peloponnesian war, for these appealed only to vulgar and ordinary +motives of self-aggrandisement. We remember the trumpet voice which +summoned Christendom to deliver Christ's sepulchre from Pagan insults, +for that was the great romance of religious sentiment. But we forget the +treaties by which this or that Crusading king delivered his army from +Mahometan victors, because these proceeded on the common principles of +fear and self-interest; principles having no peculiar relation to those +from which the Crusades had arisen. + +Now, if even actions themselves are easily dropped from the memory, +because they stand in no logical relation to the central interest +concerned, how much more and how universally must dates be liable to +oblivion--dates which really have no more discoverable connection with +any name of man or place or event, than the letters or syllables of +that name have with the great cause or principles with which it may +happen to have been associated. Why should Themistocles or Aristides +have flourished 500 B.C., rather than 250, 120, or any other number of +years? No conceivable relation--hardly so much as any fanciful +relation--can be established between the man and his era. And in this +one (to all appearance insuperable) difficulty, in this absolute defect +of all connection between the two objects that are to be linked together +in the memory, lies the startling task of Chronology. Chronology is +required to chain together--and so that one shall inevitably recall the +other--a name and an era which with regard to each other are like two +clouds, aerial, insulated, mutually repulsive, and throwing out no +points for grappling or locking on, neither offering any natural +indications of interconnection, nor apparently by art, contrivance,[21] +or fiction, susceptible of any. + +II. _Jewish as compared with other records._--Let us open our review +with the annals of Judea; and for two reasons: first, because in the +order of time it _was_ the inaugural chapter, so that the order of our +rehearsal does but conform to the order of the facts; secondly, because +on another principle of arrangement, viz., its relation to the capital +interests of human nature, it stands first in another sense by a degree +which cannot be measured. + +These are two advantages, in comparison with all other history whatever, +which have crowned the Jewish History with mysterious glory, and of +these the pupil should be warned in her introductory lesson. The first +is: that the Jewish annals open by one whole millennium before all other +human records. Full a thousand years had the chronicles of the Hebrew +nation been in motion and unfolding that sublime story, fitter for the +lyre and the tumultuous organ, than for unimpassioned recitation, before +the earliest whispers of the historic muse began to stir in any other +land. Amongst Pagan nations, Greece was the very foremost to attempt +that almost impracticable object under an imperfect civilization--the +art of fixing in forms not perishable, and of transmitting to distant +generations, her social revolutions.[22] She wanted paper through her +earlier periods, she wanted typographic art, she wanted, above all, +other resources for such a purpose--the art of reading as a national +accomplishment. How could people record freely and fervently, with +Hebrew rapture, those events which must be painfully chiselled out in +marble, or expensively ploughed and furrowed into brazen tablets? What +freedom to the motions of human passion, where an _extra_ word or two of +description must be purchased by a day's labour? But, above all, what +motive could exist for the accumulation or the adequate diffusion of +records, howsoever inscribed, on slabs of marble or of bronze, on +leather, or plates of wood, whilst as yet no general machinery of +education had popularized the art of reading? Until the age of Pericles +each separate Grecian city could hardly have furnished three citizens on +an average able to read. Amongst a people so illiterate, how could +manuscripts or manu_sculpts_ excite the interest which is necessary to +their conservation? Of what value would a shipload of harps prove to a +people unacquainted with the science or the practical art of music? Too +much or too little interest alike defeat this primary purpose of the +record. Records must be _self_-conservative before they can be applied +to the conservation of events. Amongst ourselves the _black-letter_ +records of English heroes by Grafton and Hollinshed, of English voyagers +by Hakluyt, of English martyrs by Fox, perished in a very unusual +proportion by excessive use through successive generations of readers: +but amongst the Greeks they would have perished by neglect. The too much +of the English usage and the too little of the Grecian would have tended +to the same result. Books and the art of reading must ever be powerful +re-agents--each upon the other: until books were multiplied, there could +be no general accomplishment of reading. Until the accomplishment was +taken up into the system of education, books insculptured by painful +elaboration upon costly substances must be too much regarded as +jewellery to obtain a domestic value for the mass. + +The problem, therefore, was a hard one for Greece--to devise any art, +power or machinery for fixing and propagating the great memorials of +things and persons. Each generation as it succeeded would more and more +furnish subjects for the recording pen of History, yet each in turn was +compelled to see them slipping away like pearls from a fractured +necklace. It seems easy, but in practice it must be nearly impossible, +to take aim, as it were, at a remote generation--to send a sealed letter +down to a posterity two centuries removed--or by any human resources, +under the Grecian conditions of the case, to have a chance of clearing +that vast bridgeless gulf which separates the present from the far-off +ages of perfect civilization. Maddening it must have been to know by +their own experience, derived from the far-off past, that no monuments +had much chance of duration, except precisely those small ones of medals +and sculptured gems, which, if durable by metallic substance and +interesting by intrinsic value, were in the same degree more liable to +loss by shipwreck, fire, or other accidents applying to portable things, +but above all furnished no field for more than an intense +abstractiveness. The Iliad arose, as we shall say, a thousand years +before Christ, consequently it bisected precisely the Hebrew history +which arose two thousand years before the same era. Now the Iliad was +the very first historic record of the Greeks, and it was followed at +intervals by many other such sections of history, in the shape of +_Nostoi_, poems on the homeward adventures of the Greek heroes returning +from Troy, or of Cyclical Poems taking a more comprehensive range of +action from the same times, filling up the interspace of 555 years +between this memorable record of the one great Pagan Crusade[23] at the +one limit, and the first Greek prose history--that of Herodotus--at the +lower limit. Even through a space of 555 years _subsequent_ to the +Iliad, which has the triple honour of being the earliest Greek book, the +earliest Greek poem, the earliest Greek history, we see the Grecian +annals but imperfectly sustained; legends treated with a legendary +variety; romances embroidered with romantic embellishments; poems, +which, if Greek narrative poetry allowed of but little fiction and +sternly rejected all pure invention, yet originally rested upon +semi-fabulous and mythological marvels, and were thus far poetic in the +basis, that when they durst not invent they could still garble by +poetical selection where they chose; and thus far lying--that if they +were compelled to conform themselves to the popular traditions which +must naturally rest upon a pedestal of fact, it was fact as seen through +an atmosphere of superstition, and imperceptibly modified by priestly +arts. + +The sum, therefore, of our review is, that one thousand [1,000] years +B.C. did the earliest Grecian record appear, being also the earliest +Greek poem, and this poem being the earliest Greek book; secondly, that +for the five-hundred-and-fifty-five [555] years subsequent to the +earliest record, did the same legendary form of historic composition +continue to subsist. On the other hand, as a striking antithesis to this +Grecian condition of history, we find amongst the Hebrews a +circumstantial deduction of their annals from the very nativity of their +nation--that is, from the birth of the Patriarch Isaac, or, more +strictly, of his son the Patriarch Jacob--down to the captivity of the +two tribes, their restoration by Cyrus, and the dedication of the Second +Temple. This Second Temple brings us abreast of Herodotus, the first +Greek historian. Fable with the Greeks is not yet distinguished from +fact, but a sense of the distinction is becoming clearer. + +The privileged use of the word Crusade, which we have ventured to make +with reference to the first great outburst of Greek enthusiasm, suggests +a grand distinction, which may not unreasonably claim some illustration, +so deep does it reach in exhibiting the contrast between the character +of the early annals of the Hebrews and those of every other early +nation. + +Galilee and Joppa, and Nazareth, Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives--what +a host of phantoms, what a resurrection from the graves of twelve and +thirteen centuries for the least reflecting of the army, had his mission +connected him no further with these objects than as a traveller passing +amongst them. But when the nature of his service was considered, the +purposes with which he allied himself, and the vindicating which he +supported, many times as a volunteer--the dullest natures must have been +penetrated, the lowest exalted.[24] + +To this grand passion of religious enthusiasm stands opposed, according +to the general persuasion, the passion, equally exalted, or equally open +to exaltation, of love. 'So the whole ear of Denmark is abused.' Love, +chivalrous love, love in its noblest forms, was a passion unknown to the +Greeks; as we may well suppose in a country where woman was not +honoured, not esteemed, not treated with the confidence which is the +basis of all female dignity. However, this subject I shall leave +untouched: simply reminding the reader that even conceding for a moment +so monstrous an impossibility as that pure chivalrous love, as it exists +under Christian institutions, could have had an existence in the Greece +of 1000 B.C.; the more elevated, the more tender it was, the less fitted +it could be for the coarse air of a camp. The holy sepulchre would +command reverence, and the expression of reverence, from the lowest +sutler of the camp; but we may easily imagine what coarse jests would +eternally surround the name of Helen amongst the Greek soldiery, and +everything connected with the cause which drew them into the field. + +Yet even this coarse travesty of a noble passion was a higher motive +than the Greeks really obeyed in the war with Troy. England, it has been +sometimes said, went to war with Spain, during George II.'s reign, on +account of Capt. Jenkins's ears, which a brutal Spanish officer, in the +cowardly abuse of his power, had nailed to the mast. And if she did, the +cause was a noble one, however unsuitably expounded by its outward +heraldry. There the cause was noble, though the outward sign was below +its dignity. But in the Iliad, if we may give that name to the total +expedition against Troy and the Troad, the relations were precisely +inverted. Its outward sign, its ostensible purpose, was noble: for it +was woman. _But the real and sincere motive which collected fifty +thousand Grecians under one common banner, was_ (I am well assured upon +meditation) _money--money, and money's worth_. No less motive in that +age was adequate to the effect. Helen was, assuredly, no such prize +considering her damaged reputation and other circumstances. Revenge +might intermingle in a very small proportion with the general principle +of the war; as to the oath and its obligation, which is supposed to have +bound over the princes of Greece: that I suppose to be mere cant; for +how many princes were present in the field that never could have been +suitors to Helen, nor parties to the oath? Do we suppose old Nestor to +have been one? A young gentleman 'rising' 99, as the horse-jockeys say; +or by some reckonings, 113! No, plunder was the object. + +The truth was this--the plain historic truth for any man not wilfully +blind--Greece was miserably poor; that we know by what we find five +centuries after, when she must, like other people who find little else +to do, have somewhat bettered her condition. Troy and the Troad were +redundantly rich; it was their great crime to be so. Already the western +coast of Asia Minor was probably studded with Greek colonies, standing +in close connection with the great capitals on the Euphrates or the +Tigris, and sharing in the luxurious wealth of the great capitals on the +Euphrates or the Tigris. Mitford most justly explained the secret +history of Caesar's expedition to England out of his wish to find a new +slave country.[25] And after all the romantic views of the Grecian +expedition to the Troad, I am satisfied we should look for its true +solution in the Greek poverty and the wealth--both _locally +concentrated_ and _portable_--of the Trojans. Land or cities were things +too much diffused: and even the son of Peleus or of Telamon could not +put them into his pocket. But golden tripods, purple hangings or robes, +fine horses, and beautiful female slaves could be found over the +Hellespont. Helen, the _materia litis_, the subject of quarrel on its +earliest pretence, could not be much improved by a ten years' blockade. +But thousands of more youthful Helens were doubtless carried back to +Greece. And in this prospect of booty most assuredly lay the unromantic +motive of the sole romantic expedition amongst the Greeks. + +III. _Oriental History._--We here set aside the earlier tangle of legend +and fact which is called Oriental History, and for these reasons: (1) +instead of promoting the solution of chronological problems, Oriental +history is itself the most perplexing of those problems; (2) the +perpetual straining after a high fabulous antiquity amongst the nations +of the east, vitiates all the records; (3) the vast empires into which +the plains of Asia moulded the eastern nations, allowed of no such +rivalship as could serve to check their legends by collateral +statements; and (4) were all this otherwise, still the great permanent +schism of religion and manners has so effectually barred all coalition +between Europe and Asia, from the oldest times, that of necessity their +histories have flowed apart with little more reciprocal reference or +relationship, than exists between the Rhine and the Danube--rivers, +which almost meeting in their sources, ever after are continually +widening their distance until they fall into different seas two thousand +miles apart. Asia never, at any time, much acted upon Europe; and when +later ages had forced them into artificial connections, it was always +Europe that acted upon Asia; never Asia, upon any commensurate scale, +that acted upon Europe.[26] + +Not, therefore, in Asia can the first footsteps of chronology be sought; +not in Africa, because, _first_, the records of Egypt, so far as any +have survived, are intensely Asiatic; liable to the same charge of +hieroglyphic ambiguity combined with the exaggerations of outrageous +nationality; because, _secondly_, the separate records of the adjacent +State of Cyrene have perished; because, _thirdly_, the separate records +of the next State, Carthage, have perished; because, _fourthly_, the +learned labours of Mauritania[27] have also perished. + +Thus the pupil is satisfied that of mere necessity the chronologer must +resort to Europe for his earliest monuments and his earliest +authentications--for the facts to be attested, and for the evidences +which are to attest them. But if to Europe, next, to what part of +Europe? Two great nations--great in a different sense, the one by +dazzling brilliancy of intellect, the other by weight and dignity of +moral grandeur--divide between them the honours of history through the +centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ. To which of these, +the pupil asks, am I to address myself? On the one hand, the greater +refinement and earlier civilization of Greece would naturally converge +all eyes upon her; but then, on the other hand, we cannot forget the +'_levitas levissimae gentis_'--the want of stability, the want of all +that we call moral dignity, and by direct consequence, the puerile +credulity of that clever, sparkling, but very foolish people, the +Greeks. That quality which, beyond all others, the Romans imputed to the +Grecian character; that quality which, in the very blaze of admiration, +challenged by the Grecian intellect, still overhung with deep shadows +their rational pretensions and degraded them to a Roman eye, was the +essential _levitas_--the defect of any principle that could have given +steadiness and gravity--which constituted the original sin of the Greek +character. By _levitas_ was meant the passive obedience to casual, +random, or contradictory impulses, the absence of all determining +principle. Now this _levitas_ was the precise anti-pole of the Roman +character; which was as massy, self-supported, and filled with +resistance to chance impulses, as the Greek character was windy, vain, +and servile to such impulses. Both nations, it is true, were +superstitious, because all nations, in those ages were intensely +superstitious; and each, after a fashion of its own, intensely +credulous. But the Roman superstition was coloured by something of a +noble pride; the Grecian by vanity. The Greek superstition was fickle +and self-contradicting, and liable to sudden changes; the Roman, +together with the gloom, had the unity and the perseverance of bigotry. +No Christian, even, purified and enlightened by his sublime faith, could +more utterly despise the base crawling adorations of Egypt, than did the +Roman polytheist, out of mere dignity of mind, while to the frivolous +Athenian they were simply objects of curiosity. In the Greek it was a +vulgar sentiment of clannish vanity.[28] Even the national +self-consequence of a Roman and a Greek were sentiments of different +origin, and almost opposite quality; in the Roman it was a sublime and +imaginative idea of Rome, of her self-desired grandeur, and, above all, +of her divine _destiny_, over which last idea brooded a cloud of +indefinite expectation, not so entirely unlike the exalting expectations +of the Jews, looking for ever to some unknown 'Elias' that should come. + +Thus perplexed by the very different claims upon his respect in these +two exclusive authorities of the ancient world--carried to the Roman by +his _moral_ feelings, to the Grecian by his intellectual--the student is +suddenly delivered from his doubts by the discovery that these two +principal streams of history flow absolutely apart through the elder +centuries of historical light. + + +IV. _777 and its Three Great Landmarks._--In this perplexity, we say, +the youthful pupil is suddenly delighted to hear that there is no call +upon her to choose between Grecian and Roman guides. Fortunately, and as +if expressly to save her from any of those fierce disputes which have +risen up between the true Scriptural chronology and the chronology of +the mendacious Septuagint, it is laid down that the Greek and Roman +history, soon after both had formally commenced, flowed apart for +centuries; nor did they so much as hear of each other (unless as we +moderns heard of Prester John in Abyssinia, or of the Great Mogul in +India), until the Greek colonies in Calabria, etc., began to have a +personal meaning for a Roman ear, or until Sicily (as the common field +for Greek, Roman, and Carthaginian) began to have a dangerous meaning +for all three. As to the Romans, the very grandeur of their +self-reliance and the sublime faith which they had in the destinies[29] +of Rome, inclined them to carelessness about all but their nearest +neighbours, and sustained for ages their illiterate propensities. +Illiterate they were, because incurious; and incurious because too +haughtily self-confident. The Greeks, on the other hand, amongst the +other infirmities attached to their national levity, had curiosity in +abundance. But it flowed in other channels. There was nothing to direct +their curiosity upon the Romans. Generally speaking, there is good +reason for thinking that as, at this day, the privilege of a man to +present himself at any court of Christendom is recognised upon his +producing a ticket signed by a Lord Chamberlain of some other court, to +the effect that 'the Bearer is known at St. James's,' or 'known at the +Tuileries,' etc.; so, after the final establishment of the Olympic +games, the Greeks looked upon a man's appearance at that great national +congress as the criterion and ratification of his being a known or +knowable person. Unknown, unannounced personally or by proxy at the +great periodic Congress of Greece, even a prince was a _homo +ignorabilis_; one whose existence nobody was bound to take notice of. A +Persian, indeed, was allowably absent; because, as a permanent public +enemy, he could not safely be present. But as to all others, and +therefore as to Romans, the rule of law held--that 'to those not coming +forward and those not in existence, the same line of argument applies.' +[_De non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est ratio._] + +Had this been otherwise--had the two nations met freely before the light +of history had strengthened into broad daylight--it is certain that the +controversies upon chronology would have been far more and more +intricate than they are. This profound[30] separation, therefore, has +been beneficial to the student in one direction. But in another it has +increased his duties; or, if not increased, at all events it serves to +remind him of a separate chapter in his chronological researches. Had +Rome stood in as close a relation to Greece as Persia did, one single +chronology would have sufficed for both. Hardly one event in Persian +history has survived for our memory, which is not taken up by the looms +of Greece and interwoven with the general arras and texture of Grecian +history. And from the era of the Consul Paulus Emilius, something of the +same sort takes place between Greece and Rome; and in a partial sense +the same result is renewed as often as the successive assaults occur of +the Roman-destroying power applied to the several members of the +Graeco-Macedonian Empire. But these did not commence until Rome had +existed for half-a-thousand years. And through all that long period, +two-thirds of the entire Roman history up to the Christian era, the two +Chronologies flow absolutely apart. + +Consequently, because all chronology is thrown back upon Europe, and +because the pre-Christian Europe is split into two collateral bodies, +and because each of these separate bodies must have a separate head--it +follows that chronology, as a pre-Christian chronology, will, like the +Imperial eagle, be two-headed. Now this accident of chronology, on a +first glance, seems but too likely to confuse and perplex the young +student. + +How fortunate, then, it must be thought, and what a duty it imposes upon +the teacher, not to defeat this bounty of accident by false and pedantic +rigour of calculation, that these two heads of the eagle--that head +which looks westward for Roman Chronology, that which looks eastward for +Grecian Chronology--do absolutely coincide as to their nativity. The +birthday of Grecian authentic history everybody agrees to look upon as +fixed to the establishment [the _final_ establishment] of the Olympic +games. And when was _that_? Generally, chronologers have placed this +event just 776 years before Christ. Now will any teacher be so 'peevish' +[as hostess Quickly calls it]--so perversely unaccommodating--as not to +lend herself to the very trivial alteration of one year, just putting +the clock back to 7 instead of 6, even if the absolute certainty of the +6 were made out? But if she _will_ break with her chronologer, 'her +guide, philosopher and friend,' upon so slight a consideration as one +year in three-quarters of a millennium, it then becomes my duty to tell +her that there is no such certainty in the contested number as she +chooses to suppose. Even the era of our Saviour's birth oscillates +through an entire Olympiad, or period of four years; to that extent it +is unsettled: and in fifty other ways I could easily make out a title to +a much more considerable change. In reality, when the object is--not to +secure an attorney-like[31] accuracy--but to promote the _liberal_ +pursuit of chronology, a teacher of good sense would at once direct her +pupil to record the date in round terms as just reaching the +three-quarters of a thousand years; she would freely sacrifice the +entire twenty-six years' difference between 776 and 750, were it not +that the same purpose, viz., the purpose of consulting the powers or +convenience and capacity of the memory, in neglect and defiance of +useless and superstitious arithmetic punctilios, may be much better +attained by a more trifling sacrifice. Three-quarters of a millennium, +that is three parts in four of a thousand years, is a period easily +remembered; but a triple repetition of the number 7, simply saying +'_Seven seven seven_' is remembered even _more_ easily.[32] + +Suppose this point then settled, for anything would be remarkable and +highly rememberable which comes near to a common familiar fraction of so +vast a period in human affairs as a millennium [a term consecrated to +our Christian ears, (1) by its use in the Apocalypse; (2) by its +symbolic use in representing the long Sabbath of rest from sin and +misery, and finally (3) even to the profane ear by the fact of its being +the largest period which we employ in our historical estimates]. But a +triple iteration of the number 7, simply saying '_Seven seven seven_,' +would be even more rememberable. And, lastly, were it still necessary to +add anything by way of reconciling the teacher to the supposed +inaccuracy (though, if a real[33] and demonstrated inaccuracy, yet, be +it remembered, the very least which _can_ occur, viz., an error of a +single unit), I will--and once for all, as applying to many similar +cases, as often as they present themselves--put this stringent question +to every woman of good sense: is it not better, is it not more +agreeable to your views for the service of your pupils, that they should +find offered to their acceptance some close approximation to the truth +which they can very easily remember, than an absolute conformity to the +very letter of the truth which no human memory, though it were the +memory of Mithridates, could retain? Good sense is shown, above all +things, in seeking the practicable which is within our power, by +preference to a more exquisite ideal which is unattainable. Not, I +grant, in moral or religious things. Then I willingly allow, we are +forbidden to sit down contented with imperfect attempts, or to make +deliberate compromises with the slightest known evil in principle. To +this doctrine I heartily subscribe. But surely in matters _not_ moral, +in questions of erudition or of antiquarian speculation, or of +historical research, we are under a different rule. Here, and in similar +cases, it is our business, I conceive with Solon legislating for the +Athenians, to contemplate, not what is best in an abstract sense, but +what is best under the circumstances of the case. Now the most important +circumstances of this case are--that the memory of young ladies must be +assumed as a faculty of average power, both as to its apprehensiveness +and as to its tenacity; its power of mastering for the moment, and its +power of retaining faithfully; that this faculty will not endure the +oppression of mere blank facts having no organization or life of logical +relation running through them; that by 'not enduring' I mean that it +cannot support this harassing and persecution with impunity[34]; that +the fine edge of the higher intellectual powers will be taken off by +this laborious straining, which is not only dull, but the cause of +dulness; that finally, the memory, supposing it in a given and rare case +powerful enough to contend successfully with such tasks, must even as +regards this time required, hold itself disposable for many other +applications; and therefore, as the inference from the whole, that not +any slight or hasty, but a most intense and determinate effort should be +made to substitute some technical artifices for blank pulls against a +dead weight of facts, to substitute fictions, or artificial imitations +of logical arrangement, wherever that is possible, for blind +arrangements of chance; and finally, in a process which requires every +assistance from compromise and accommodation constantly to surrender the +rigour of superstitious accuracy, (which, after all its magnificent +pretensions, _must_ fail in the performance), to humbler probability of +a reasonable success. + +I have dwelt upon this point longer than would else have been right, +because in effect here lies the sole practical obstacle to the +realization of a very beautiful framework of chronology, and because I +consider myself as now speaking _once for all_. Let us now move forward. +I now go on to the other head of the eagle--the head which looks +westward. + +Here it will be objected that the Foundation of Rome is usually laid +down in the year 753 B.C.; and therefore that it differs from the +foundation of the Olympiads by as much as 23 or 24 years; and can I have +the conscience to ask my fair friends that they should _put the clock +back_ so far as that? Why, really there is no knowing; perhaps if I were +hard pressed by some chronological enemy, I might ask as great a favour +even as that. But at present it is not requisite; neither do I mean to +play any jugglers' tricks, as perhaps lawfully I might, with the +different computations of Varro, of the Capitoline Marbles, etc. All +that need be said in this place is simply--that Rome is not Romulus. And +let Rome have been founded when she pleases, and let her secret name +have been what it might--though really, in default of a better, Rome +itself is as decent and _'sponsible_ a name as a man would wish--still I +presume that Romulus must have been a little older than Rome, the +builder a little anterior to what he built. Varro and the Capitoline +Tables and Mr. Hook will all agree to that postulate. And whatever some +of them may say as to the youth of Romulus, when he first began to wield +the trowel, at least, I suppose, he was come to years of discretion; +and, if we say twenty-three or twenty-four, which I am as much entitled +to say as they to deny it, then we are all right. 'All right behind,' as +the mail guards say, 'drive on.' And so I feel entitled to lay my hand +upon my heart and assure my fair pupils that Romulus himself and the +Olympiads did absolutely start together; and for anything known to the +contrary, perhaps in the same identical moment or bisection of a moment. +Possibly his first little wolfish howl (for it would be monstrous to +think that he or even Remus condescended to a _vagitus_ or cry such as a +young tailor or rat-catcher might emit) may have symphonized with the +ear-shattering trumpet that proclaimed the inauguration of the first +Olympic contest, or which blew to the four winds the appellation of the +first Olympic victor. + +That point, therefore, is settled, and so far, at least, 'all's right +behind.' And it is a great relief to my mind that so much is +accomplished. Two great arrow-headed nails at least are driven 'home' to +the great dome of Chronology from which my whole golden chain of +historical dependencies is to swing. And even that will suffice. Careful +navigators, indeed, like to ride by three anchors; but I am content with +what I have achieved, even if my next attempt should be less +satisfactory. + +It is certainly a very striking fact to the imagination that great +revolutions seldom come as solitary cases. It never rains but it pours. +At times there _is_ some dark sympathy, which runs underground, +connecting remote events like a ground-swell in the ocean, or like the +long careering[35] of an earthquake before it makes its explosion. +_Abyssus abyssum invocat_--'One deep calleth to another.' And in some +incomprehensible way, powers not having the slightest _apparent_ +interconnexion, no links through which any _casual_ influence could +rationally be transmitted, do, nevertheless, in fact, betray either a +blind nexus--an undiscoverable web of dependency upon each other, or +else a dependency upon some common cause equally undiscoverable. What +possible, what remote connexion could the dissolution of the Assyrian +empire have with the Olympiads or with the building of Rome? Certainly +none at all that we can see; and yet these great events so nearly +synchronize that even the latest of them seems but a more distant +undulation of the same vast swell in the ocean, running along from west +to east, from the Tiber to the Tigris. Some great ferment of revolution +was then abroad. The overthrew of Nineveh as the capital of the Assyrian +empire, the ruin of the dynasty ending in Sardanapalus, and the +subsequent dismemberment of the Assyrian empire, took place, according +to most chronologers, 747 years B.C., just 30 years, therefore, after +the two great events which I have assigned to 777. These two events are +in the strictest and most capital sense the inaugural events of history, +the very pillars of Hercules which indicate a _ne plus ultra_ in that +direction; namely, that all beyond is no longer history but romance. I +am exceedingly anxious to bring this Assyrian revolution also to the +same great frontier line of columns. In a gross general way it might +certainly be argued that in such a great period, thirty years, or one +generation, can be viewed as nothing more than a trifling quantity. But +it must also be considered that the exact time, and even the exact +personality,[36] of Sardanapalus in all his relations are not known. All +are vast phantoms in the Assyrian empire; I do not say fictions, but +undefined, unmeasured, immeasurable realities; far gone down into the +mighty gulf of shadows, and for us irrecoverable. All that is known +about the Assyrian empire is its termination under Sardanapalus. It was +then coming within Grecian twilight; and it will be best to say that, +generally speaking, Sardanapalus coincided with Romulus and the Greek +Olympiad. To affect any nearer accuracy than this would be the grossest +reliance on the mere jingle of syllables. History would be made to rest +on something less than a pun; for such as _Palus_ and _Pul_, which is +all that learned archbishops can plead as their vouchers in the matter +of Assyria, there is not so much as the argument of a child or the wit +of a punster. + +Upon the whole, the teacher will make the following remarks to her +pupils, after having read what precedes; remarks partly upon the new +mode of delivering chronology, and partly upon the things delivered: + +I. She will notice it--as some improvement--that the three great +leading events, which compose the opening of history not fabulous, are +here, for the first time, placed under the eye in their true relations +of time, viz., as about contemporary. For without again touching on the +question--do they, or do they not, vary from each other in point of time +by twenty-three and by thirty years--it will be admitted by everybody +that, at any rate, the three events stand equally upon the frontier line +of authentic history. A frontier or debateable land is always of some +breadth. They form its inauguration. And they would do so even if +divided by a much wider interval. Now, it is very possible to know of A, +B, and C, separately, that each happened in such a year, say 1800; and +yet never to have noticed them consciously _as_ contemporary. We read of +many a man (L, M, N, suppose), that he was born in 1564, or that he died +in 1616. And we may happen separately to know that these were the years +in which Shakespeare was born and died. Yet, for all that, we may never +happen consciously to notice with respect to any one of the men, L, M, +N, that he was a contemporary of Shakespeare's. Now, this was the case +with regard to the three great events, Greek, Roman, and Assyrian. No +chronologer failed to observe of each in its separate place that it +occurred somewhere about 750 years B.C. But every chronologer had failed +to notice this coincident time of each _as_ coincident. And, +accordingly, all failed to converge these three events into one focus as +the solemn and formal opening of history. It is good to have a +beginning, a starting post, from which to date all possible historical +events that are worthy to be regarded as such. But it is better still to +find that by the rarest of accidents, by a good luck that could never +have been looked for, the three separate starting posts--which +historical truth obliges us to assume for the three great fields of +history, Roman, Grecian, and Asiatic[37]--all closely coincide in point +of time; or, to use the Greek technical term, all closely synchronize. + +II. With respect to Greece and the Olympiad in particular, she will +inform her pupil that the Olympic games, celebrated near the town of +Olympia, recurred every fifth year; that is to say, there was a clear +interval of four years between each revolution of the games. Each +Olympiad, therefore, containing four years, it is usual in citing the +particular Olympiad in which an event happened, to cite also the year, +should that be known, or, being known, should that be of importance. +Thus Olymp. CX. 3 would mean that such a thing, say X, occurred in the +third year of the 110th Olympiad; that is, four times 110 will be 440; +and this, deducted from 777 (the era of the Olympiads), leaves 337 years +B.C. as the era when X occurred. Only that, upon reviewing the case, we +find that the 110th Olympiad was not absolutely completed, not by one +year; which, subtracted from the 337, leaves 336 B.C. as the true date. +If her pupil should say, 'But were there no great events in Greece +before the Olympiads?' the teacher will answer, 'Yes, a few, but not +many of a rank sufficient to be called Grecian.' They are merely local +events; events of Thessaly, suppose; events of Argos; but much too +obscure, both as to the facts, as to the meaning of the facts, and as to +the dates, to be worth any student's serious attention. There were, +however, three events worthy to be called _Grecian_; partly because +they interested more States than one of Greece; and partly because they +have since occupied the Athenian stage, and received a sort of +consecration from the great masters of Grecian tragedy. These three +events were the fatal story of the house of Oedipus; a story +stretching through three generations; and in which the war against the +Seven Gates of Thebes was but an episode. Secondly, the Argonautic +expedition (voyage of the ship _Argo_, and of the sailors in that ship, +_i.e._, the Argonauts), which is consecrated as the first voyage of any +extent undertaken by Greeks. Both these events are as full of heroic +marvels, and of supernatural marvels, as the legends of King Arthur, +Merlin, and the Fairy Morgana. Later than these absolute romances comes +the semi-romance of the Iliad, or expedition against Troy. This, the +most famous of all Pagan romances, we know by two separate criteria to +be later in date than either of the two others; first, because the +actors in the Iliad are the descendants of those who figured as actors +in the others; secondly, from the subdued tone of the romantic[38] which +prevails throughout the Iliad. Now, with respect to these three events +in Grecian history, anterior to the Olympiads, which are all that a +young student ought to notice, it is sufficient if generally she is made +aware of the order in which they stand to each other, or, at least, that +the Iliad comes last in the series, and if as to this last and greatest +of the series, she fixes its era precisely to one thousand years before +Christ. Chronologers, indeed, sometimes bring it down to something +lower. But one millennium, the clear unembarrassed cyphers of 1,000, +whether in counting guineas or years, is a far simpler and a far more +rememberable era than any qualifications of this round number; which +qualifications, let it not for a moment be forgotten, are not at all +better warranted than the simpler expression. One only amongst all +chronologers has anything to stand upon that is not as unsubstantial as +a cloud; and this is Sir Isaac Newton. And the way in which he proceeded +it may be well to explain, in order that the young pupil may see what +sort of evidences we have _prior to the Olympiads_ for any chronological +fact. Sir Isaac endeavoured by calculating backwards to ascertain the +exact time of some celestial phenomenon--as, suppose, an eclipse of the +sun, or such and such positions of the heavenly bodies with regard to +each other. This phenomenon, whatever it were, call X. Then if (upon +looking into the Argonautic Expedition or any other romance of those +elder times) he finds X actually noticed as co-existing with any part of +the adventures, in that case he has fixed by absolute observation, as it +were, what we may call the latitude and longitude of that one historical +event; and then using this, as we use our modern meridian of Greenwich, +as a point of starting, he can deduce the distances of all subsequent +events by tracing them through the sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons +of the several actors concerned. The great question which will then +remain to be settled is, how many years to allow for a generation; and, +secondly, in monarchies, how much to allow for a reign, since often two +successive reigns will not be two successive generations, because whilst +the two reigns are distinct quantities, the two lives are coincident +through a great part of their duration. Now, of course, Sir Isaac is +very often open to serious criticism, or to overpowering doubts. That is +inevitable. But on the whole he treads upon something like a firm +footing. Others, as regards that era, tread upon mere clouds, and their +authority goes for nothing at all. + +Such being the state of the case, let the pupil never trouble her memory +for one moment with so idle an effort as that of minutely fixing or +retaining dates that, after all, are more doubtful, and for us +irrecoverable, than the path of some obscure trading ship in some past +generation through the Atlantic Ocean. Generally, it will be quite near +enough to the truth if she places upon the meridian of 1000 years B.C. +the three Romances--Argonautic, Theban, Trojan; and she will then have +the satisfaction of finding that, as at the opening of authentic +history, she found the Roman, the Greek, and the Asiatic inaugural +events coinciding in the same exact focus, so in these semi-fabulous or +ante-Olympian events, she finds that one and the same effort of memory +serves to register _them_, and also the most splendid of the Jewish +eras--that of David and Solomon. The round sum of 1000 years B.C., so +easily remembered, without distinction, without modification, '_sans +phrase_' (to quote a brutal regicide), serves alike for the Seven-gated +Thebes,[39] for Troy, and for Jerusalem in its most palmy days. + +V. _A Perplexity Cleared Up._--Before passing onward here, it is highly +important to notice a sort of episode in history, which fills up the +interval between 777 and 555, but which is constantly confounded and +perplexed with what took place before 777. + +The word _Assyria_ is that by which the perplexity is maintained. The +Assyrian empire, as the pupil is told, was destroyed in the person of +Sardanapalus. Yet, in her Bible, she reads of Sennacherib, King of +Assyria. 'Was Sennacherib, then, before Sardanapalus?' she will ask; and +her teacher will inform her that he was not. + +Such things puzzle her. They seem palpable contradictions. But now let +her understand that out of the Assyrian empire split off three separate +kingdoms, of which one was called the Assyrian, not empire, but kingdom; +there lurks the secret of the error. And to this kingdom of Assyria it +was that Sennacherib belonged. Or, in order to represent by a sensible +image this derivation of kingdoms from the stock of the old +superannuated Assyrian empire (to which belonged Nimrod, Ninus, and +Semiramis--those mighty phantoms, with their incredible armies); let her +figure to herself some vast river, like the Nile or the Ganges, with the +form assumed by its mouths. Often it will happen, where such a river is +not hemmed in between rocks, or confined to the bed of a particular +valley, that, perhaps, a hundred or two of miles before reaching the +sea, upon coming into a soft, alluvial soil, it will force several +different channels for itself. As these must make angles to each other, +in order to form different roads, the land towards the disemboguing of +the river will take the arrangement of a triangle. And as that happens +to be the form of a Greek capital D (in the Greek alphabet called +Delta), it has been usual to call such an arrangement of a great river's +mouth a Delta. + +Now, then, let her think of the Assyrian empire under the notion of the +Nile, descending from far distant regions, and from fountains that were +concealed for ages, if even now discovered. Then, when it approaches +the sea, and splits up its streams, so as to form a Delta, let her +regard that Delta as the final state of the Assyrian power, the kingdom +state lasting for about two centuries until swallowed up altogether, and +remoulded into unity by the Persian empire. + +The Delta, therefore, or the Nile dividing into three streams, will +represent the three kingdoms formed out of the ruins of the Assyrian +empire, when falling to pieces by the death of Sardanapalus. One of +these three kingdoms is often called the Median; one the Chaldaean; and +the third is called the Assyrian kingdom. But the most rememberable +shape in which they can be recalled is, perhaps, by the names of their +capitals. The capital cities were as follows: of the first, _Ecbatana_, +which is the modern _Hamadan_; of the second, _Babylon_, on the +Euphrates, of which the ruins have been fully ascertained in our own +times; at present, nothing remains _but_ ruins, and these ruins are +dangerous to visit, both from human marauders prowling in that +neighbourhood, and from wild beasts of the most formidable class, which +are so little disturbed in their awful lairs, that they bask at noon-day +amongst the huge hills of half-vitrified bricks. Finally, of the third +kingdom, which still retained the name of Assyria, the metropolis was +_Nineveh_, on the Tigris, revealed by Layard. + +These three kingdoms had some internal wars and revolutions during the +two centuries which elapsed from the great period 777 (the period of +Sardanapalus), until the days of Cyrus, the Persian. By that time the +three had become two, the kingdom of Nineveh had been swallowed up, and +Cyrus, who was destined to form the Persian empire upon their ruins, +found one change less to be effected than might have been looked for. Of +the two which remained, he conquered one, and the other came to him by +maternal descent. Thus he gained all three, and moulded them into one, +called Persia. + +VI. _Five and Five and Five._--The crowning action in which Cyrus +figures is, therefore, that of conqueror of Babylon, and all the details +of his career point forward, like markings on the dial, towards that +great event, as full of interest for the imagination as any of the +events of pre-Christian history. I would fain for once by the aid of +metre, fix more firmly in the mind of the reader the grandeur and +imposing significance of this event: + + Thus in Five and Five and Five did Cyrus the Great of Elam,[40] + On a festal night break in with roar of the fierce alalagmos.[41] + Over Babylonian walls, over tower and turret of entrance, + Over helmed heads, and over the carnage of armies. + Idle the spearsman's spear, Assyrian scymitar idle; + Broken the bow-string lay of the Mesopotamian archer; + 'Ride to the halls of Belshazzar, ride through the murderous uproar; + Ride to the halls of Belshazzar!' commanded Cyrus of Elam. + They rode to the halls of Belshazzar. Oh, merciful, merciful angels! + That prompt sweet tears to men, hang veils, hang drapery darkest,-- + If any may hide or may pall this night's tempestuous horror. + Like a deluge the army poured in on their snorting Bactrian horses, + Rattled the Parthian quivers, rang the Parthian harness of iron, + High upon spears rode the torches, and from them in showery blazes + Rained splendour lurid and fierce on the dreamlike ruinous uproar, + Such as delusions often from fever's fierce vertical ardour + Show through the long-chambered halls and corridors endless, + Blazing with cruel light--show to the brain of the stricken man; + Such as the angel of dreams sometimes sends to the guilty. + Such light lay in open front, but palpable ebony blackness, + Sealed every far-off street in deep and awful abysses, + Out of which rose like phantoms, rose and sank as a sea-bird + Rises and sinks on the waves of a dim, tumultuous ocean, + Faces dabbled in blood, phantasmagory direful and scenic. + + * * * * * + + But where is Belshazzar the Lord? Has he fled? Has he found an asylum? + Or still does he pace in his palace, blind-seeming or moonstruck? + Still does he tread proudly the palace, fancy-deluded, + Prophets of falsehood trusting, or false Babylonian idols, + Defying the odious truth from the summit of empire! + Lo! at his palace gates the fierce Apollyon's great army, + With maces uplifted, stand to make way for great Cyrus of Elam. + Watching for signal from him whose truncheon this way or that bids: + 'Strike!' said Cyrus the King. 'Strike!' said the princes of Elam; + And the brazen gates at the word, like flax that is broken asunder + By fire from earth or from heaven, snapped as a bulrush, + Snapped as a reed, as a wand, as the tiny toy of an infant. + Marvellous the sight that followed! Oh, most august revelation! + Mile-long were the halls that appeared, and open spaces enormous; + Areas fit to hold armies on the day of muster for battle; + Hosts upon either side, for amplest castrametation. + Depth behind depth, and dim labyrinthine apartments. + Golden galleries above running high into darkening vistas, + Staircases soaring and climbing, till sight grew dizzy with effort + Of chasing the corridors up to their whispering gloomy recesses. + Nations were ranged in the halls, nations ranged at a banquet, + Even then lightly proceeding with timbrel, dulcimer, hautboy, + Gong and loud kettledrum and fierce-blown tempestuous organ. + Banners floated in air, colossal embroidery tissues + Of Tyrian looms, scarlet, black, violet and amber, + Or the perfectest cunning of trained Babylonian artist, + Or massy embossed, from the volant shuttle of Phrygian. + Banners suspended in shade, or in the full glare of the lamplight, + Mid cressets and chandeliers by jewelly chains swinging pendant. + + * * * * * + + Draw a veil o'er the rout when advances great Cyrus of Elam, + Dusky-browed archers behind him, and spearmen before, + When he cries 'Strike!' and the gorgeously inlaid pavements + Run ruddy with blood of the festive Assyrians there. + +VII.--_Greece and Rome._--My female readers, whom only I contemplate in +every line of this little work, and who would have a right to consider +it disrespectful if I were to leave a single word of Latin or Greek +unexplained, must understand that the Greeks, according to that +universal habit of viewing remote objects in a relation of ascent or +descent with respect to the observer, whence the 'going up to +Jerusalem,' and our own 'going up to London,' always figured a journey +eastwards, that is, directed towards the Euphrates or Tigris, or to any +part of Asia from Greece as tending _upwards_. In this mode of +conceiving their relations to the East, they were governed +semi-consciously by the sense of a vast presence beyond the +Tigris--glorified by grandeur and by distance--the golden city of Susa, +and the throne of the great king. Accordingly, the expedition therefore +of Cyrus the younger against his brother Artaxerxes was called by +Xenophon, when recording it, the Anabasis, or going up of Cyrus; and, +from the accident of its celebrity, this title has adhered to that +expedition; and to that book--as if either could claim it by some +exclusive title; whereas, on the contrary, the Katabasis, or going down, +furnishes by much the larger and the more interesting part of the work. +And, in any case, the title is open to all Asiatic expeditions +whatsoever; to the Trojan that just crossed the water, to the Macedonian +that went beyond the Indus. The word Anabasis must have its accent on +the syllable _ab_, not on the penultimate syllable _as_. + +In coming to the history of Imperial Rome, one is fortunately made +sensible at once of a vast advantage, which is this--that one is not +throwing away one's labour. Sad it is, after ploughing a stiff and +difficult clay, to find all at once that the whole is a task of so +little promise that perhaps, on the whole, one might as well have left +it untouched. + +X. Yes, I remember that my cousin, Cecilia Dinbury, took the pains to +master--or perhaps one ought to say to _mistress_--the history. + +L. No, to _miss_ it, is what one ought to say. + +X. Fie, my dear second cousin--Fie, fie, if you please. To _miss_ it, +indeed! Ah, how we wished that we _had_ missed it. But we had no such +luck. There were we broiling through a hot, hot August, broiling away at +this intolerable stew of Iskis and Fuskis, and all to no end or use. +Granted that too often it is, or it may be so. But here we are safe. Who +can fancy or feel so much as the shadow of a demur, when peregrinating +Rome, that we might be losing our toil? + +Now, then, in the highest spirits, let us open our studies. And first +let us map out a chart of the _personnel_ for pretty nearly a century. +Twelve Caesars--the twelve first--should clearly of themselves make more +than a century. For I am sure all of you, except our two new friends, +know so much of arithmetic as that multiplication and division are a +great menace upon addition and subtraction. It is, therefore, a thing +most desirable to set up compound modes--short devices for abridging +these. Now 10 is the earliest number written with two digits: and the +higher the multiplier, so much harder, apparently, the process. Yet here +at least a great simplification offers. To multiply by 10, all you have +to do is to put a cipher after the multiplicand. Twenty-seven soldiers +are to have 10 guineas each, how much is required to pay all +twenty-seven? Why, 27 into 10 is 27 with a cipher at the end--27:0, +_i.e._, 270. _Ergo_, twelve Caesars, supposing each to reign ten years, +would make, no, _should_ make, with anything like great lives--12:0, +_i.e._, 120 years. And when you consider that one of the twelve, viz., +Augustus, singly, for _his_ share, contributed fifty and odd years, if +the other eleven had given ten each that would be 11:0; this would make +a total of about 170. + +VIII.--_Beginning of Modern Era._--From the period of Justinian +commences a new era--an era of unusual transition. This is the broad +principle of change. Old things are decaying, new things are forming and +gathering. The lines of decay and of resurrection are moving visibly and +palpably to every eye in counteracting agency for one result--life and a +new truth for humanity. All the great armies of generous barbarians, +showing, by contrast with Rome and Greece, the opulence of teeming +nature as against the powers of form in utter superannuation, were now, +therefore, no longer moving, roaming, seeking--they had taken up their +ground; they were in a general process of castrametation, marking out +their alignments and deploying into open order upon ground now +permanently taken up for their settlement. The early trumpets, the +morning _reveille_ of the great Christian nations--England, France, +Spain, Lombardy--were sounding to quarters. Franks had knit into one the +rudiments of a great kingdom upon the soil of France; the Saxons and +Angles, with some Vandals, had, through a whole century, been defiling +by vast trains into the great island which they were called by +Providence to occupy and to ennoble; the Vandals had seated themselves, +though in this case only with no definite hopes, along the extreme +region of the Barbary States. Vandals might and did survive for a +considerable period in ineffective fragments, but not as a power. The +Visigoths had quartered themselves on Spain, there soon to begin a +conflict for the Cross, and to maintain it for eight hundred years, and +finally to prevail. And lastly, the Lombards had thrown a network of +colonization over Italy, which, as much by the cohesions which it shook +loose and broke asunder as by the new one which it bred, exhibited a +power like that of the coral insects, and gave promise of a new empire +built out of floating dust and fragments. + +The movements which formerly had resembled those gigantic pillars of +sand that mould themselves continually under the action of sun and wind +in the great deserts--suddenly showing themselves upon the remote +horizon, rear themselves silently and swiftly, then stalking forward +towards the affected caravan like a phantom phantasmagoria, approach, +manoeuvre, overshadow, and then as suddenly recede, collapse, +fluctuate, again to remould into other combinations and to alarm other +travellers--have passed. This vast structure of Central Europe had been +abandoned by all the greater tribes; they had crossed the vast barriers +of Western Europe--the Alps, the Vosges, the Pyrenees, the ocean--these +were now the wards within which they had committed their hopes and the +graves of their fathers. Social developments tended to the same, and no +longer either wishing or finding it possible to roam, they were all now, +through an entire century, taking up their ground and making good their +tumultuous irruptions; with the power of moving had been conjoined a +propensity to move. Rustic life, which must essentially have been +maintained on the great area of German vagrancy, was more and more +confirmed. + +With this physical impossibility of roaming, and with the reciprocal +compression of each exercised on the other, coincided the new instincts +of civilization. They were no longer barbarous by a brutal and animal +barbarism. The deep soil of their powerful natures had long been budding +into nobler capacities, and had expanded into nobler perceptions. +Reverence for female dignity, a sentiment never found before in any +nation, gave a vernal promise of some higher humanity, on a wider scale +than had yet been exhibited. Strong sympathies, magnetic affinities, +prepared this great encampment of nations for Christianity. Their +nobility needed such a field for its expansion; Christianity needed such +a human nature for its evolution. The strong and deep nature of the +Teutonic tribes could not have been evolved, completed, without +Christianity. Christianity in a soil so shallow and unracy as the +Graeco-Latin, could not have struck those roots which are immovable. The +ultimate conditions of the soil and the capacities of the culture must +have corresponded. The motions of Barbaria had hitherto indicated only +change; change without hope; confusion without tendencies; strife +without principle of advance; new births in each successive age without +principle of regeneration; momentary gain balanced by momentary loss; +the tumult of a tossing ocean which tends to none but momentary rest. +But now the currents are united, enclosed, and run in one direction, and +that is definite and combined. + +Now truly began that modern era, of which we happily reap the harvest: +then were laid the first foundations of social order and the first +effective hint of that sense of mutual aid and dependence which has, +century by century, been creating such a balance and harmony of adjusted +operations--of agencies working night and day, which no man sees, for +services which no man creates: the agencies are like Ezekiel's +wheels--self-sustained; the services in which they labour have grown up +imperceptibly as the growth of a yew, and from a period as far removed +from cognizance. One man dies every hour out of myriads, his place is +silently supplied, and the mysterious economy thus propagates itself in +silence, like the motion of the planets, from age to age. Hands +innumerable are every moment writing summonses, returns, reports, +figures--records that would stretch out to the crack of doom, as yet +every year accumulated, written by professional men, corrected by +correctors, checked by controllers, and afterwards read by corresponding +men, re-read by corresponding controllers, passed and ratified by +corresponding ratifiers; and through this almighty pomp of wheels, whose +very whirling would be heard into other planets, did not the very +velocity of their motion seem to sleep on their soft axle, is the +business of this great nation, judicial, fixed, penal, deliberative, +statistical, commercial, all carried on without confusion, never +distracting one man by its might, nor molesting one man by its noise. + +Now, in the semi-fabulous times of Egypt and Assyria, things were not so +managed. Ours are the ages of intellectual powers, of working by +equivalents and substitutions; but theirs were done by efforts of brute +power, possible only in the lowest condition of animal man, when all +wills converged absolutely in one, and when human life, cheap as dog's, +had left man in no higher a state of requirement, and had given up human +power to be applied at will--without art or skill. + +Then the armies of a Semiramis even were in this canine state. It was +her curse to have subjects that had no elevation, swarming by myriads +like flies; mere animal life, the mere animal armies which she needed; +what she wanted was exactly what they would yield. To such cattle all +cares beyond that of mere provender were thrown away. Surgical care and +the ambulance, such as the elevation of man's condition, and the +solemnity of his rights, seen by the awful eye of Christianity, will +always require, were simply ridiculous. As well raise hospitals for +decayed butterflies. Provender was all: not _panem et circenses_--bread +and theatrical shows--but simply bread, and that wretched of its kind. +Drink was an ideal luxury. Was there not the Euphrates, was there not +the Tigris, the Aranes? The Roman armies carried _posca_ by way of such +luxury, a drink composed of vinegar and water. But as to Semiramis--what +need of the vinegar? And why carry the water? Could it not be found in +the Euphrates, etc.? Let the dogs lap at the Euphrates, and stay for +their next draught till they come to the Tigris or the Aranes. Or, if +they drank a river or so dry, and a million or two should die, what of +that? Let them go on to the Tigris, and thence to the Aranes, the Oxus, +or Indus. Clothes were dispensable from the climate, food only of the +lowest quality, and finally the whole were summoned only for one +campaign, and usually this was merely a sort of partisan camisade upon a +colossal scale, in which the superfluous population of one vast nation +threw themselves upon another. Mere momentum turned the scale; one +nuisance of superfluous humanity was discharged upon such another +nuisance, the one exterminating the other, or, if both by accident +should be exterminated, what mattered it? The major part of the two +nuisances, like algebraical quantities of plus and minus, extinguished +each other. And, in any case, the result, whatever it might be, of that +one campaign, which was rather a journey terminating in a bad battle of +mobs, than anything artificial enough to deserve the title of camp, +terminated the whole war. Here, at least, we see the determining impulse +of political economy intervening, coming round upon them, if it had not +been perceived before. If the two nations began their warfare, and +planned it in defiance of all common laws and exchequers, at any rate +the time it lasted was governed by that only. The same thing recurred in +the policy of the feudal ages; the bumpkins, the vassals, were compelled +to follow the standard, but their service was limited to a certain +number of weeks. Afterwards, by law, as well as by custom, they +dissolved for the autumnal labour of the harvest. And thus it was, until +the princes would allow of mercenary armies, no system of connecting +politics grew up in Europe, or could grow up; having no means of +fighting each other, they were like leopards in Africa gnawing at a +leopard in Asia; they fumed apart like planets that could not cross; a +vast revolution, which Robertson ascribes to the reign of Francis I., +but which I, upon far better grounds and on speculations much more +exclusively pursued, date from the age of Louis XI. Differing in +everything, and by infinite degrees for the worse from these early +centuries, the age of Semiramis agreed in this--that if the non-culture +of the human race allowed them to break out into war with little or no +preparation but what each man personally could make, and if thus far +political economy did not greatly control the policy of nations, yet in +the reaction these same violated laws vindicated their force by sad +retributions. Famines, at all events dire exhaustion, invariably put an +end to such tumultuary wars, if they did not much control their +beginnings,[42] and periodically expressed their long retributory +convulsions. + +Not, therefore, because political economy was of little avail, but +because the details are lost in the wilderness of years, must we +disregard the political economy in the early Assyrian combinations of +the human race. The details are lost for political economy as a cause, +and the details are equally lost of the wars and the revolutions which +were its effects. But in coming more within the light of authentic +history, I contend that political economy is better known, and that in +that proportion it explains much of what ought to be known. For example, +I contend that the condition of Athens, for herself and for the rest of +the Greek confederacy, nay, the entire course of the Athenian wars, of +all that Athens did or forbore to do, her actions alike, and her +omissions, are to be accounted for, and lie involved in the statistics +of her fiscal condition. + +IX.--_Geography._--Look next at geography. The consideration of this +alone throws a new light on history. Every country that is now or will +be, has had some of its primary determinations impressed upon its policy +and institutions; nay, upon its feeling and character, which is the well +of its policy, by its geographical position: that is, by its position +as respects climate in the first place, secondly, as respects neighbours +(_i.e._, enemies), whether divided by mountains, rivers, deserts, or the +great desert of the sea--or divided only by great belts of land--a +passable solitude. Thirdly, as respects its own facilities and +conveniences for raising food, clothing, luxuries. Indeed, not only is +it so moulded and determined as to its character and aspects, but +oftentimes even as to its very existence. + +Many have noticed wisely and truly in the physical aspect of Asia and +the South of Caucasus, that very destiny of slavery and of partition +into great empires, which has always hung over them. The great plains of +Asia fit it for the action of cavalry and vast armies--by which the fate +of generations is decided in a day; and at the same time fit it for the +support of those infinite myriads without object, which make human life +cheap and degraded. That this was so is evident from what Xenophon +tells. + +On the other hand, many have seen in the conformation of Greece +revolving round a nucleus able to protect in case of invasion, yet cut +up into so many little chambers, of which each was sacred from the +intrusion of the rest during the infancy of growth, the solution of all +the marvels which Grecian history unfolds. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[20] This distinction is of some consequence. Else the student would be +puzzled at finding [which is really the truth] that, after the Twelve +Caesars and the five patriotic emperors who succeeded them, we know less +of the Roman princes through centuries after the Christian era, than of +the Roman Consuls through a space of three centuries preceding the +Christian era. In fact, except for a few gossiping and merely _personal_ +anecdotes communicated by the Augustan History and a few other +authorities, we really know little of the most illustrious amongst the +Roman emperors of the West, beyond the fact (all but invariable) that +they perished by assassination. But still this darkness is not of the +same nature, nor owing to the same causes, as the Grecian darkness prior +to the Olympiads. + +[21] Except, indeed, by the barbarous contrivance of cutting away some +letters from a name, and then filling up their place with other letters +which, by previous agreement, have been rendered significant of +arithmetic numbers. This is the idea on which the _Memoria Technica_ of +Dr. Grey proceeds. More appropriately it might have been named _Memoria +Barbarica_, for the dreadful violence done to the most beautiful, +rhythmical, and melodious names would, at any rate, have remained as a +repulsive expression of barbarism to all musical ears, had the practical +benefits of this machinery been all that they profess to be. Meantime +these benefits are really none at all. They offer us a mere mockery, +defeating with one hand what they accomplish with the other. + +[22] It is all but an impossible problem for a nation in the situation +of Greece to send down a record to a posterity distant by five +centuries, to overlap the gulf of years between the point of +starting--the absolute now of commencement and the remote generation at +which you take aim. Trust to tradition, not to the counsel of one man. +But tradition is buoyant. + +[23] _Crusade._--There seems a contradiction in the very terms of +Pagan--that is, non-Christian, and Crusade--that is, warfare +symbolically Christian. But, by a license not greater than is often +practised in corresponding circumstances, the word Crusade may be used +to express any martial expedition amongst a large body of confederate +nations having or representing an imaginative (not imaginary) interest +or purpose with no direct profession of separate or mercenary object for +each nation apart. + +[24] The truths of Scripture are of too vast a compass, too much like +the Author of those truths--illimitable and incapable of verbal +circumscription, and, besides, are too much diffused through many +collateral truths, too deeply echoed and reverberated by trains of +correspondences and affinities laid deep in nature, and above all, too +affectingly transcribed in the human heart, ever to come within the +compass or material influence of a few words this way or that; any more +than all eternity can be really and locally confined within a little +golden ring which is assumed for its symbol. The same thing, I repeat, +may be said of chronology and its accidents. The chronologies of +Scripture, its prophetic weeks of Daniel, and its mysterious aeons of the +Apocalypse, are too awful in their realities, too vast in their sweep +and range of application, to be controlled or affected by the very +utmost errors that could arise from lapse of time or transcription +unrevised. And the more so, because errors that by the supposition are +errors of accident, cannot all point in one direction: one would be +likely in many cases to compensate another. But, finally, I would make +this frank acknowledgment to a young pupil without fear that it could +affect her reverence for Scripture. It is of the very grandeur of +Scripture that she can afford to be negligent of her chronology. Suppose +this case: suppose the Scriptures protected by no special care or +providence; suppose no security, no barrier to further errors, to have +arisen from the discovery of printing--suppose the Scriptures to be in +consequence transcribed for thousands of years--even in that case the +final result would be this: it would be (and in part perhaps it really +is) true or not true as to its minor or petty chronology--not true, as +having been altered insensibly like any human composition where the +internal sense was not of a nature to maintain its integrity. True, even +as to trifles, in that sense which the majestic simplicity and +self-conformity of truth in a tale originally true would guarantee, it +might yet be, because of the grandeur of the main aim, and the sense of +deeper relations and the perception of verisimilitude. + +[25] '_A New Slave Country_'--and this for more reasons than one. Slaves +were growing dearer in Rome; secondly, a practice had been for some time +increasing amongst the richest of the noble families in Rome, of growing +household bodies of gladiators, by whose aid they fought the civic +battles of ambition; and thirdly, as to Caesar in particular, he had +raised and equipped a whole legion out of his own private funds, and, of +course, for his own private service; so that he probably looked to +Britain as a new quarry from which he might obtain the human materials +of his future armies, and also as an arena or pocket theatre, in which +he could organize and discipline these armies secure from jealous +observation. + +[26] Here the pupil will naturally object--was not Judaea an Asiatic +land? And did not Judaea act upon Europe? Doubtless; and in the sublimest +way by which it is possible for man to act upon man; not only through +the highest and noblest part of man's nature, but (as most truly it may +be affirmed) literally creating, in a practical sense, that nature. For, +to say nothing of the sublime idea of Redemption as mystically involved +in the types and prophecies of Jewish prophets, and in the very +ceremonies of the Jewish religion, what was the very highest ideal of +God which man--philosophic man even--had attained, compared with that of +the very meanest Jew? It is false to say that amongst the philosophers +of Greece or Rome the Polytheistic creed was rejected. No Pagan +philosopher ever adopted, ever even conceived, the sublime of the Jewish +God--as a being not merely of essential unity, but as deriving from that +unity the moral relations of a governor and a retributive judge towards +human creatures. So that Judaea bore an office for the human race of a +most awful and mysterious sanctity. But (and partly for that reason) the +civil and social relations of Judaea to the human race were less than +nothing. And thence arose the intolerant scorn of such writers as +Tacitus for the Christians, whom, of course, they viewed as Jews, and +nothing _but_ Jews. Thus far they were right--that, as a nation, valued +upon the only scale known to politicians, the Jews brought nothing at +all to the common fund of knowledge or civilization. One element of +knowledge, however, the Jews did bring, though at that time unknown, and +long after, for want of historic criticism in the history of chronologic +researches, viz., a chronology far superior to that of the Septuagint, +as will be shown farther on, and far superior to the main guides of +Paganism. But the reason why this superiority of chronology will, after +all, but little avail the general student is, that it relates merely to +the Assyrian or Persian princes in their intercourse with the courts of +Jerusalem or of Samaria. + +[27] Juba, King of Mauritania, during the struggle of Caesar and Pompey. + +[28] Which clannish feeling, be it observed, always depends for its life +and intensity upon the comparison with others; as they are despised, in +that ratio rises the clannish self-estimation. Whereas the nobler pride +of a Roman patriotism is [Greek: autarkes] and independent of external +relations. Nothing is more essentially opposed, though often confounded +under the common name of patriotism, than the love of country in a Roman +or English sense, and the spirit of clannish jealousy. + +[29] This it was (a circumstance overlooked by many who have written on +the Roman literature), this destiny announced and protected by early +auguries, which made the idea of Rome a great and imaginative idea. The +patriotism of the Grecian was, as indicated in an earlier note, a mean, +clannish feeling, always courting support to itself, and needing support +from imaginary 'barbarism' in its enemies, and raising itself into +greatness by means of _their_ littleness. But with the nobler Roman +patriotism was a very different thing. The august destiny of his own +eternal city [observe--'_eternal_,' not in virtue of history, but of +prophecy, not upon the retrospect and the analogies of any possible +experience, but by the necessity of an aboriginal doom], a city that was +to be the centre of an empire whose circumference is everywhere, did not +depend for any part of its majesty upon the meanness of its enemies; on +the contrary, in the very grandeur of those enemies lay, by a rebound of +the feelings inevitable to a Roman mind, the paramount grandeur of that +awful Republic which had swallowed them all up. + +[30] I do not mean to deny the casual intercourse between Rome and +particular cities of Greece, which sometimes flash upon us for a moment +in the earliest parts of the Roman annals: what I am insisting upon, is +the absence of all national or effectual intercourse. + +[31] Even an attorney, however [according to an old story, which I much +fear is a Joe Miller, but which ought to be fact], is not so rigorous as +to allow of no latitude, for, having occasion to send a challenge with +the stipulation of fighting at twelve paces, upon 'engrossing' this +challenge the attorney directed his clerk to add--'Twelve paces, be the +same more or less.' And so I say of the Olympiad--'777 years, be the +same more or less.' + +[32] And finally, were it necessary to add one word by way of +reconciling the student to the substitution of 777 for 776, it might be +sufficient to remind him that, even in the rigour of the minutest +calculus, when the 776 years are fully accomplished--to prove which +accomplishment we must suppose some little time over and above the 776 +to have elapsed--then this surplus, were it but a single hour, throws us +at once into the 777th year. This was, in fact, the oversight which +misled a class of disputants, whom I hope the reader is too young to +remember, but whom I, alas! remember too well in the year 1800. They +imagined and argued that the eighteenth century closed upon the first +day of the year 1800. New Year's Day of the year 1799, they understood +as the birthday of the Christian Church, proclaiming it to be then 1799 +years old, not as commencing its 1799th year. And so on. Pye, the Poet +Laureate of that day, in an elaborate preface to a secular ode, argued +the point very keenly. It is certain (though not evident at first sight) +that in the year 1839 the Christian period of time is not, as children +say, '_going of_' 1840, but going of 1839: whereas the other party +contend that it is in its 1840th year, tending in short to become that +which it will actually be on its birthday, _i.e._, on the calends of +January, or _le Jour de l'an_, or New Year's Day of 1840. + +[33] See note immediately preceding on previous page. + +[34] '_With impunity._'--There is no one point in which I have found a +more absolute coincidence of opinion amongst all profound thinkers, +English, German, and French, when discussing the philosophy of +education, than this great maxim--_that the memory ought never to be +exercised in a state of insulation_, that is, in those blank efforts of +its strength which are accompanied by no law or logical reason for the +thing to be remembered; by no such reason or principle of dependency as +could serve to recall it in after years, when the burthen may have +dropped out of the memory. The reader will perhaps think that I, the +writer of this little work, have a pretty strong and faithful memory, +when I tell him that every word of it, with all its details, has been +written in a situation which sternly denied me the use of books bearing +on my subject. A few volumes of rhetorical criticism and of polemic +divinity, that have not, nor, to my knowledge, could have furnished me +with a solitary fact or date, are all the companions of my solitude. +Other voice than the voice of the wind I have rarely heard. Even my +quotations are usually from memory, though not always, as one out of +three, perhaps, I had fortunately written down in a pocket-book; but no +one date or fact has been drawn from any source but that of my +unassisted memory. Now, this useful sanity of the memory I ascribe +entirely to the accident of my having escaped in childhood all such +mechanic exercises of the memory as I have condemned in the text--to +this accident, combined with the constant and severe practice I have +given to my memory, in working and sustaining immense loads of facts +that had been previously brought under logical laws. + +[35] '_The long careering of an earthquake._'--It is remarkable, and was +much noticed at the time by some German philosophers, that the +earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins about ninety-five years ago, could +be as regularly traced through all its stages for some days previous to +its grand _finale_, as any thief by a Bow Street officer. It passed +through Ireland and parts of England; in particular it was dogged +through a great part of Leicestershire; and its rate of travelling was +not so great but that, by a series of telegraphs, timely notice might +have been sent southwards that it was coming. [The Lisbon earthquake +occurred in 1755; so that this paper must have been written about 1849 +or 1850.--ED.] + +[36] '_The exact personality._'--The historical personality, or complete +identification of an individual, lies in the whole body of circumstances +that would be sufficient to determine him as a responsible agent in a +court of justice. Archbishop Usher and others fancy that Sardanapalus +was the son of Pul; guided merely by the sound of a syllable. +Tiglath-Pileser, some fancy to be the same person as Sardanapalus; +others to be the very rebel who overthrew Sardanapalus. In short, all is +confused and murky to the very last degree. And the reader who fancies +that some accurate chronological characters are left, by which the era +of Sardanapalus can be more nearly determined than it is determined +above, viz., as generally coinciding with the era of Romulus and of the +Greek Olympiad, is grossly imposed upon. + +[37] '_And Asiatic._'--_Asiatic_, let the pupil observe, and not merely +Assyrian; for the Assyria of this era represents all that was afterwards +Media, Persia, Chaldaea, Babylonia, and Syria. No matter for the exact +limits of the Assyrian empire, which are as indistinct in space as in +time. Enough that no Asiatic State is known as distinct from this +empire. + +[38] And this is so exceedingly striking, that I am much surprised at +the learned disputants upon the era of Homer having failed to notice +this argument; especially when we see how pitiably poor they are in +probabilities or presumptions of any kind. The miserable shred of an +argument with those who wish to carry up Homer as high as any colourable +pretext will warrant, is this, that he must have lived pretty near to +the war which he celebrates, inasmuch as he never once alludes to a +great revolutionary event in the Peloponnesus. Consequently, it is +argued, Homer did not live to witness that revolution. Yet he must have +witnessed it, if he had lived at the distance of eighty years from the +capture of Troy; for such was the era of that event, viz., the return of +the Heraclidae. Now, in answer to this, it is obvious to say that +negations prove little. Homer has failed to notice, has omitted to +notice, or found no occasion for noticing, scores of great facts +contemporary with Troy, or contemporary with himself, which yet must +have existed for all that. In particular, he has left us quite in the +dark about the great empires, and the great capitals on the Euphrates +and the Tigris, and the Nile; and yet it was of some importance to have +noticed the relation in which the kingdom of Priam stood to the great +potentates on those rivers. The argument, therefore, drawn from the +non-notice of the Heraclidae, is but trivial. On the other hand, an +argument of some strength for a lower era as the true era of Homer, may +be drawn from the much slighter colouring of the marvellous, which in +Homer's treatment of the story attaches to the _Iliad_, than to the +_Seven against Thebes_. In the Iliad we have the mythologic marvellous +sometimes; the marvellous of necessity surrounding the gods and their +intercourse with men; but we have no Amphiaraus swallowed up by the +earth, no Oedipus descending into a mysterious gulf at the summons of an +unseen power. And beyond all doubt the shield of Achilles, supposing it +no interpolation of a later age, argues a much more advanced state of +the arts of design, etc., than the shields, (described by AEschylus, as +we may suppose, from ancient traditions preserved in the several +families), of the seven chiefs who invaded Thebes. + +[39] '_Seven-gated_,' both as an expression which recalls the subject of +the Romance (the Seven Anti-Theban Chieftains), and as one which +distinguishes this Grecian Thebes from the Egyptian Thebes; that being +called _Hekatompylos_, or _Hundred-gated_. Of course some little +correction will always be silently applied to the general expression, so +as to meet the difference between the two generations that served at +Troy and in the Argonautic expedition, and again between David and his +son. If the elder generation be fixed to the year 1000, then 1000 +_minus_ 30 will express the era of the younger; if the younger be fixed +to the year 1000, then 1000 _plus_ 30 will express the era of the elder. +Or, better still, 1000 may be taken as the half-way era in which both +generations met; that era in which the father was yet living and active, +whilst the son was already entering upon manhood; that era, for +instance, at which David was still reigning, though his son Solomon had +been crowned. On this plan, no correction at all will be required; 15 +years on each side of the 1000 will mark the two terms within which the +events and persons range; and the 1000 will be the central point of the +period. + +[40] Elam is the Scriptural name for Persia. + +[41] 'Alala! Alala!' the war cry of Eastern armies. + +[42] And for the very reason that political economy had but a small +share in determining the war of the year A, it became not so much a +great force as the sole force for putting an end to the war of the year +D. + + + + +_VI. CHRYSOMANIA; OR, THE GOLD-FRENZY IN ITS PRESENT STAGE._ + + +Some time back I published in this journal a little paper on the +Californian madness--for madness I presumed it to be, and upon two +grounds. First, in so far as men were tempted into a lottery under the +belief that it was _not_ a lottery; or, if it really _were_ such, that +it was a lottery without blanks. Secondly, in so far as men were tempted +into a transitory speculation under the delusion that it was not +transitory, but rested on some principle of permanence. We have since +seen the Californian case repeated, upon a scale even of exaggerated +violence, in Australia. There also, if great prizes seemed to be won in +a short time, it was rashly presumed that something like an equitable +distribution of these prizes took place. Supposing ten persons to have +obtained L300 in a fortnight, people failed to observe that, if divided +amongst the entire party of which these ten persons formed a section, +the L300 would barely have yielded average wages. In one instance a very +broad illustration of this occurred in the early experience of Victoria. +A band of seven thousand people had worked together; whether simply in +the sense of working as neighbours in the same local district, or in the +commercial sense of working as partners, I do not know, nor is it +material to know. The result sounded enormous, when stated in a +fragmentary way with reference to particular days, and possibly in +reference also to particular persons, distinguished for luck, but on +taking the trouble to sum up the whole amount of labourers, of days, and +of golden ounces extracted, it did not appear that the wages to each +individual could have averaged quite so much as twenty shillings a week, +supposing the total product to have been on that principle of +participation. Very possibly it was _not_; and in that case the gains of +some individuals may have been enormous. But a prudent man, if he quits +a certainty or migrates from a distance, will compute his prospects upon +this scale of averages, and assuredly not upon the accidents of +exceptional luck. The instant objection will be, that such luck is _not_ +exceptional, but represents the ordinary case. Let us consider. The +reports are probably much exaggerated; and something of the same +machinery for systematic exaggeration is already forming itself as +operated so beneficially for California. As yet, however, it is not +absolutely certain that the reports themselves, taken literally, would +exactly countenance the romantic impressions drawn from those reports by +the public. + +Until the reader has checked the accounts, or, indeed, has been enabled +to check them, by balancing the amount of gain against the amount of +labour applied, he cannot know but that the reports themselves would +show on examination a series of unusual successes set against a series +of entire failures, so as to leave a _facit_, after all corrections and +allowances, of moderately good wages upon an equal distribution of the +whole. I would remind him to propose this question: has it been +asserted, even by these wild reports, with respect to any thousand men +(taken as an aggregate), I do not mean to say that all have succeeded, +or even that a majority have not failed decisively--that is more than I +demand--but has it been asserted that they have realized so much in any +week or any month as would, if divided equally amongst losers and +winners, have allowed to each man anything conspicuously above the rate +of ordinary wages? Of lotteries in general it has been often remarked, +that if you buy a single ticket you have but a poor chance of winning, +if you buy twenty tickets your chance is very much worse, and if you buy +all the tickets your chance is none at all, but is exchanged for a +certainty of loss. So as to the gold lottery of Australia, I suspect +(and, observe, not assuming the current reports to be false, but, on the +contrary, to be strictly correct for each separate case, only needing to +be combined and collated as a whole) that if each separate century[43] +of men emigrating to the goldfield of Mount Alexander were to make a +faithful return of their aggregate winnings, that return would not prove +seductive at all to our people at home, supposing these winnings to be +distributed equally as amongst an incorporation of adventurers; though +it _has_ proved seductive in the case of the extraordinary success being +kept apart so as to fix and fascinate the gaze into an oblivion of the +counterbalancing failures. + +There is, however, notoriously, a natural propensity amongst men to +confide in their luck; and, as this is a wholesome propensity in the +main, it may seem too harsh to describe by the name of _mania_ even a +morbid excess of it, though it ought to strike the most sanguine man, +that in order to account for the possibility of any failures at all, we +must suppose the main harvest of favourable chances to decay with the +first month or so of occupation by any commensurate body of settlers; so +that in proportion to the strength and reality of the promises to the +earliest settlers, will have been the rapid exhaustion of such promises. +Exactly _because_ the district was really a choice one for those who +came first, it must often be ruined for _him_ who succeeds him. + +Here, then, is a world of disappointments prepared and preparing for +future emigrants. The favourite sports and chief lands of promise will +by the very excess of their attractiveness have converged upon +themselves the great strength of the reapers; and in very many cases the +main harvest will have been housed before the new race of adventurers +from Great Britain can have reached the ground. In most cases, +therefore, ruin would be the instant solution of the disappointment. But +in a country so teeming with promise as Australia, ruin is hardly a +possible event. A hope lost is but a hope transfigured. And one is +reminded of a short colloquy that took place on the field of Marengo. +'Is this battle lost?' demanded Napoleon of Desaix. 'It is,' replied +Desaix; 'but, before the sun sets, there is plenty of time to win it +back.' In like manner the new comers, on reaching the appointed grounds, +will often have cause to say, 'Are we ruined this morning?' To which the +answer will not unfrequently be, 'Yes; but this is the best place for +being ruined that has yet been discovered. You have trusted to the +guidance of a _will-of-the-wisp_; but a _will-of-the-wisp_ has been +known to lead a man by accident to a better path than that which he had +lost.' There is no use, therefore, in wasting our pity upon those who +may happen to suffer by the first of the two delusions which I noticed, +viz., the conceit that either Australia or California offers a lottery +without blanks. Blanks too probably they will draw; but what matters it, +when this disappointment cannot reach them until they find themselves +amidst a wilderness of supplementary hopes? One prize has been lost, but +twenty others have been laid open that had never been anticipated. + +Far different, on the other hand, is the second delusion--the delusion +of those who mistake a transitional for a permanent prosperity, and many +of whom go so far in their frenzy as to see only matter of +congratulation in the very extremity of changes, which (if realized) +would carry desperate ruin into our social economy. For these people +there is no indemnification. I begin with this proposition--that no +material extension can be given to the use of gold after great national +wants are provided for, without an enormous lowering of its price: which +lowering, if once effected, and exactly in proportion as it is effected, +takes away from the gold-diggers all motive for producing it. The +dilemma is this, and seems to me inevitable: Given a certain +depreciation of gold, as, for instance, by 80 per cent., then the +profits of the miners falling in that same proportion[44] (viz., by +four-fifths) will leave no temptation whatever to pursue the trade of +digging. But, on the other hand, such a depreciation _not_ being +given--gold being supposed to range at anything approaching to its old +price--in that case no considerable extension as to the uses of gold is +possible. In either case alike the motive for producing gold rapidly +decays. To keep up any steady encouragement to the miners, the market +for gold must be prodigiously extended. That the market may be extended, +new applications of gold must be devised: the old applications would not +absorb more than a very limited increase. That new applications may be +devised, a prodigious lowering of the price is required. But precisely +as that result is approached the _extra_ encouragement to the miners +vanishes. _That_ drooping, the production will droop, even if nature +should continue the extra supplies; and the old state of prices must +restore itself. + +The whole turns upon the possibility of extending the market for gold. A +child must see that, if the demand for gold cannot be materially +increased, it is altogether nugatory that nature should indefinitely +enlarge the supply. In articles that adapt themselves to a variable +scale of uses, so as to be capable of substitution for others, according +to the relations of price, it is often possible enough that, in the +event of any change which may lower their price, the increased demand +may go on without assignable limits. For instance, when iron rises +immoderately in price, timber is substituted to an indefinite extent. +But, on the other hand, where the application is severely circumscribed, +no fall of price will avail to extend the demand. Certain herbs, for +instance, or minerals, employed for medicinal purposes, and for those +only, have their supply regulated by the demand of hospitals and of +private medical practitioners. That demand being once exhausted, no +cheapness whatever will extend the market. Suppose the European market +for leeches to be saturated; every man, suppose, is supplied; in that +case, even an _extra_ thousand cannot be sold. The purpose which leeches +answer has been met. And after _that_ nobody will take them as a gift. +But in the case of gold, it is imagined that, although the market is +pretty stationary whilst the price is stationary, let that price +materially lower itself, and immediately the substitutions of gold for +other metals, or for other decorative materials (as ivory, etc.), would +begin to extend; and commensurately with such extensions the regular +gold market would widen. This is the prevailing conceit. Now let us +consider it. + +What are the known applications of gold in the old state of +circumstances, which may be supposed capable of furnishing a basis for +extension in the altered circumstances? I will rapidly review them. +First, a very large amount of gold more than people would imagine is +annually wasted in gilding. Much of what has been applied to other +purposes is continually reverting to the market; but the gold used in +gilding is absolutely lost. This already makes a drain upon the gold +market; but will that drain be materially larger in the event of gold +falling by 50 _per cent._? Apparently not. Amongst ourselves the chief +subjects of gilding are books, picture-frames, and some varieties of +porcelain. But none of these would be bought more extensively in +consequence of gold being cheap: a man does not buy a book, for +instance, simply with a view to its being gilt; the gilding follows as a +contingency depending upon a previous act not modified in any degree by +the price of gold. In the decoration of houses it is true that hitherto +our English expenditure of gilding has been very trifling compared with +that of France and Italy, and to a great extent therefore would allow of +an increased use. Cornices, for instance, in rooms, and sections of +panels, are rarely gilt with us; and apart from any reference to the +depreciation of gold, I believe that this particular application of it +is sensibly increasing at present. Of course an improvement, which has +already begun, would extend itself further under a reduced price of +gold; yet still, as the class of houses so decorated is somewhat +aristocratic, the effect could not be very important. On the Continent +it is probable that at any rate gilding will be more extensively applied +to out-of-doors decoration, as for example, of domes, cupolas, +balustrades, etc. But all architectural innovations are slow in +travelling! And I am of opinion that five to seven thousand pounds' +worth of gold would cover all the augmented expenditure of this class. +It is doubtful, indeed, whether all the increase of gilding will do more +than balance the total abolition of it on the panels of carriages. In +the time of Louis XIV. an immense expenditure occurred in this way, and +the disuse of it is owing to the superior chastity of taste amongst our +English carriage-builders, who, in this particular art, have shot far +ahead of continental Europe. But the main consumption of gold occurs, +first, I should imagine, in watches and watch chains; secondly, in +personal ornaments; and thirdly, in gold plate. Now we must remember, at +starting, that what is called jewellers' gold, even when manufactured by +honourable tradesmen, avowedly contains a very much smaller proportion +of the pure metal than our gold coinage. Consequently an increase in the +use of watches and personal ornaments, or of such trinkets as +snuff-boxes, supposing it in the first year of cheapened gold to go the +length of 20 per cent., would not even in that department of the gold +demand enhance it by one-fifth, but perhaps by one-fourth the part of +one-fifth--that is to say, by one-twentieth. The reader, I hope, +understands me, for upon _that_ depends a pretty strong presumption of +the small real change that would be worked in the effective demand for +gold by a great apparent change in our chief demand for gold +manufactures. There can be no doubt that in watches and personal +ornaments is involved our main demand upon the gold market; through +these it is that we chiefly act upon the market. Now three corrections +are applicable to the _prima facie_ view of this subject. + +The first of these is--that gold chains, etc., and a pompous display of +rings have long ago been degraded in public estimation by the practice +and opinions prevailing in aristocratic quarters. This tendency of +public feeling at once amounts to a large deduction from what would +otherwise be our demand. + +The second of these corrections is--that, since our main action upon the +gold market lies through the jewellers, and, consequently, through +jewellers' gold, therefore, on allowing for the way in which jewellers +alloy their gold, our real means of operating upon the gold market may +be estimated perhaps at not more than one-fourth part of our apparent +means. + +A third important correction is this--at first sight it might seem as +though the purchaser of gold articles would benefit by the whole +depreciation of gold, and that the depreciation might be taken to +represent exactly the amount of stimulation applied to the sale, for +instance, of gold plate. But this is not so. Taking the depreciation of +gold at one-half, then upon any gold article, as suppose a salver, each +ounce would have sunk from 77s. to 38s. 6d. Next, rate the workmanship +at 40s. the ounce, and then the total cost upon each ounce will not be +(77s. + 40)/2, or in other words 58s. 6d., as a hasty calculation might +have fancied, but (77s./2) + 40, that is to say, 78s. 6d. Paying +heretofore L5 17s., under the new price of gold you would pay L4 within +a trifle. Consequently, when those who argue for the vast extension of +the gold market, rely for its possibility upon a vast preliminary +depreciation of gold, they are deceiving themselves as to the nature and +compass of that depreciation. The main action of the public upon the +gold market must always lie through _wrought_ and not through unwrought +gold, and in this there must always be two elements of price, viz., X, +the metal, and Y, the workmanship; so that the depreciation will never +be = (_x_ + _y_)/2 but only _x_/2 + _y_; and _y_, which is a very costly +element, will never be bound at all, not by the smallest fraction, +through any possible change in the cost of _x_. + +This is a most important consideration; for if the price of gold could +fall to nothing at all, not the less the high price of the +workmanship--this separately for itself--would for ever prevent the +great bulk of society from purchasing gold plate. Yet, through what +other channel than this of plate is it possible for any nation to reach +the gold market by any effectual action upon the price? M. Chevalier, +the most influential of French practical economists, supposes the case +that California might reduce the price of gold by one-half. Let us say, +by way of evading fractions, that gold may settle finally at the price +of forty shillings the ounce. But to what purpose would the diggers +raise enormous depots of gold for which they can have no commensurate +demand? As yet the true difficulty has not reached them. The tendency +was frightful; but, within the short period through which the new power +has yet worked, there was not range enough to bring this tendency into +full play. Now, however, when new powers of the same quality, viz., in +Australia, in Queen Charlotte's Island, in Owhyhee, and, lastly, on Lord +Poltimore's estate in South Moulton, are in working, it seems sensibly +nearer. It is a literal fact that we have yet to ascertain whether this +vaunted gold will even pay for the costs of working it. Coals lying at +the very mouth of a pit will be thankfully carried off by the poor man, +but dig a little deeper, and it requires the capital of a rich man to +raise them; and after _that_ it requires a good deal of experience, and +the trial of much mechanic artifice, to ascertain whether after all it +will be worth while to raise them. To leap from the conclusion--that, +because a solitary prize of 25 lb. weight may largely remunerate an +emigrant to California, therefore a whole generation of emigrants will +find the average profits of gold-washing, golddigging, etc., beyond +those of Russia or of Borneo, is an insanity quite on a level with all +the other insanities of the case. But, says the writer in the _Times_, +the fact has justified the speculation; the result is equal to the +anticipation; in practice nobody has been disappointed; everybody has +succeeded; nobody complains of any delusion. We beg his pardon. There +have been very distinct complaints of that nature. These have proceeded +not from individuals merely, but from associations of ten or twelve, +who, after working for some time, have not reaped the ordinary profits +on their expenses; whereas, they were also entitled to expect high wages +for their labour, in addition to extravagant profits on their outlay. +Yet, suppose this to have been otherwise, what shadow of an argument can +be drawn from the case of those privileged few, who entered upon a +virgin harvest, applicable to the multitudes who will succeed to an +inheritance of ordinary labour, tried in all quarters of the globe, and +seldom indeed found to _terminate_ in any extra advantages? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[43] '_Century of Men_,'--It may be necessary to remind some readers +that this expression, to which I resort for want of any better or +briefer, is strictly correct. The original Latin word _centuria_ is a +collection of one hundred separate items, no matter what, whether men, +horses, ideas, etc. 'A Century of Sonnets' was properly taken as the +title of a book. 'A Century of Inventions' was adopted by Lord Worcester +as the title of _his_ book. And when we use the word century (as +generally we do) to indicate a certain duration of time, it is allowable +only on the understanding that it is an elliptical expression; the full +expression is _a century of years_. + +[44] 'In that same proportion,' but in reality the profits would fall in +a much greater proportion. To illustrate this, suppose the existing +price of gold in Australia to be sixty shillings an oz. I assume the +price at random, as being a matter of no importance; but, in fact, I +understand that at Melbourne, and other places in the province of +Victoria, this really _is_ the ruling price at present. For some little +time the price was steady at fifty-seven shillings; that is, assuming +the mint price in England to be seventy-seven shillings (neglecting the +fraction of 10-1/2d.), and the Australian price sank by twenty +shillings; which sinking, however, we are not to understand as any +depreciation that had the character of permanence; it arose out of local +circumstances. Subsequently the price fell as low even as forty-five +shillings, where it halted, and soon ascended again to sixty shillings. +Sixty shillings therefore let us postulate as the present price. Upon +this sum descended the expenses of the miner. Let these, including +tools, machinery, etc., be assumed at three half-crowns for each ounce +of gold. Then, at a price of sixty shillings, this discount descends +upon each sovereign to the amount of one half-crown, or one-eighth. But +at a reduced price of thirty shillings, this discount of three +half-crowns amounts to one-fourth. And, at a price of twelve shillings, +it amounts to five-eighths. So that, as the gross profits descend, the +_nett_ profits descend in a still heavier proportion. + + + + +_VII. DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH PEERAGE._ + + +It is by a continued _secretion_ (so to speak) of all which forces +itself to the surface of national importance in the way of patriotic +services that the English peerage keeps itself alive. Stop the laurelled +trophies of the noble sailor or soldier pouring out his heart's blood +for his country, stop the intellectual movement of the lawyer or the +senatorial counsellor, and immediately the sources are suffocated +through which _our_ peerage is self-restorative. The simple truth is, +how humiliating soever it may prove I care not, that whether positively +by cutting off the honourable sources of addition, or negatively by +cutting off the ordinary source of subtraction, the other peerages of +Europe are peerages of _Faineans_. Pretend not to crucify for ignominy +the sensual and torpid princes of the Franks; in the same boat row all +the peerages that _can_ have preserved their regular hereditary descent +amongst civil feuds which _ought_ to have wrecked them. The Spanish, the +Scotch, the Walloon nobility are all of them nobilities from which their +several countries would do well to cut themselves loose, so far as +_that_ is possible. How came _you_, my lord, we justly say to this and +that man, proud of his ancient descent, to have brought down your +wretched carcase to this generation, except by having shrunk from all +your bloody duties, and from all the chances that beset a gallant +participation in the dreadful enmities of your country? Would you make +it a reproach to the Roman Fabii that 299 of that house perished in +fighting for their dear motherland? And that, if a solitary Fabius +survived for the rekindling of the house, it was because the restorer of +his house had been an infant at the aera of his household catastrophe. +And if, through such burning examples of patriotism, far remote +collateral descendants entered upon the succession, was this a reproach? +Was this held to vitiate or to impair the heraldic honours? A +disturbance, a convulsion, that shook the house back into its primitive +simplicities of standing, was that a shock to its hereditary grandeur? +If it _had_ been, there perished the efficient fountain of nobility as +any _national_ or _patriotic_ honour; that being extinguished, it became +a vile, _personal_ distinction. For instance, like the Roman Fabii, the +major part of the English nobility was destroyed in the contest (though +so short a contest) of the two Roses. To restore it at all, recourse was +had to every mode of healing family wounds through distant marriage +connections, etc. But in the meantime, to a Spanish or a Scottish +nobleman, who should have insisted upon the _directness_ of his descent, +the proper answer would have been: 'Dog! in what kennel were you lurking +when such and such civil feuds were being agitated? As an honest man, as +a gallant man, ten times over you ought to have died, had you felt, +which the English nobility of the fifteenth century _did_ feel, that +your peerage was your summons to the field of battle and the scaffold.' +For, again in later years than the fifteenth century, the English +nobility--those even who, like the Scotch, had gained their family +wealth by plundering the Church--in some measure washed out this +original taint by standing forward as champions of what they considered +(falsely or truly) national interests. The Russells, the Cavendishes, +the Sidneys, even in times of universal profligacy, have held aloft the +standard of their order; and no one can forget the many peers in Charles +I.'s time, such as Falkland, or the Spencers (Sunderland), or the +Comptons (Northampton), who felt and owned their paramount duty to lie +in public self-dedication, and died therefore, and oftentimes left their +inheritances a desolation. 'Thus far'--oh heavens! with what bitterness +I said this, knowing it a thing undeniable by W. W. or by Sir +George--you, the peerages that pretend to try conclusions with the +English, you--French, German, Walloon, Spanish, Scottish--are able to do +so simply because you are _faineans_, because in time of public danger +you hid yourselves under your mammas' petticoats, whilst the glorious +work of reaping a bloody harvest was being done by others. + +But the English peerage also celebrates services in the Senate as well +as in the field. Look for a moment at the house of Cecil. The interest +in this house was national, and at the same time romantic. Two families +started off--one might say _simultaneously_--from the same radix, for +the difference in point of years was but that which naturally divided +the father and the son. Both were Prime Ministers of England, rehearsing +by anticipation the relations between the two William Pitts--the +statesmen who guided, first, the _Seven Years' War_, from 1757 to 1763; +and, secondly, the French Revolutionary War, from the murder of Louis +XVI. in 1793 to the battle of Trafalgar in October, 1805. Sir William +Cecil, the father, had founded the barony of Burleigh, which +subsequently was raised into the earldom of Exeter. Sir Robert Cecil, +the son, whose personal merits towards James I. were more conspicuous +than those of his father towards Queen Elizabeth, had leaped at once +into the earldom of Salisbury. Through two centuries these distinguished +houses--Exeter the elder and Salisbury the junior--had run against each +other. At length the junior house ran ahead of its elder, being raised +to a marquisate. But in this century the elder righted itself, rising +also to a marquisate. In an ordinary case this would not have won any +notice, but the historic cradle of the two houses, amongst burning feuds +of Reformation and anti-Reformation policy, fiery beyond all that has +ever raged amongst men, fixed the historic eye upon them. Neck and neck +they ran together. Hatfield House for the family of Salisbury, Burleigh +House (founded by the original Lord Burleigh) for the family of Exeter, +expressed in the nineteenth century that fraternal conflict which had +commenced in the sixteenth. Personal merits, if any such had varied and +coloured the pretensions of this or that generation, had, in the midst +of wealth and ease and dignity, withdrawn themselves from notice, except +that about the splendid decennium of the Regency and the second +decennium of George IV.'s reign, no lady of the Court had been so +generally acceptable to the world of fashion and elegance, domestic or +foreign, as the Marchioness of Salisbury, whose tragical death by fire +at Hatfield House, in spite of her son's heroic exertions, was as +memorable for the last generation as the similar tragedy at the Austrian +Ambassador's continued to be for the Court and generation of +Napoleon.[45] It is not often that two kindred houses, belonging in the +Roman sense to the same _gens_ or clan, run against each other with +parity of honour and public consideration through nearly three +centuries. The present representative of the Exeter house of the +Cecils[46] was not individually considered a very interesting person. +Or, at least, any interest that might distinguish him did not adapt +itself to conversational display. His personal story was more remarkable +than he was himself. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[45] Napoleon attached a superstitious importance to this event. In +1813, upon the sudden death of Moreau, whilst as yet the circumstances +were entirely unknown, he fancied strangely enough that the ambassador +(Prince Schwartzenberg) whose fete had given birth to the tragedy, must +himself have been prefigured. + +[46] 'The present representative of the Exeter Cecils' was the father of +the present peer, Brownlow, 2nd Marquis; born 2nd July, 1785; succeeded +1st May, 1804, and died 16th Jan., 1867.--ED. + + + + +_VIII. THE ANTI-PAPAL MOVEMENT._ + + +The sincerity of an author sometimes borrows an advantageous +illustration from the repulsiveness of his theme. That a subject is +dull, however unfortunately it may operate for the impression which he +seeks to produce, must at least acquit him of seeking any aid to that +impression from alien and meretricious attractions. Is a subject +hatefully associated with recollections of bigotry, of ignorance, of +ferocious stupidity, of rancour, and of all uncharitableness? In that +case, the reader ought to be persuaded that nothing less than absolute +consciousness--in that case he ought to know that nothing short of TRUTH +(not necessarily as it _is_, but at least as it _appears_ to the writer) +can have availed to draw within an arena of violence and tiger-like +_acharnement_ one who, by temperament and by pressure of bodily disease, +seeks only for repose. Most unwillingly I enter the ring. Mere disgust +at the wicked injustice, which I have witnessed silently through the +last three months, forces me into the ranks of the combatants. Mere +sympathy with the ill-used gives me any motive for stirring. People have +turned Christian from witnessing the torments suffered with divine +heroism by Christian martyrs. And I think it not impossible that many +hearts may be turned favourably towards Popery by the mere recoil of +disgust from the savage insolence with which for three weeks back it has +in this country been tied to a stake, and baited. The actors, or at +least the leaders, in such scenes seem to forget that Popery has +peculiar fascinations of her own; her errors, supposing even all to be +errors which Protestantism denounces for such, lie in doctrinal points; +but her merit, and her prodigious advantage over Protestantism, lies in +the devotional spirit which she is able to kindle and to sustain amongst +simple, docile, and confiding hearts. In mere prudence it ought to be +remembered, that to love, to trust, to adore, is a far more contagious +tendency amongst the poor, the wretched, and the despised, than to +question, investigate, and reflect. + +How, then, did this movement begin? By _that_, perhaps, we may learn +something of its quality. Who was it that first roused this movement? +The greater half of the nation, viz., all the lower classes, cannot be +said to have shared in the passions of the occasion; but the educated +classes, either upon a sincere impulse, or in a spirit of excessive +imitation, have come forward with a perseverance, which (in a case of +perils confessedly so vague) is more like a moonstruck infatuation than +any other recorded in history. Until Parliament met on the 4th of +February, when a Roman Catholic member of the House of Commons first +attempted to give some specific account of the legal effects incident to +a substitution of bishops for vicars apostolic, no man has made the very +cloudiest sketch of the evils that were apprehended, or that _could_ be +apprehended, or that were in the remotest way possible. Sir Edward +Sugden, indeed, came forward with a most unsatisfactory effort to show +how Cardinal Wiseman might be punished, or might be restrained, +supposing that he had done wrong; but not at all to show that the +Cardinal _had_ done wrong, and far less to show that, if wrong could be +alleged, any evils would follow from it. Sir Edward most undoubtedly did +not satisfy himself, and so little did he satisfy anybody else, that +already his letter is forgotten; nor was it urged or relied upon by any +one of the great meetings which succeeded it. Too painful it would be to +think that Sir Edward had in this instance stepped forward +sycophantically, as so many prominent people undoubtedly did, to meet +and to aid a hue and cry of fanaticism simply because it had emanated +from a high quarter. But _what_ quarter? Again I ask, _who_ was it that +originated this fierce outbreak of bigotry? Much depends upon _that_. It +was Lord John Russell, it was the First Minister of the Crown, that +abused the power of his place for a purpose of desperate fanaticism; +yes, and for a purpose which his whole life had been dedicated to +opposing, to stigmatizing, to overthrowing. Right or wrong, he has to +begin life anew. Bigotry may _not_ be bigotry, change of position may +show it under a new aspect. But still upon that, which once was _called_ +bigotry, Lord John must now take his stand. Neither will _ratting_ a +second time avail to set him right. These things do not stand under +algebraical laws, as though ratting to the right hand could balance a +ratting to the left, and leave the guilt = 0. On the contrary, five +rattings, of which each is valued at ten, amount to fifty degrees of +crime; or, perhaps, if moral computations were better understood, amount +to a crime that swells by some secret geometrical progression +unintelligible to man. + +But now, reader, pause. Suppose that Lord John Russell, aware of some +evil, some calamity or disease, impending over the established Church +of England--sure of this evil, but absolutely unable to describe it by +rational remarks or premonitory symptom, had cast about for a channel by +which he might draw attention to the evil, and, by exposing, make an end +of it. But who could have dreamed that he would have chosen the means he +has chosen? What propriety was there in Lord John's addressing himself +upon such a subject to the Bishop of Durham? Who is that Bishop? And +what are his pretensions to public authority? He is a respectable Greek +scholar; and has re-edited the Prosodiacal Lexicon of Morell--a service +to Greek literature not easily overestimated, and beyond a doubt not +easily executed. But in relation to the Church he is not any official +organ; nor was there either decorum or good sense in addressing a letter +essentially official from the moment that it was published with consent +of the writer, to a person clothed with no sort of official powers or +official relation to the Church of England. If Lord John should have +occasion to communicate with the Bank of England, what levity, and in +the proper sense of the word what impertinence, it would be to invoke +the attention--not of the Governor--but of some clerk in a special +department of that establishment whom Lord John might happen to know. +Which of us, that wishes to bring a grievance before the authorities of +the Post-Office, would address himself to his private friend that might +happen to hold a respectable situation in the Money Order or in the Dead +Letter Office? Of mere necessity, that he might gain for his own +application an official privilege, he would address it to the +Postmaster-General through the Secretary. Not being so addressed, his +communication would take rank as gossip; neither meriting nor obtaining +any serviceable notice. Two points are still in suspense: whether the +people of England as a nation have taken any interest in the uproar +caused by Lord John's letter; and secondly, whether the writer of that +letter took much interest in it himself. Spite of all the noise and +tumult kept up for three months by the Low-Church party, clerks and +laymen, it is still a question with many vigilant lookers-on--whether +the great neutral majority in the lower strata of society (five-sixths +in short of what we mean by the nation) have taken any real interest in +the agitation. Any real share in it, beyond all doubt, they have _not_ +taken: the movers in these meetings from first to last would not make +fifteen thousand; and the inert subscribers of Petitions would not make +seventy thousand. Secondly, in spite of the hysterical violence +manifested by the letter of the Premier, and partly in consequence of +that violence (so theatrical and foreign to Lord John's temperament), +many doubt whether he himself carried any sincerity with the movement. +And this doubt is strengthened by the singular indecorum of his having +addressed himself to Dr. Maltby. + +Counterfeit zeal is likely enough to have recoiled from its own act in +the very moment of its execution. The purpose of Lord John was +sufficiently answered, if he succeeded in diverting public attention +from quarters in which it might prove troublesome: and to that extent +was sure of succeeding by an extra-official note addressed to any bishop +whatever--whether zoological like the late Bishop of Norwich, or +Prosodiacal like Dr. Maltby. A storm in a slop-basin was desirable for +the moment. But had the desire been profoundly sincere, and had it +soared to that height which _real_ fears for religious interests are apt +to attain, then beyond all doubt the Minister would not have addressed +himself to a Provincial bishop, but to the two Metropolitan bishops of +Canterbury and York. They, but not an inferior prelate, represent the +Church of England. + +The letter therefore, had it been solemn and austere in the degree +suitable to an _unsimulated_ panic, would have taken a different +direction. Gossip may be addressed to anybody. He that will listen is +sought for; and not he that can co-operate. But earnest business, +soaring into national buoyancy on the wings of panic, turns by instinct +to the proper organs for giving it effect and instant mobility. Yet, on +the other hand, if the letter really _had_ been addressed to the Primate +(as in all reason it would have been, if thoroughly in earnest), that +change must have consummated the false step, diplomatically valued, +which Lord John Russell has taken. Mark, reader! We are told, and so +often that the very echoes of Killarney and Windermere will be +permanently diseased by this endless iteration of lies, that His +Holiness has been insulting us. Ancient Father of Christendom, under +whose sheltering shadow once slept in peace for near a thousand years +the now storm-tossed nations of Western and Central Christendom, couldst +thou indeed, when turned out a houseless[47] fugitive like Lear upon a +night of tempest, still retain aught of thy ancient prestige, and +through the might of belief rule over those who have exiled thee? + + +EDITOR'S NOTE. + +The famous Durham Letter which excited so much controversy, and +re-opened what can only be called so many old sores, was addressed by +Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, to Dr. Maltby, in November, 1850. +At first it was received with great approbation, as presenting a +decisive front against Papal assumption; the Pope having recently issued +a Bull, dividing England into twelve Sees, and appointing Dr. Wiseman, +who was made a Cardinal, Archbishop of Westminster. But some expressions +in Lord John's letter, especially the expression 'unworthy sons,' +applied to High Churchmen, aroused the active opposition of a class, +with whom, he never had much sympathy, looking on the attitude and +spirit of Drs. Pusey and Newman with unaffected dislike. Catholics, of +course, and with them many moderate Roman Catholics, set up an +agitation, and soon the Durham Letter was in everybody's mouth. De +Quincey, of course, writes from his own peculiar philosophic point of +view; and when he somewhat sarcastically alludes to the informality of +addressing such a letter to the Bishop of Durham, and not to one or +other of the Archbishops, he was either ignorant of, or of set purpose +ignored, the exceptionally intimate relations in which Lord John had for +many years stood to Dr. Maltby, such relations as might well have been +accepted as explaining, if not justifying, such a departure from strict +formal propriety. Lord Russell's biographer writes: + +'Dr. Maltby, who in 1850 held the See of Durham, to which he had been +promoted on Lord John's own recommendation in 1836, was one of Lord +John's oldest and closest friends. He had been his constant +correspondent for more than twenty years; he had supplied him with much +information for the religious chapters of the "Affairs of Europe," and +he had been his frequent counsellor on questions affecting the Church, +and on the qualifications and characters of the men who were candidates +for promotion in it. It was natural, therefore, to Lord John, to open +his mind freely to the Bishop' (ii. 119, 120). + +Lord John had added in a postscript: 'If you think it will be of any +use, you have my full permission to publish this letter.' + +FOOTNOTES: + +[47] 'A houseless fugitive.' No one expression of petty malice has +struck the generous as more unworthy, amongst the many insolences +levelled at the Pope, than the ridicule so falsely fastened upon the +mode of his escape from Rome, and upon the apparently tottering tenure +of his temporal throne. His throne rocked with subterraneous heavings. +True, and was _his_ the only throne that rocked? Or which was it amongst +continental thrones that did _not_ rock? But he escaped in the disguise +of a livery servant. What odious folly! In such emergencies, no disguise +can be a degradation. Do we remember our own Charles II. assuming as +many varieties of servile disguise as might have glorified a pantomime? +Do we remember Napoleon reduced to the abject resource of entreating one +of the Commissioners to _whistle_, by way of misleading the infuriated +mob into the belief that _l'empereur_ could not be supposed present in +that carriage when such an indecency was attempted? As to the insecurity +of his throne, we must consider that other thrones, and amongst them +some of the first rank (as those of Turkey and Persia) redress their own +weakness by means of alien strength. In the jealousies of England and +France is found a bulwark against the overshadowing ambition of Russia. + + + + +_IX. THEORY AND PRACTICE:_ + + _Review of Kant's Essay on the Common Saying, that such and + such a thing may be true in theory, but does not hold good + in practice._ + + +What was the value of Kant's essay upon this popular saying? Did it do +much to clear up the confusion? Did it exterminate the vice in the +language by substituting a better _formula_? Not at all. Immanuel Kant +was, we admit, the most potent amongst all known intellects for +functions of pure abstraction. But also, viewed in two separate +relations: first, in relation to all _practical_ interests (manners, +legislation, government, spiritual religion); secondly, in relation to +the arts of teaching, of explaining, of communicating any man's meaning +where it happened to be dark or perplexed (above all, if that meaning +were his own)--this same Kant was merely impotent; absolutely, and 'no +mistake,' a child of darkness. Were it not that veneration and gratitude +cause us to suspend harsh words with regard to such a man, who has upon +the greatest question affecting our human reason almost, we might say, +_revealed_ the truth (viz., in his theory of the categories), we should +describe him, and continually we are tempted to describe him as the most +superhuman of recorded blockheads. Would it be credited, that at this +time of day, actually in the very closing years of the eighteenth +century, a man armed with some reading, but not too much study--and +sixty years' profound meditation should treat it as a matter of obvious +good sense that crowns and the succession to mighty empires ought to +travel along the line of 'merit'; not exactly on the ground of personal +beauty, or because the pretender was taller by the head than most of his +subjects--no, _that_ would be the idea of a barbarous nation. Thank God! +a royal professor of Koenigsberg was above _that_. But on the assumption +of an _appropriate_ merit, as if, for instance, he were wiser, if he +were well grounded in Transcendentalism, if he had gained a prize for +'virtue,' surely, surely, such graces ought to ensure a sceptre to their +honoured professor. Especially when we consider how _readily_ these +personal qualities _prove_ themselves to the general understanding, and +how cheerfully they are always _allowed_ by jealous and abominating +competitors! Now turn from this haughty philosopher to a plain but most +sensible and reflecting scholar--Isaac Casaubon. This man pretended to +no philosophy, but a sincere, docile heart, much good sense, and patient +observation of his own country's annals, which in the midst of +belligerent papists, and very much against his own interest, had made +him a good Church of England Protestant, made him also intensely +attached to the doctrine of fixed succession under closer and clearer +limitations than exist even in England. For a thousand years this one +plain rule had been the amulet for liberating France (else so +constitutionally disposed to war) from the bloodiest of intestine +contests. The man's career was pretty nearly concurrent as to its two +limits with that of our own Shakespeare. Both he and Shakespeare were +patronized, or, at least, countenanced by James the First, and both died +many years before their patron. More than two centuries by a good deal +have therefore passed away since he spoke, but this is the emphatic +testimony which even at that time, wanting the political experience +superadded, he bore to the peace and consequently to the civilization +won for his country by this divine maxim, this _lex trabalis_ (as so +powerfully Casaubon calls it) of hereditary succession, the cornerstone, +the main beam, in the framework of Gallic polity. These are the words: +'_Occidebant et occidebantur_' (_i.e._, in those days of Roman Caesars) +'_immanitate pari; cum in armis esset jus omne regnandi_'--in the sword +lay the arbitration of the title. He speaks of the horrid murderous +uniformity by which the Western Empire moved through five centuries (for +it commenced in murder 42 years B.C. and lasted for 477 after Christ). +But why? Simply by default of any conventional rule, and the consequent +necessity that men should fall back upon the title of the strongest. For +that ridiculous plausibility of Kant's superscribed with _Detur +meliori_, it should never be forgotten, is so far from having any +pacific tendencies, that originally, according to the eldest of Greek +fables, it was [Greek: Eris], Eris, the goddess of dissension, no +peace-making divinity, who threw upon a wedding-table the fatal apple +thus ominously labelled. _Meliori_! in that one word went to wreck the +harmony of the company. But for France, for the famous kingdom of the +Fleur-de-lys, for the first-born child of Christianity, always so prone +by her gentry to this sword-right, Nature herself had been silenced +through a long millennium by this one almighty amulet. 'Inde' (that is, +from this standing appeal made to personal vanity or to ambition +amongst Roman nobles)--'_inde_ haec tam spissa principatuum mutatio: qua +re nulla alia miseris populis ne dici quidem aut fingi queat +perniciosior.' So often, he goes on to say, as this dreadful curse +entailed upon Rome Imperial comes into my mind, so often 'Franciae patriae +meae felicitatem non possim non praedicare; quae sub imperio Regum +sexaginta trium (LXIII)--non dicam CLX annos' (which had been the upshot +of time, the 'tottle,' upon sixty-three Imperatores) sed paullo minus +CIO (one clear thousand, observe) 'et CC--rem omnibus seculis +inauditam!--egit beata; fared prosperously; et egisset beatior, si sua +semper bona intellexisset. Tanti est, jura regiae successionis trabali +lege semel fixisse.' Aye, faithful and sagacious Casaubon! there lies +the secret. In that word '_fixisse_'--the having settled once and for +ever, the having laid down as beams and main timbers those adamantine +rules of polity which leave no opening to doubt, no licence to caprice, +and no temptation to individual ambition. We are all interested, +Christendom to her very depths is interested, in the well-being and +progress of this glorious realm--the kingdom of the lilies, the kingdom +of Charlemagne and his paladins; from the very fierceness and angry +vigilance of whose constant hostility to ourselves has arisen one chief +re-agent in sustaining our own concurrent advancement. Under the torpor +of a German patriotism, under the languor of a _sensus communis_ which +is hardly at all developed, our own unrivalled energy would partially +have gone to sleep. We are, therefore, deeply indebted to the rancorous +animosity of France. And in this one article of a sound political creed +we must be sensible that France, so dreadfully in arrear as to all other +political wisdom, has run ahead of ourselves. For to what else was +owing our ruinous war of the Two Roses than to an original demur in our +courts of law whether the descendant of an elder son through the female +line had a title preferable or inferior to that of a descendant in the +male line from a son confessedly _junior_? Whether the element to the +right hand of uncontested superiority balanced or did _not_ balance that +element to the left hand of undenied inferiority? How well for us +English, and for the interests of our literature so cruelly barbarized +within fifty years from the death of Chaucer (A.D. 1400), had we been +able to intercept the murderous conflicts of Barnet, Towcester, +Tewkesbury, St. Albans! How happy for Spain, had no modern line of +French coxcombs (not succeeding by any claim of blood, but under the +arbitrary testament of a paralytic dotard) interfered to tamper with the +old Castilian rules, so that no man knew whether the Spanish custom or +the French innovation really governed. The Salic law or the interested +abrogation of that law were the governing principle in strict +constitutional practice. To this point had the French dynasty brought +matters, that no lawyer even could say on which side the line of +separation lay the _onus_ of treason. We have ultimately so far improved +our law of succession by continued limitations, that now even the +religion of a prince has become one amongst his indispensable +qualifications. But how matters once stood, we see written in letters of +blood. And yet to this state of perilous uncertainty would Kant have +reduced every nation under the conceit of mending their politics. 'Orbis +terrarum dominatio'--_that_, says Casaubon, was the prize at stake. And +how was it awarded? '_In parricidii praemium cedebat._' By tendency, by +usage, by natural gravitation, this Imperial dignity passed into a +bounty upon murder, upon treasonable murder, upon parricidal murder. For +the oath of fealty to the _sacra Caesaria majestas_ was of awful +obligation, although the previous title of the particular Caesar had been +worth nothing at all. And the consequent condition of insecurity, the +shadowy tenure of all social blessings, is described by Casaubon in +language truly forcible. + +Kant's purpose, as elsewhere we shall show, was not primarily with the +maxim: that was but a secondary purpose. His direct and real object lay +in one or two of the illustrative cases under the maxim. With this +particular obliquity impressed upon the movement of his own essay, we +can have no right to quarrel. Kant had an author's right to deal with +the question as best suited his own views. But with one feature of his +treatment we quarrel determinately. He speaks of this most popular (and, +we venture to add, most wise and beneficial) maxim, which arms men's +suspicions against all that is merely speculative, on the ground that it +is continually at war with the truth of practical results, as though it +were merely and blankly a vulgar error, as though _sans phrase_ it might +be dismissed for nonsense. But, because there is a casual inaccuracy in +the wording of a great truth, we are not at liberty to deny that truth, +to evade it, to 'ignore' it, or to confound a faulty expression with a +meaning originally untenable. Professor Kant, of all men, was least +entitled to plead blindness as to the substance in virtue of any vice +affecting the form. No man knew better the art of translating so wise +and beneficial a sentiment, though slightly disfigured by popular usage, +into the appropriate philosophic terms. To this very sentiment it is, +this eternal _protest_ against the plausible and the speculative, not +as a flash sentiment for a gala dinner, but as a principle of action +operative from age to age in all parts of the national conduct, that +England is indebted more than she is to any other known influence for +her stupendous prosperity on two separate lines of progress: first, on +that of commercial enterprise; secondly, on that of political +improvement. At this moment there are two forces acting upon Christendom +which constitute the principles of movement all over Europe: these are, +the questions incident to representative government, and the mighty +interests combined by commercial enterprise. Both have radiated from +England as their centre. There only did the early models of either +activity prosper. Through North America, as the daughter of England, +these two forces have transplanted themselves to every principal region +(except one) of the vast Southern American continent. Thus, to push our +view no further, we behold one-half of the habitable globe henceforth +yoked to the two sole forces of _permanent_ movement for nations, since +war and religious contests are but intermitting forces; and these two +principles, we repeat, have grown to what we now behold chiefly through +the protection of this one great maxim which throws the hopes of the +world, not upon what the scheming understanding can suggest, but upon +what the most faithful experiment can prove. + + + + +_X. POPE AND DIDACTIC POETRY._ + + +The 'Essay on Criticism' illustrates the same profound misconception of +the principle working at the root of Didactic Poetry as operated +originally to disturb the conduct of the 'Essay on Man' by its author, +and to disturb the judgments upon it by its critics. This 'Essay on +Criticism' no more aims at unfolding the grounds and theory of critical +rules applied to poetic composition, than does the _Epistola ad Pisones_ +of Horace. But what if Horace and Pope both believed themselves the +professional expounders _ex cathedra_ of these very grounds and this +very theory? No matter if they did. Nobody was less likely to understand +their own purposes than themselves. Their real purposes were _immanent_, +hidden in their poems; and from the poems they must be sought, not from +the poets; who, generally, in proportion as the problem is one of +analysis and evolution, for which, simply as the authors of the work, +Horace and Pope were no better qualified than other people, and, as +authors having that particular constitution of intellect which +notoriously they had, were much worse qualified than other people. We +cannot possibly allow a man to argue upon the meaning or tendency of his +own book, as against the evidence of the book itself. The book is +unexceptionable authority: and, as against _that_, the author has no +_locus standi_. Both Horace and Pope, however little they might be aware +of it, were secretly governed by the same moving principle--viz., not to +teach (which was impossible for two reasons)--but to use this very +impossibility, this very want of flexibility in the subject to the +ostensible purpose of the writers, as the resistance of the atmosphere +from which they would derive the motion of their wings. That it was +impossible in a poem seriously to teach the principles of criticism, we +venture to affirm on a double argument: 1st, that the teaching, if in +earnest, must be _polemic_: and how alien from the spirit of poetry to +move eternally through controversial discussions! 2ndly, that the +teaching, from the very necessities of metre, must be _eclectic_; +innumerable things must be suppressed; and how alien from the spirit of +science to move by discontinuous links according to the capricious +bidding of poetic decorum! Divinity itself is not more entangled in the +necessities of fighting for every step in advance, and maintaining the +ground by eternal preparation for hostility, than is philosophic +criticism; a discipline so little matured, that at this day we possess +in any language nothing but fragments and hints towards its +construction. To dispute in verse has been celebrated as the +accomplishment of Lucretius, of Sir John Davies, of Dryden: but then +this very disputation has always been eclectic; not exhausting even the +_essential_ arguments; but playing gracefully with those only which +could promise a brilliant effect. Such a mimic disputation is like a +histrionic fencing match, where the object of the actor is not in good +earnest to put his antagonist to the sword, but to exhibit a few elegant +passes in _carte_ and _tierce_, not forgetting the secondary object of +displaying to advantage any diamonds and rubies that may chance to +scintillate upon his sword-hand. + +Had Pope, or had Horace, been requested to explain the _rationale_ of +his own poem on Criticism, it is pretty certain that each (and from the +same causes) would have talked nonsense. The very gifts so rare and so +exquisite by which these extraordinary men were adorned--the graceful +negligence, the delicacy of tact, the impassioned _abandon_[48] upon +subjects suited to their _modes_ of geniality, though not absolutely or +irreversibly incompatible with the sterner gifts of energetic attention +and powerful abstraction, were undoubtedly not in alliance with them. +The two sets of gifts did not exert a reciprocal stimulation. As well +might one expect from a man, because he was a capital shot, that he +should write the best essay on the theory of projectiles. Horace and +Pope, therefore, would have talked so absurdly in justifying or +explaining their own works, that we--naturally impatient of nonsense on +the subject of criticism, as our own _metier_--should have said, 'Oh, +dear gentlemen, stand aside for a moment, and we will right you in the +eyes of posterity: at which bar, if either of you should undertake to be +his own advocate, he will have a fool for his client.' + +We do and must concede consideration even to the one-sided pleadings of +an advocate. But it is under the secret assumption of the concurrent +pleadings equally exaggerated on the adverse side. Without this +counterweight, how false would be our final summation of the evidence +upon most of the great state trials! Nay, even with both sides of the +equation before us, how perplexing would be that summation generally, +unless under the moderating guidance of a neutral and indifferent eye; +the eye of the judge in the first instance, and subsequently of the +upright historian--whether watching the case from the station of a +contemporary, or reviewing it from his place in some later generation. + +Now what we wish to observe about Criticism is, that with just the same +temptation to personal partiality and even injustice in extremity, it +offers a much wider latitude to the distortion of things, facts, +grounds, and inferences. In fact, with the very same motives to a +personal bias swerving from the equatorial truth, it makes a much wider +opening for giving effect to those motives. Insincerity in short, and +every mode of contradicting the truth, is far more possible under a +professed devotion to a general principle than any personal expression +could possibly be. + +If the logic of the case be steadily examined, a definition of didactic +poetry will emerge the very opposite to that popularly held: it will +appear that in didactic poetry the teaching is not the _power_, but the +_resistance_. It is difficult to teach even playfully or mimically in +reconciliation with poetic effect: and the object is to wrestle with +this difficulty. It is as when a man selects an absurd or nearly +impracticable subject, his own chin,[49] suppose, for the organ of a new +music: he does not select it as being naturally allied to music, but +for the very opposite reason--as being eminently alien from music, that +his own art will have the greater triumph in taming this reluctancy into +any sort of obedience to a musical purpose. It is a wrestle with all but +physical impossibility. Many arts and mechanic processes in human life +present intermitting aspects of beauty, scattered amongst others that +are utterly without interest of that sort. For instance, in husbandry, +where many essential processes are too mean to allow of any poetic +treatment or transfiguration, others are picturesque, and recommended by +remembrances of childhood to most hearts. How beautiful, for instance, +taken in all its variety of circumstances, the gorgeous summer, the gay +noontide repast, the hiding of children in the hay, the little toy of a +rake in the hands of infancy, is the hay-harvest from first to last! +Such cases wear a Janus aspect, one face connecting them with gross uses +of necessity, another connecting them with the gay or tender sentiments +that accidents of association, or some purpose of Providence, may have +thrown about them as a robe of beauty. Selecting therefore what meets +his own purpose, the poet proceeds by _resisting_ and rejecting all +those parts of the subject which would tend to defeat it. But at least, +it will be said, he does not resist those parts of the subject which he +selects. Yes, he _does_; even those parts he resists utterly in their +real and primary character, viz., as uses indispensable to the machinery +of man's animal life; and adopts them only for a collateral beauty +attached to the accidents of their evolution; a beauty oftentimes not +even guessed by those who are most familiar with them as practical +operations. It is as if a man, having a learned eye, should follow the +track of armies--careless of the political changes which they created, +or of the interests (all neutral as regarded any opinion of _his_) which +they disturbed--but alive to every form of beauty connected with these +else unmeaning hostilities--alive to the beauty of their battle-array, +to the pomp of their manoeuvres, to the awning of smoke-wreaths +surging above the artilleries, to the gleaming of sabres and bayonets at +intervals through loopholes in these gathering smoky masses. This man +would abstract from the politics and doctrines of the hostile armies, as +much as the didactic poet from the doctrinal part of his theme. + +From this attempt to rectify the idea of didactic poetry, it will be +seen at once why Pope failed utterly and inevitably in the 'Essay on +Man.' The subject was too directly and commandingly interesting to +furnish any opening to that secondary and playful interest which arises +from the management by art and the subjugation of an intractable theme. +The ordinary interest of didactic poetry is derived from the _repellent_ +qualities of the subject, and consequently from the dexterities of the +conflict with what is doubtful, indifferent, unpromising. Not only was +there no _resistance_ in the subject to the grandeur of poetry, but, on +the contrary, this subject offered so much grandeur, was so pathetic and +the amplitude of range so vast as to overwhelm the powers of any poet +and any audience, by its exactions. That was a fault in one direction. +But a different fault was--that the subject allowed no power of +selection. In ordinary didactic poetry, as we have just been insisting, +you sustain the interest by ignoring all the parts which will not bear a +steady gaze. Whatever fascinates the eye, or agitates the heart by +mimicry of life is selected and emphasized, and what is felt to be +intractable or repellent is authoritatively set aside. The poet has an +unlimited discretion. But on a theme so great as man he has no +discretion at all. This resource is denied. You _can_ give the truth +only by giving the whole truth. In treating a common didactic theme you +may neglect merely transitional parts with as much ease as benefit, +because they are familiar enough to be pre-supposed, and are besides +essential only in the real process, but not at all in the mimic process +of description; since A and C, that in the _reality_ could reach one +another only through B, may yet be intelligible as regards their beauty +without any intermediation of B. The ellipsis withdraws a deformity, and +does not generally create an obscurity: either the obscurity is none at +all, or is irrelevant to the real purpose of beauty, or may be treated +sufficiently by a line or two of adroit explanation. But in a poem +treating so vast a theme as man's relations to his own race, to his +habitation the world, to God his maker, and to all the commands of the +conscience, to the hopes of the believing heart, and to the eternal +self-conflicts of the intellect, it is clear that the purely +transitional parts, essential to the understanding of the whole, cannot +be omitted or dispensed with at the beck of the fancy or the necessities +of the metre and rhyme. + +There is also an objection to Man (or any other theme of that grandeur) +as the subject of a didactic poem, which is more subtle, and which for +that reason we have reserved to the last. In the ordinary specimens of +didactic poetry, the theme and its sub-divisions wear (as we have +already observed) a double-faced or Janus aspect; one derived from the +direct experience of life, the other from the reflex experience of it. +And the very reason why one face _does_ affect you is because the other +does _not_. Thus a Morland farmyard, a Flemish tavern, or a clean +kitchen in an unpretending house seen by ruddy firelight reflected from +pewter ware, scarcely interests the eye at all in the reality; but for +that very reason it _does_ interest us all in the mimicry. The very fact +of seeing an object framed as it were, insulated, suddenly _relieved_ to +the steady consciousness, which all one's life has been seen _un_framed, +_not_ called into relief, but depressed into the universal level of +subconsciousness, awakens a pleasurable sense of surprise. But now Man +is too great a subject to allow of any unrelieved aspects. What the +reader sees he must see directly and without insulation, else falseness +and partiality are immediately apparent. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[48] We speak here of Horace in his lyrical character, and of Pope as he +revealed himself in his tender and pathetic sincerities, not in his +false, counterfeit scorn. Horace, a good-natured creature, that laughed +eternally in his satire, was probably sincere. Pope, a benign one, could +not have been sincere in the bitter and stinging personalities of his +satires. Horace seems to be personal, but is not. Neither is Juvenal; +the names he employs are mere allegoric names. _Draco_ is any bloody +fellow; _Favonius_ is any sycophant: but Pope is very different. + +[49] 'His own chin,' chin-chopping, as practised in our days, was not an +original invention; it was simply a restoration from the days of Queen +Anne. + + + + +_XI. SHAKSPEARE AND WORDSWORTH_. + + +I take the opportunity of referring to the work of a very eloquent +Frenchman, who has brought the names of Wordsworth and Shakspeare into +connection, partly for the sake of pointing out an important error in +the particular criticism on Wordsworth, but still more as an occasion +for expressing the gratitude due to the French author for the able, +anxious, and oftentimes generous justice which he has rendered to +English literature. It is most gratifying to a thoughtful +Englishman--that precisely from that period when the mighty drama of the +French Revolution, like the Deluge, or like the early growth of +Christianity, or like the Reformation, had been in operation long enough +to form a new and more thoughtful generation in France, has the English +literature been first studied in France, and first appreciated. Since +1810, when the generation moulded by the Revolution was beginning to +come forward on the stage of national action, a continued series of able +writers amongst the French--ardent, noble, profound--have laid aside +their nationality in the most generous spirit for the express purpose of +investigating the great English models of intellectual power, locally so +near to their own native models, and virtually in such polar remoteness. +Chateaubriand's intense enthusiasm for Milton, almost monomaniac in the +opinion of some people, is notorious. This, however, was less +astonishing: the pure marble grandeur of Milton, and his classical +severity, naturally recommended themselves to the French taste, which +can always understand the beauty of proportion and regular or teleologic +tendencies. It was with regard to the anomalous, and to that sort of +vaster harmonies which from moving upon a wider scale are apt at first +sight to pass for discords, that a new taste needed to be created in +France. Here Chateaubriand showed himself a Frenchman of the old leaven. +Milton would always have been estimated in France. He needed only to be +better known. Shakspeare was the _natural_ stone of offence: and with +regard to _him_ Chateaubriand has shown himself eminently blind. His +reference to Shakspeare's _female_ gallery, so divine as that Pantheon +really is, by way of most forcibly expressing his supposed inferiority +to Racine (who strictly speaking has no female pictures at all, but +merely _umrisse_ or outlines in pencil) is the very perfection of human +blindness. But many years ago the writers in _Le Globe_, either by +direct papers on the drama or indirectly by way of references to the +acting of Kean, etc., showed that even as to Shakspeare a new heart was +arising in France. M. Raymond de Vericour, though necessarily called off +to a more special consideration of the Miltonic poetry by the very +promise of his title (_Milton, et la Poesie Epique_: Paris et Londres, +1838), has in various places shown a far more comprehensive sense of +poetic truth than Chateaubriand. His sensibility, being originally +deeper and trained to move upon a larger compass, vibrates equally under +the chords of the Shakspearian music. Even he, however, has made a +serious mistake as to Wordsworth in his relation to Shakspeare. At p. +420 he says: 'Wordsworth qui (de meme que Byron) sympathise pen +cordialement avec Shakspeare, se prosterne cependant comme Byron devant +le _Paradis perdu_; Milton est la grande idole de Wordsworth; il ne +craint pas quelquefois de se comparer lui-meme a son geant;' (never +unless in the single accident of praying for a similar audience--'fit +audience let me find though few'); 'et en verite ses sonnets ont souvent +le meme esprit prophetique, la meme elevation sacree que ceux de +l'Homere anglais.' There cannot be graver mistakes than are here brought +into one focus. Lord Byron cared little for the 'Paradise Lost,' and had +studied it not at all. On the other hand, Lord Byron's pretended +disparagement of Shakspeare by comparison with the meagre, hungry and +bloodless Alfieri was a pure stage trick, a momentary device for +expressing his Apemantus misanthropy towards the English people. It +happened at the time he had made himself unpopular by the circumstances +of his private life: these, with a morbid appetite for engaging public +attention, he had done his best to publish and to keep before the public +eye; whilst at the same time he was very angry at the particular style +of comments which they provoked. There was no fixed temper of anger +towards him in the public mind of England: but he believed that there +was. And he took his revenge through every channel by which he fancied +himself to have a chance for reaching and stinging the national pride; +1st, by ridiculing the English pretensions to higher principle and +national morality; but _that_ failing, 2ndly, by disparaging Shakspeare; +3rdly, on the same principle which led Dean Swift to found the first +lunatic hospital in Ireland, viz.: + + 'To shew by one satiric touch + No nation wanted it so much.' + +Lord Byron, without any _sincere_ opinion or care upon the subject one +way or other, directed in his will--that his daughter should not marry +an Englishman: this bullet, he fancied, would take effect, even though +the Shakspeare bullet had failed. Now, as to Wordsworth, he values both +in the highest degree. In a philosophic poem, like the 'Excursion,' he +is naturally led to speak more pointedly of Milton: but his own +affinities are every way more numerous and striking to Shakspeare. For +this reason I have myself been led to group him with Shakspeare. In +those two poets alike is seen the infinite of Painting: in AEschylus and +Milton alike are seen the simplicities and stern sublimiities of +Sculpture. + + + + +_XII. CRITICISM ON SOME OF COLERIDGE'S CRITICISMS OF WORDSWORTH._ + + +One fault in Wordsworth's 'Excursion' suggested by Coleridge, but +luckily quite beyond all the resources of tinkering open to William +Wordsworth, is--in the choice of a Pedlar as the presiding character who +connects the shifting scenes and persons in the 'Excursion.' Why should +not some man of more authentic station have been complimented with that +place, seeing that the appointment lay altogether in Wordsworth's gift? +But really now who could this have been? Garter King-at-Arms would have +been a great deal too showy for a working hero. A railway-director, +liable at any moment to abscond with the funds of the company, would +have been viewed by all readers with far too much suspicion for the +tranquillity desirable in a philosophic poem. A colonel of Horse Marines +seems quite out of the question: what his proper functions may be, is +still a question for the learned; but no man has supposed them to be +philosophic. Yet on the other hand, argues Coleridge, would not '_any_ +wise and beneficent old man,' without specifying his rank, have met the +necessities of the case? Why, certainly, if it is _our_ opinion that +Coleridge wishes to have, we conceive that such an old gentleman, +advertising in the _Times_ as 'willing to make himself generally +useful,' might have had a chance of dropping a line to William +Wordsworth. But still we don't know. Beneficent old gentlemen are +sometimes great scamps. Men, who give themselves the best of characters +in morning papers, are watched occasionally in a disagreeable manner by +the police. Itinerant philosophers are absolutely not understood in +England. Intruders into private premises, even for grand missionary +purposes, are constantly served with summary notices to quit. Mrs. +Quickly gave a first-rate character to Simple; but for all _that_, Dr. +Caius with too much show of reason demanded, 'Vat shall de honest young +man do in my closet?' And we fear that Coleridge's beneficent old man, +lecturing _gratis_ upon things in general, would be regarded with +illiberal jealousy by the female servants of any establishment, if he +chose to lecture amongst the family linen. 'What shall de wise +beneficent old Monsieur do amongst our washing-tubs?' We are perfectly +confounded by the excessive blindness of Coleridge and nearly all other +critics on this matter. 'Need the rank,' says Coleridge, 'have been at +all particularized, when nothing follows which the knowledge of that +rank is to explain or illustrate?' Nothing to explain or illustrate! +Why, good heavens! it is only by the most distinct and positive +information lodged with the constable as to who and what the vagrant +was, that the leading philosopher in the 'Excursion' could possibly have +saved himself over and over again from passing the night in the village +'lock-up,' and generally speaking in handcuffs, as one having too +probably a design upon the village hen-roosts. In the sixth and seventh +books, where the scene lies in the churchyard amongst the mountains, it +is evident that the philosopher would have been arrested as a +resurrection-man, had he not been known to substantial farmers as a +pedlar 'with some money.' To be clothed therefore with an intelligible +character and a local calling was as indispensable to the free movements +of the Wanderer when out upon a philosophical spree, as a passport is to +each and every traveller in France. Dr. Franklin, who was a very +indifferent philosopher, but very great as a pedlar, and as cunning as +Niccolo Machiavelli (which means as cunning as old Nick), was quite +aware of this necessity as a tax upon travellers; and at every stage, on +halting, he used to stand upright in his stirrups, crying aloud, +'Gentlemen and Ladies, here I am at your service; Benjamin Franklin by +name; once (but _that_ was in boyhood) a devil; viz., in the service of +a printer; next a compositor and reader to the press; at present a +master-printer. My object in this journey is--to arrest a knave who will +else be off to Europe with L200 of my money in his breeches-pocket: that +is my final object: my immediate one is--dinner; which, if there is no +just reason against it, I beg that you will no longer interrupt.' Yet +still, though it is essential to the free circulation of a philosopher +that he should be known for what he is, the reader thinks that at least +the philosopher might be known advantageously as regards his social +standing. No, he could not. And we speak seriously. How _could_ +Coleridge and so many other critics overlook the overruling necessities +of the situation? They argue as though Wordsworth had selected a pedlar +under some abstract regard for his office of buying and selling: in +which case undoubtedly a wholesale man would have a better chance for +doing a 'large stroke of business' in philosophy than this huckstering +retailer. Wordsworth however fixed on a pedlar--not for his commercial +relations--but in spite of them. It was not for the _essential_ of his +calling that a pedlar was promoted to the post of central philosopher in +his philosophic poem, but for an accident indirectly arising out of it. +This accident lay in the natural privilege which a pedlar once had +through all rural districts of common access to rich and poor, and +secondly, in the leisurely nature of his intercourse. Three conditions +there were for fulfilling that ministry of philosophic intercourse which +Wordsworth's plan supposed. First, the philosopher must be clothed with +a _real_ character, known to the actual usages of the land, and not +imaginary: else this postulate of fiction at starting would have +operated with an unrealizing effect upon all that followed. Next, it +must be a character that was naturally fitted to carry the bearer +through a large circuit of districts and villages; else the _arena_ +would be too narrow for the large survey of life and conflict demanded: +lastly, the character must be one recommending itself alike to all ranks +in tracts remote from towns, and procuring an admission ready and +gracious to him who supports that character. Now this supreme advantage +belonged in a degree absolutely unique to the character of pedlar, or +(as Wordsworth euphemistically terms it) of 'wandering merchant.' In +past generations the _materfamilias_, the young ladies, and the visitors +within their gates, were as anxious for his periodic visit as the +humblest of the domestics. They received him therefore with the +condescending kindness of persons in a state of joyous expectation: +young hearts beat with the anticipation of velvets and brocades from +Genoa, lace veils from the Netherlands, jewels and jewelled trinkets; +for you are not to think that, like Autolycus, he carried only one +trinket. They were sincerely kind to him, being sincerely pleased. +Besides, it was politic to assume a gracious manner, since else the +pedlar might take out his revenge in the price of his wares; fifteen per +cent. would be the least he could reasonably clap on as a premium and +_solatium_ to himself for any extra hauteur. This gracious style of +intercourse, already favourable to a tone of conversation more liberal +and unreserved than would else have been conceded to a vagrant huckster, +was further improved by the fact that the pedlar was also the main +retailer of news. Here it was that a real advantage offered itself to +any mind having that philosophic interest in human characters, +struggles, and calamities, which is likely enough to arise amongst a +class of men contemplating long records of chance and change through +their wanderings, and so often left to their own meditations upon them +by long tracts of solitude. The gossip of the neighbouring districts, +whether tragic or comic, would have a natural interest from its +locality. And such records would lead to illustration from other cases +more remote--losing the interest of neighbourhood, but compensating that +loss by their deeper intrinsic hold upon the sensibilities. Ladies of +the highest rank would suffer their reserve to thaw in such interviews; +besides that, before unresisting humility and inferiority too apparent +even haughtiness the most intractable usually abates its fervour. + +Coleridge also allows himself, for the sake of argument, not merely to +assume too hastily, but to magnify too inordinately. Daniel, the poet, +really _was_ called the 'well-languaged' (p. 83, vol. ii.), but by whom? +Not, as Hooker was called the 'judicious,' or Bede the 'venerable,' by +whole generations; but by an individual. And as to the epithet of +'prosaic,' we greatly doubt if so much as one individual ever connected +it with Daniel's name. + +But the whole dispute on Poetic Diction is too deep and too broad for an +occasional or parenthetic notice. It is a dispute which renews itself in +every cultivated language;[50] and even, in its application to different +authors within the same language, as for instance, to Milton, to +Shakspeare, or to Wordsworth, it takes a special and varied aspect. +Declining this, as far too ample a theme, we wish to say one word, but +an urgent word and full of clamorous complaint, upon the other branch. +This dispute, however, is but one of two paths upon which the +Biographical Literature approaches the subject of Wordsworth: the other +lies in the direct critical examination of Wordsworth's poems. As to +this, we wish to utter one word, but a word full of clamorous complaint. +That the criticisms of Coleridge on William Wordsworth were often false, +and that they betrayed fatally the temper of one who never _had_ +sympathized heartily with the most exquisite parts of the Lyrical +Ballads, might have been a record injurious only to Coleridge himself. +But unhappily these perverse criticisms have proved the occasions of +ruin to some admirable poems; and, as if that were not enough, have +memorialized a painful feature of weakness in Wordsworth's judgment. If +ever on this earth there was a man that in his prime, when saluted with +contumely from all quarters, manifested a stern deafness to +criticism--it was William Wordsworth. And we thought the better of him +by much for this haughty defiance to groundless judgments. But the +cloak, which Boreas could not tear away from the traveller's resistance, +oftentimes the too genial Phoebus has filched from his amiable spirit +of compliance. These criticisms of Coleridge, generally so wayward and +one-sided, but sometimes desperately opposed to every mode of truth, +have been the means of exposing in William Wordsworth a weakness of +resistance--almost a criminal facility in surrendering his own +rights--which else would never have been suspected. We will take one of +the worst cases. Readers acquainted with Wordsworth as a poet, are of +course acquainted with his poem (originally so fine) upon Gipseys. To a +poetic mind it is inevitable--that every spectacle, embodying any +remarkable quality in a remarkable excess, should be unusually +impressive, and should seem to justify a poetic record. For instance, +the solitary life of one[51] who should tend a lighthouse could not fail +to move a very deep sympathy with his situation. Here for instance we +read the ground of Wordsworth's 'Glen Almain.' Did he care for torpor +again, lethargic inertia? Such a spectacle as _that_ in the midst of a +nation so morbidly energetic as our own, was calculated to strike some +few chords from the harp of a poet so vigilantly keeping watch over +human life. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[50] Valckenaer, in his famous 'Dissertation on the Phoenissae,' notices +such a dispute as having arisen upon the diction of Euripides. The +question is old and familiar as to the quality of the passion in +Euripides, by comparison with that in Sophocles. But there was a +separate dispute far less notorious as to the quality of the _lexis_. + +[51] 'One,' but in the Eddystone or other principal lighthouses on our +coast there are _two_ men resident. True, but these two come upon duty +by alternate watches, and generally are as profoundly separated as if +living leagues apart. + + + + +_XIII._ _WORDSWORTH AND SOUTHEY: AFFINITIES AND DIFFERENCES._ + +(_An Early Paper._) + + +Of late the two names of Wordsworth and Southey have been coupled +chiefly in the frantic philippics of Jacobins, out of revenge for that +sublime crusade which, among the intellectual powers of Europe, these +two eminent men were foremost (and for a time alone) in awakening +against the brutalizing tyranny of France and its chief agent, Napoleon +Bonaparte: a crusade which they, to their immortal honour, unceasingly +advocated--not (as others did) at a time when the Peninsular victories, +the Russian campaign, and the battle of Leipsic, had broken the charm by +which France fascinated the world and had made Bonaparte mean even in +the eyes of the mean--but (be it remembered!) when by far the major part +of this nation looked upon the cause of liberty as hopeless upon the +Continent, as committed for many ages to the guardianship of England, in +which (or not at all) it was to be saved as in an Ark from the universal +deluge. Painful such remembrances may be to those who are now ashamed of +their idolatry, it must not be forgotten that, from the year 1803 to +1808, Bonaparte was an idol to the greater part of this nation; at no +time, God be thanked! an idol of love, but, to most among us, an idol +of fear. The war was looked upon as essentially a _defensive_ war: many +doubted whether Bonaparte could be successfully opposed: almost all +would have treated it as lunacy to say that he could be conquered. Yet, +even at that period, these two eminent patriots constantly treated it as +a feasible project to march an English army triumphantly into Paris. +Their conversations with various friends--the dates of their own +works--and the dates of some composed under influences emanating from +them (as, for example, the unfinished work of Colonel Pasley of the +Engineers)--are all so many vouchers for this fact. We know not whether +(with the exception of some few Germans such as Arndt, for whose book +Palm was shot) there was at that time in Europe another man of any +eminence who shared in that Machiavellian sagacity which revealed to +them, as with the power and clear insight of the prophetic spirit, the +craziness of the French military despotism when to vulgar politicians it +seemed strongest. For this sagacity, and for the strength of patriotism +to which in part they owed it (for in all cases the _moral_ spirit is a +great illuminator of the _intellect_), they have reaped the most +enviable reward, in the hatred of traitors and Jacobins all over the +world: and in the expressions of that hatred we find their names +frequently coupled. There was a time, however, when these names were +coupled for other purposes: they were coupled as joint supporters of a +supposed new creed in relation to their own art. Mr. Wordsworth, it is +well known to men of letters, did advance a new theory upon two great +questions of art: in some points it might perhaps be objected that his +faith, in relation to that which he attacked, was as the Protestant +faith to the Catholic--_i.e._, not a new one, but a restoration of the +primitive one purified from its modern corruptions. Be this as it may, +however, Mr. Wordsworth's exposition of his theory is beyond all +comparison the subtlest and (not excepting even the best of the German +essays) the most finished and masterly specimen of reasoning which has +in any age or nation been called forth by any one of the fine arts. No +formal attack has yet been made upon it, except by Mr. Coleridge; of +whose arguments we need not say that they furnish so many centres (as it +were) to a great body of metaphysical acuteness; but to our judgment +they fail altogether of overthrowing Mr. Wordsworth's theory. All the +other critics have shown in their casual allusions to this theory that +they have not yet come to understand what is its drift or main thesis. +Such being the state of their acquaintance with the theory itself, we +need not be surprised to find that the accidental connection between Mr. +Wordsworth and the Laureate arising out of friendship and neighbourhood +should have led these blundering critics into the belief that the two +poets were joint supporters of the same theory: the fact being meanwhile +that in all which is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey +dissents perhaps as widely and as determinately as Mr. Coleridge; +dissents, that is to say, not as the numerous blockheads among the male +blue-stockings who dignify their ignorance with the name of dissent--but +as one man of illustrious powers dissents from what he deems after long +examination the errors of another; as Leibnitz on some occasions +dissented from Plato, or as the great modern philosopher of Germany +occasionally dissents from Leibnitz. That which Mr. Wordsworth has in +common with all great poets, Mr. Southey cannot but reverence: he has +told us that he does: and, if he had not, his own originality and +splendour of genius would be sufficient pledges that he did. That which +is peculiar to Mr. Wordsworth's theory, Mr. Southey may disapprove: he +may think that it narrows the province of the poet too much in one +part--that, in another part, it impairs the instrument with which he is +to work. Thus far he may disapprove; and, after all, deduct no more from +the merits of Mr. Wordsworth, than he will perhaps deduct from those of +Milton, for having too often allowed a Latin or Hebraic structure of +language to injure the purity of his diction. To whatsoever extent, +however, the disapprobation of Mr. Southey goes, certain it is (for his +own practice shows it) that he does disapprove the _innovations_ of Mr. +Wordsworth's theory--very laughably illustrates the sagacity of modern +English critics: they were told that Mr. Southey held and practised a +certain system of innovations: so far their error was an error of +misinformation: but next they turn to Mr. Southey's works, and there +they fancy that they find in every line an illustration of the erroneous +tenets which their misinformation had led them to expect that they +should find. A more unfortunate blunder, one more confounding to the +most adventurous presumption, can hardly be imagined. A system, which no +man could act upon unless deliberately and with great effort and labour +of composition, is supposed to be exemplified in the works of a poet who +uniformly rejects it: and this ludicrous blunder arises not from any +over-refinements in criticism (such, for instance, as led Warburton to +find in Shakspeare what the poet himself never dreamt of), but from no +more creditable cause than a misreport of some blue-stocking miss either +maliciously or ignorantly palmed upon a critic whose understanding +passively surrendered itself to anything however gross. + +Such are the two modes in which the names of these two eminent men have +been coupled. As true patriots they are deservedly coupled: as poets +their names cannot be justly connected by any stricter bond than that +which connects all men of high creative genius. This distinction, as to +the main grounds of affinity and difference between the two writers, was +open and clear to any unprejudiced mind prepared for such +investigations, and we should at any rate have pointed it out at one +time or other for the sake of exposing the hollowness of those +impostures which offer themselves in our days as criticisms. + + + + +_XIV. PRONUNCIATION._ + + +To _write_ his own language with propriety is the ambition of here and +there an individual; to speak it with propriety is the ambition of +multitudes. Amongst the qualifications for a public writer--the +preliminary one of _leisure_ is granted to about one man in three +thousand; and, this being indispensable, there at once, for most men, +mercifully dies in the very instant of birth the most uneasy and +bewildering of temptations. But _speak_ a man must. Leisure or no +leisure, to _talk_ he is obliged by the necessities of life, or at least +he thinks so; though my own private belief is, that the wisest rule upon +which a man could act in this world (alas! I did not myself act upon it) +would be to seal up his mouth from earliest youth, to simulate the +infirmity of dumbness, and to answer only by signs. This would soon put +an end to the impertinence of questions, to the intolerable labour of +framing and uttering replies through a whole life, and, above all (oh, +foretaste of Paradise!), to the hideous affliction of sustaining these +replies and undertaking for all their possible consequences. That notion +of the negroes in Senegal about monkeys, viz., that they _can_ talk if +they choose, and perhaps with classical elegance, but wisely dissemble +their talent under the fear that the unjust whites would else make them +work in Printing Houses, for instance, as 'readers' and correctors of +the press, this idea, which I dare say is true, shows how much wiser, in +his generation, is a monkey than a man. For, besides the wear and tear +to a man's temper by the irritation of talking, and the corrosion of +one's happiness by the disputes which talking entails, it is really +frightful to think of the mischief caused, if one measures it only by +the fruitless expense of words. Eleven hundred days make up about three +years; consequently, eleven thousand days make up thirty years. But that +day must be a very sulky one, and probably raining cats and dogs, on +which a man throws away so few as two thousand words, not reckoning what +he loses in sleep. A hundred and twenty-five words for every one of +sixteen hours cannot be thought excessive. The result, therefore, is, +that, in one generation of thirty years, he wastes irretrievably upon +the impertinence of answering--of wrangling, and of prosing, not less +than twice eleven thousand times a thousand words; the upshot of which +comes to a matter of twenty-two million words. So that, if the English +language contains (as some curious people say it does) forty thousand +words, he will have used it up not less than five hundred and fifty +times. Poor old battered language! One really pities it. Think of any +language in its old age being forced to work at that rate; kneaded, as +if it were so much dough, every hour of the day into millions of +fantastic shapes by millions of capricious bakers! Being old, however, +and superannuated, you will say that our English language must have got +used to it: as the sea, that once (according to Camoens) was indignant +at having his surface scratched, and his feelings harrowed, by keels, is +now wrinkled and smiling. + +Blessed is the man that is dumb, when speech would have betrayed his +ignorance; and the man that has neither pens nor ink nor crayons, when a +record of his thought would have delivered him over to the derision of +posterity. This, however, the reader will say, is to embroider a large +moral upon a trivial occasion. Possibly the moral may be +disproportionately large; and yet, after all, the occasion may not be so +trivial as it seems. One of the many revolutions worked by the railway +system is, to force men into a much ampler publicity; to throw them at a +distance from home amongst strangers; and at their own homes to throw +strangers amongst _them_. Now, exactly in such situations it is, where +all other gauges of appreciation are wanting, that the two great +external indications of a man's rank, viz., the quality of his manners +and the quality of his pronunciation, come into play for assigning his +place and rating amongst strangers. Not merely pride, but a just and +reasonable self-respect, irritates a man's aspiring sensibilities in +such a case: not only he _is_, but always he _ought_ to be, jealous of +suffering in the estimation of strangers by defects which it is in his +own choice to supply, or by mistakes which a little trouble might +correct. And by the way we British act in this spirit, whether we ought +to do or not, it is noticed as a broad characteristic of us Islanders, +viz., both of the English and the Scotch, that we are morbidly alive to +jealousy under such circumstances, and in a degree to which there is +nothing amongst the two leading peoples of the Continent at all +corresponding.[52] A Scotchman or an Englishman of low rank is anxious +on a Sunday to dress in a style which may mislead the casual observer +into the belief that perhaps he is a gentleman: whereas it is notorious +that the Parisian artisan or labourer of the lower class is proud of +connecting himself conspicuously with his own order, and ostentatiously +acknowledging it, by adopting its usual costume. It is his way of +expressing an _esprit de corps_. The same thing is true very extensively +of Germans. And it sounds pretty, and reads into a sentimental +expression of cheerful contentedness, that such customs should prevail +on a great scale. Meantime I am not quite sure that the worthy Parisian +is not an ass, and the amiable German another, for thus meekly resigning +himself to the tyranny of his accidental situation. What they call the +allotment of Providence is, often enough, the allotment of their own +laziness or defective energy. At any rate, I feel much more inclined to +respect the aspiring Englishman or Scotchman that kicks against these +self-imposed restraints; that rebels in heart against whatever there may +be of degradation in his own particular employment; and, therefore, +though submitting to this degradation as the _sine qua non_ for earning +his daily bread, and submitting also to the external badges and dress of +his trade as frequently a matter of real convenience, yet doggedly +refuses to abet or countersign any such arrangements as tend to lower +him in other men's opinion. And exactly this is what he _would_ be doing +by assuming his professional costume on Sundays; the costume would then +become an exponent of his choice, not of his convenience or his +necessity; and he would thus be proclaiming that he glories in what he +detests. To found a meek and docile nation, the German is the very +architect wanted; but to found a go-ahead nation quite another race is +called for, other blood and other training. And, again, when I hear a +notable housewife exclaiming, 'Many are the poor servant girls that +have been led into temptation and ruin by dressing above their station,' +I feel that she says no more than the truth; and I grieve that it should +be so. Out of tenderness, therefore, and pity towards the poor girls, if +I personally had any power to bias their choice, my influence should be +used in counteraction to their natural propensities. But this has +nothing to do with the philosophic estimate of those propensities. +Perilous they are; but _that_ does not prevent their arising in +fountains that contain elements of possible grandeur, such as would +never be developed by a German Audrey (see 'As You Like It') content to +be treated as a doll by her lover, and viewing it as profane to wear +petticoats less voluminous, or a headdress less frightful than those +inherited from her grandmother. + +Excuse this digression, reader. What I wished to explain was that, if a +man in a humble situation seeks to refine his pronunciation of English, +and finds himself in consequence taxed with pride that will not brook +the necessities of his rank, at all events, he is but _integrating_ his +manifestations of pride. Already in his Sunday's costume he has _begun_ +this manifestation, and, as I contend, rightfully. If a carpenter or a +stonemason goes abroad on a railway excursion, there is no moral +obligation upon him--great or small--to carry about any memento +whatsoever of his calling. I contend that his right to pass himself off +for a gentleman is co-extensive with his power to do so: the right is +limited by the power, and by that only. The man may say justly: "What I +am seeking is a holiday. This is what I pay for; and I pay for it with +money earned painfully enough. I have a right therefore to expect that +the article shall be genuine and complete. Now, a holiday means freedom +from the pains of labour--not from some of those pains, but from all. +Even from the memory of these pains, if _that_ could be bought, and from +the anticipation of their recurrence. Amongst the pains of labour, a +leading one next after the necessity of unintermitting muscular effort, +is the oppression of people's superciliousness or of their affected +condescension in conversing with one whom they know to be a working +mechanic. From this oppression it is, from this oppression whether open +or poorly disguised, that I seek to be delivered. It taints my pleasure: +it spoils my holiday. And if by being dressed handsomely, by courtesy in +manners, and by accuracy in speaking English, I can succeed in obtaining +this deliverance for myself, I have a right to it." Undoubtedly he has. +His real object is not to disconnect himself from an honest calling, but +from that burthen of contempt or of slight consideration which the world +has affixed to his calling. He takes measures for gratifying his +pride--not with a direct or primary view to that pride, but indirectly +as the only means open to him for evading and defeating the unjust +conventional scorn that would settle upon himself _through_ his trade, +if that should happen to become known or suspected. This is what I +should be glad to assist him in; and amongst other points connected with +his object, towards which my experience might furnish him with some +hints, I shall here offer him the very shortest of lessons for his +guidance in the matter of English pronunciation. + +What can be attempted on so wide a field in a paper limited so severely +in dimensions as all papers published by this journal _must_ be limited +in obedience to the transcendent law of variety? To make it possible +that subjects _enough_ should be treated, the Proprietor wisely insists +on a treatment vigorously succinct for each in particular. I myself, it +suddenly strikes me, must have been the chief offender against this +reasonable law: but my offences were committed in pure ignorance and +inattention, faults which henceforth I shall guard against with a +penitential earnestness. Reformation meanwhile must begin, I fear, +simultaneously with this confession of guilt. It would not be possible +(would it?) that, beginning the penitence this month of November, I +should postpone the amendment till the next? No, _that_ would look too +brazen. I must confine myself to the two and a half pages prescribed as +the maximum extent--and of that allowance already perhaps have used up +one half at the least. Shocking! is it not? So much the sterner is the +demand through the remaining ground for exquisite brevity. + +Rushing therefore at once _in medias res_, I observe to the reader that, +although it is thoroughly impossible to give him a guide upon so vast a +wilderness as the total area of our English language, for, if I must +teach him how to pronounce, and upon what learned grounds to pronounce, +40,000 words, and if polemically I must teach him how to dispose of +40,000 objections that have been raised (or that _may_ be raised) +against these pronunciations, then I should require at the least 40,000 +lives (which is quite out of the question, for a cat has but +nine)--seeing and allowing for all this, I may yet offer him some +guidance as to his guide. One sole rule, if he will attend to it, +governs in a paramount sense the total possibilities and compass of +pronunciation. A very famous line of Horace states it. What line? What +is the supreme law in every language for correct pronunciation no less +than for idiomatic propriety? + + '_Usus_, quem penes arbitrium est et jus et norma loquendi:' + +usage, the established practice, subject to which is all law and normal +standard of correct speaking. Now, in what way does such a rule +interfere with the ordinary prejudice on this subject? The popular error +is that, in pronunciation, as in other things, there is an abstract +right and a wrong. The difficulty, it is supposed, lies in ascertaining +this right and wrong. But by collation of arguments, by learned +investigation, and interchange of _pros_ and _cons_, it is fancied that +ultimately the exact truth of each separate case might be extracted. +Now, in that preconception lies the capital blunder incident to the +question. There _is_ no right, there _is_ no wrong, except what the +prevailing usage creates. The usage, the existing custom, _that_ is the +law: and from that law there is no appeal whatever, nor demur that is +sustainable for a moment. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[52] Amongst the Spaniards there _is_. + + + + +_XV. THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES COULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN NO MODERN ERA._ + + +Now, observe what I am going to prove. First A, and as a stepping-stone +to something (B) which is to follow: It is, that the Jewish Scriptures +could not have been composed in any modern aera. I am earnest in drawing +your attention to the particular point which I have before me, because +one of the enormous faults pervading all argumentative books, so that +rarely indeed do you find an exception, is that, in all the dust and +cloud of contest and of objects, the reader never knows what is the +immediate object before the writer and himself, nor if he were told +would he understand in what relation it stood to the main object of +contest--the main question at stake. Recollect, therefore, that what I +want is to show that these elder Jewish Scriptures must have existed in +very ancient days--how ancient? for ancient is an ambiguous word--could +not have been written as a memorial of tradition within a century or two +of our aera. To suppose, even for the sake of answering, the case of a +forgery, is too gross and shocking: though a very common practice +amongst writers miscalled religious, but in fact radically, incurably +unspiritual. This might be shown to be abominable even in an +intellectual sense; because no adequate, no rational purpose could be +answered by such a labour. The sole conceivable case would be, that from +the eldest days the Jews had been governed by all the Mosaic +institutions as we now have them, but that the mere copying, the mere +registration on tablets of parchment, wood, leather, brass, had not +occurred till some more modern period. As to this the answer is at once: +Why should they not have been written down? What answer could be given? +Only this: For the same reason that other nations did not commit to +writing their elder institutions. And why did they not? Was it to save +trouble? So far from that, this one privation imposed infinite trouble +that would have been evaded by written copies. For because they did not +write down, therefore, as the sole mode of providing for accurate +remembrance, they were obliged to compose in a very elaborate metre; in +which the mere _pattern_ as it were of the verse, so intricate and so +closely interlocked, always performed thus two services: first, it +assisted the memory in mastering the tenor; but, secondly, it checked +and counterpleaded to the lapses of memory or to the artifices of fraud. +This explanation is well illustrated in the 'Iliad'--a poem elder by a +century, it is rightly argued, than the 'Odyssey,' ergo the eldest of +Pagan literature. Now, when the 'Iliad' had once come down safe to +Pisistratus 555 years B.C., imagine this great man holding out his hands +over the gulf of time to Homer, 1,000 years before, who is chucking or +shying his poems across the gulf. Once landed in those conservative +hands, never trouble yourself more about the safety of the 'Iliad.' +After that it was as safe as the eyes in any Athenian's head. But before +that time there _was_ a great danger; and this danger was at all +surmounted (scholars differ greatly and have sometimes cudgelled one +another with real unfigurative cudgels as to the degree in which it +_did_ surmount the danger) only by the metre and a regular orchestra in +every great city dedicated to this peculiar service of chanting the +'Iliad'; insomuch that a special costume was assigned to the chanters of +the 'Iliad,' viz., scarlet or crimson, and also another special costume +to the chanters of the 'Odyssey,' viz., violet-coloured. Now, this +division of orchestras had one great evil and one great benefit. The +benefit was, that if locally one orchestra went wrong (as it might do +upon local temptations) yet surely all the orchestras would not go +wrong: ninety-nine out of every hundred would check and expose the +fraudulent hundredth. _There_ was the good. But the evil was concurrent. +For by this dispersion of orchestras, and this multiplication, not only +were the ordinary chances of error according to the doctrine of chances +multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold, but also, which was worse, each +separate orchestra was brought by local position under a separate and +peculiar action of some temptation, some horrible temptation, some bribe +that could not be withstood, for falsifying the copy by compliments to +local families; that is, to such as were or such as were not descendants +from the Paladius of Troy. For that, let me say, was for Greece, nay, +for all the Mediterranean world, what for us of Christian ages have been +the Crusades. It was the pinnacle from which hung as a dependency all +the eldest of families. So that they who were of such families thirsted +after what they held aright to be asserted, viz., a Homeric +commemoration; and they who were not thirsted after what had begun to +seem a feasible ambition to be accomplished. It was feasible: for +various attempts are still on record very much like our interpolations +of Church books as to records of birth or marriage. Athens, for +instance, was discontented with Homer's praise; and the case is +interesting, because, though it argues such an attempt to be very +difficult, since even a great city could not fully succeed, yet, at the +same time, it argues that it was not quite hopeless, or else it would +hardly have been attempted. So that here arises one argument for the +main genuineness of the Homeric text. Yet you will say: Perhaps when +Athens tried the trick it was too late in the day: it was too late after +full daylight to be essaying burglaries. But it would have been easy in +elder days. This is true; but remark the restraint which that very state +of the case supposes. Precisely when this difficulty became great, +became enormous, did the desire chiefly become great, become enormous, +for mastering it. And when the difficulty was light, when the forgery +was most a matter of ease, the ambition was least. For you cannot +suppose that families standing near to the Crusades would have cared +much for the reputation. As an act of piety they would prize it; as an +exponent of antiquity they would not prize it at all. For, in fact, it +would argue no such thing, until many centuries had passed. You see, +however, by this sketch the _pros_ and the _cons_ respecting the +difficulty of transmitting the 'Iliad' free from corruption, if at once +it was resigned to mere oral tradition. The alterations were more and +more tempting; but in that ratio were less and less possible. And then, +secondly, there were the changes from chance or from changing language. +Apply all these considerations to the case of the Hebrew Scriptures, and +their great antiquity is demonstrated. + + + + +_XVI. DISPERSION OF THE JEWS, AND JOSEPHUS'S ENMITY TO CHRISTIANITY._ + + +Look into the Acts of the Apostles, you see the wide dispersion of the +Jews which had then been accomplished; a dispersion long antecedent to +that penal dispersion which occurred subsequently to the Christian era. +But search the pages of the wicked Jew, Josephus,[53] who notices +expressly this universal dispersion of the Jews, and gives up and down +his works the means of tracing them through every country in the +southern belt of the Mediterranean, through every country of the +northern belt, through every country of the connecting belt, in Asia +Minor and Syria--through every island of the Mediterranean. Search +Philo-Judaeus, the same result is found. But why? Upon what theory? What +great purpose is working, is fermenting underneath? What principle, what +law can be abstracted from this antagonist or centrifugal motion +outwards now violently beating back as with a conflict of tides the +original centripetal motion inwards? Manifestly this: the incubating +process had been completed: the ideas of God as an ideal of Holiness, +the idea of Sin as the antagonist force--had been perfected; they were +now so inextricably worked into the texture of Jewish minds, or the +Jewish minds were now arrived at their _maximum_ of adhesiveness, or at +their _minimum_ of repulsiveness, in manners and social character, that +this stage was perfect; and now came the five hundred years during which +they were to manure all nations with these preparations for +Christianity. Hence it was that the great globe of Hebraism was now +shivered into fragments; projected 'by one sling of that victorious +arm'--which had brought them up from Egypt. Make ready for Christianity! +Lay the structure, in which everywhere Christianity will strike root. +You, that for yourselves even will reject, will persecute Christianity, +become the pioneers, the bridge-layers, the reception-preparers, by +means of those two inconceivable ideas, for natural man--sin and its +antagonist, holiness. + +In this way a preparation was made. But if Christianity was to benefit +by it, if Christianity was to move with ease, she must have a language. +Accordingly, from the time of Alexander, the strong he-goat, you see a +tendency--sudden, abrupt, beyond all example, swift, perfect--for +uniting all nations by the bond of a single language. You see kings and +nations taking up their positions as regularly, faithfully, solemnly as +a great fleet on going into action, for supporting this chain of +language. + +Yet even that will be insufficient; for fluent motion out of nation into +nation it will be requisite that all nations should be provinces of one +supreme people; so that no hindrances from adverse laws, or from +jealousies of enmity, can possibly impede the fluent passage of the +apostle and the apostle's delegates--inasmuch as the laws are swallowed +up into one single code, and enmity disappears with its consequent +jealousies, where all nationalities are absorbed into unity. + +This last change being made, a signal, it may be supposed, was given as +with a trumpet; now then, move forward, Christianity; the ground is +ready, the obstacles are withdrawn. Enter upon the field which is +manured; try the roads which are cleared; use the language which is +prepared; benefit by the laws which protect and favour your motion; +apply the germinating principles which are beginning to swell in this +great vernal season of Christianity. New heavens and new earth are +forming: do you promote it. + +Such a _complexus_ of favourable tendencies, such a meeting in one +centre of plans--commencing in far different climates and far different +centres, all coming up at the same aera face to face, and by direct lines +of connection meeting in one centre--the world had never seen before. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[53] 'The wicked Jew,' Josephus, as once I endeavoured to show, was +perhaps the worst man in all antiquity; it is pleasant to be foremost +upon any path, and Joe might assuredly congratulate himself on +surmounting and cresting all the scoundrels since the flood. What there +might be on the other side the flood, none of us can say. But on _this_ +side, amongst the Cis-diluvians, Joe in a contest for the deanery of +that venerable chapter, would assuredly carry off the prize. Wordsworth, +on a question arising as to _who_ might be the worst man in English +history, vehemently contended for the pre-eminent pretensions of Monk. +And when some of us assigned him only the fifth or sixth place, was +disposed to mourn for him as an ill-used man. But no difficulty of this +kind could arise with regard to the place of Josephus among the +ancients, full knowledge and impartial judgment being presupposed. And +his works do follow him; just look at this: From the ridiculous attempt +of some imbecile Christian to interpolate in Josephus's History a +passage favourable to Christ, it is clear that no adequate idea +prevailed of his intense hatred to the new sect of Nazarenes and +Galilaeans. In our own days we have a lively illustration of the use +which may be extracted from the Essenes by sceptics, and an indirect +confirmation of my own allegation, against them, in Dr. Strauss (_Leben +Jesu_). The moment that his attention was directed to that fact of the +Essenes being utterly ignored in the New Testament (a fact so easily +explained by _my_ theory, a fact so _utterly_ unaccountable to _his_) he +conceived an affection for them. Had they been mentioned by St. John, +there was an end to the dislike; but Josephus had, even with this modern +sceptical Biblical critic, done his work and done it well. + + + + +_XVII. CHRISTIANITY AS THE RESULT OF PRE-ESTABLISHED HARMONY._ + + +If you are one that upon meditative grounds have come sincerely to +perceive the philosophic value of this faith; if you have become +sensible that as yet Christianity is but in its infant stages--after +eighteen centuries is but beginning to unfold its adaptations to the +long series of human situations, slowly unfolding as time and change +move onwards; and that these self-adapting relations of the religion to +human necessities, this conformity to unforeseen developments, argues a +Leibnitzian pre-establishment of this great system as though it had from +the first been a mysterious substratum laid under 'the dark foundations' +of human nature; holding or admitting such views of the progress +awaiting Christianity--you will thank us for what we are going to say. +You may, possibly for yourself, when reviewing the past history of man, +have chanced to perceive the same--we are not jealous of participation +in a field so ample--but even in such a case, if the remark (on which we +are now going to throw a ray of light) should appeal to you in +particular, with less of absolute novelty, not the less you will feel +thankful to be confirmed in your views by independent testimony. We, for +ourselves, offer the remark as new; but, in an age teeming with so much +agility of thought, it is rare that any remark can have absolutely +evaded all partial glimpses or stray notices of others, even when _aliud +agentes_, men stumble upon truths, to which they are not entitled by any +meritorious or direct studies. However, whether absolutely original or +not, the remark is this--Did it ever strike you, reader, as a most +memorable phenomenon about Christianity, as one of those contradictory +functions which, to a thing of human mechanism, is impossible, but which +are found in _vital_ agencies and in all deep-laid systems of +truth--that the same scheme of belief which is the most settling, +freezing, tranquillizing for one purpose, is the most unbinding, +agitating, revolutionary in another? Christianity is that religion which +most of all settles what is perilous in scepticism; and yet, also, it is +that which most of all unsettles whatever may invite man's intellectual +activity. It is the sole religion which can give any deep anchorage for +man's hopes; and yet, also, in mysterious self-antagonism, it is the +sole religion which opens a pathless ocean to man's useful and blameless +speculations. Whilst all false religions neither as a matter of fact +_have_ produced--nor as a matter of possibility _could_ have produced--a +philosophy, it is a most significant distinction of Christianity, and +one upon which volumes might be written, that simply by means of the +great truths which that faith has fixed when brought afterwards into +collision with the innumerable questions which that faith has left +undetermined (as not essential to her own final purposes), Christianity +has bred, and tempted, and stimulated a vast body of philosophy on +neutral ground; ground religious enough to create an interest in the +questions, yet not so religious as to react upon capital truths by any +errors that may be committed in the discussion. For instance, on that +one sea-like question of free agency, besides the _explicit_ philosophy +that Christianity has bred amongst the Schoolmen, and since their time, +what a number of sects, heresies, orthodox churches have _implicitly_ +couched and diffused some one view or other of this question amongst +their characteristic differences; and without prejudice to the integrity +of their Christian views or the purity of their Christian morals. +Whilst, on the other hand, the very noblest of false religions (the +noblest as having stolen much from Christianity), viz., Islamism, has +foreclosed all philosophy on this subject by the stupid and killing +doctrine of fatalism. This we give as one instance; but in all the rest +it is the same. You might fancy that from a false religion should arise +a false philosophy--false, but still a philosophy. Is it so? On the +contrary: the result of false religion is no philosophy at all. + +Paganism produced none: the Pagans had a philosophy; but it stood in no +sort of relation, real or fancied relation, to their mythology or +worship. And the Mahometans, in times when they had universities and +professors' chairs, drew the whole of their philosophic systems from +Greece, without so much as ever attempting to connect these systems with +their own religious creed. But Christianity, on the other hand, the only +great doctrinal religion, the only religion which ties up--chains--and +imprisons human faith, where it is good for man's peace that he should +be fettered, is also the only religion which places him in perfect +liberty on that vast neutral arena where it is good for him to exercise +his unlimited energies of mind. And it is most remarkable, that whilst +Christianity so far shoots her rays into these neutral questions as to +invest them with grandeur, she keeps herself uncommitted and unpledged +to such philosophic problems in any point where they might ally +themselves with error. For instance, St. Austin's, or Calvin's doctrine +on free agency is so far Christian, that Christian churches have adopted +it into their articles of faith, or have even built upon it as a +foundation. So far it seems connected with Christian truth. Yet, again, +it is so far separate from Christian truth, that no man dares to +pronounce his brother heretical for doubting or denying it. And thus +Christianity has ministered, even in this side-chapel of its great +temple, to two great necessities: it has thrown out a permanent +temptation to human activity of intellect, by connecting itself with +tertiary questions growing out of itself derivatively and yet +indifferent to the main interests of truth. In this way Christianity has +ministered to a necessity which was not religious, but simply human, +through a religious radiation in a descending line. Secondly, it has +kept alive and ventilated through every age the direct religious +interest in its own primary truths, by throwing out secondary truths, +that were doubtfully related to the first, for polemical agitation. +Foolish are they who talk of our Christian disputes as arguments of an +unsound state, or as silent reproaches to the sanity or perfect +development of our religion. Mahometans are united, because the only +points that could disunite them relate generally to fact and _not_ to +doctrinal truths. Their very national heresies turn only on a ridiculous +piece of gossip--Was such a man's son-in-law his legitimate successor? +Upon a point so puerile as this revolves the entire difference between +the heterodoxy of Persia and the orthodoxy of Turkey. Or, if their +differences go deeper, in that case they tend to the utter extinction +of Islamism; they maintain no characteristic or exclusive dogma; as +amongst the modern Sikhs of Hindostan, who have blended the Brahminical +and Mahometan creeds by an incoherent _syncretismus_; or, as amongst +many heretics of Persia and Arabia, who are mere crazy freethinkers, +without any religious determination, without any principle of libration +for the oscillating mind. Whereas _our_ differences, leaving generally +all central truths untouched, arise like our political parties, and +operate like them; they grow out of our sincerity, and they sustain our +sincerity. That interest _must_ be unaffected which leads men into +disputes and permanent factions, and that truth _must_ be diffusive as +life itself, which is found to underlay a vast body of philosophy. It is +the cold petrific annihilation of a moral interest in the subject, by +substituting a meagre interest of historical facts, which stifles all +differences; stifles political differences under a despotism, from utter +despair of winning practical value to men's opinions; stifles religious +differences under a childish creed of facts or anecdotes, from the +impossibility of bringing to bear upon the [Greek: to] positive of an +arbitrary legend, or the mere conventional of a clan history--dead, +inert letters--any moral views this way or that, and any life of +philosophical speculation. Thence comes the soul-killing monotony (unity +one cannot call it) of all false religions. Attached to mere formal +facts, they provoke no hostility in the inner nature. Affirming nothing +as regards the life of truth, why should they tempt any man to +contradict? Lying, indeed, but lying only as a false pedigree lies, or +an old mythological legend, they interest no principle in man's moral +heart; they make no oracular answers, put forth no secret agitation, +they provoke no question. But Christianity, merely by her settlements +and fixing of truths, has disengaged and unfixed a world of other +truths, for sustaining or for tempting an endless activity of the +intellect. And the astonishing result has thus been accomplished--that +round a centre, fixed and motionless as a polar tablet of ice, there has +been in the remote offing a tumbling sea of everlasting agitation. A +central gravitation in the power of Christianity has drawn to one point +and converged into one tendency all capital agencies in all degrees of +remoteness, making them tend to rest and unity; whilst, again, by an +antagonist action, one vast centrifugal force, measured against the +other, has so modified the result as to compel the intellect of man into +divergencies answering to the line of convergence; balancing the central +rest for man's hopes by everlasting motion for his intellect, and the +central unity for man's conscience by everlasting progress for his +efforts. + +Now, the Scholastic philosophy meddled chiefly with those tertiary or +sub-dependent truths; such, viz., as are indifferent to Christianity by +any reaction which they can exert from error in their treatment, but not +indifferent as regards their own original derivation. Many people +connect Scholasticism with a notion of error and even of falsehood, +because they suppose it to have arisen on the incitement of Popery. And +it is undeniable that Popery impressed a bias or _clinamen_ upon its +movement. It is true also that Scholasticism is not only ministerial to +Popery, but in parts is consubstantial with Popery. Popery is not fully +fleshed and developed apart from the commentaries or polemical apologies +of Aquinas. But still we must remember that Popery had not yet taken up +the formal position of hostility to truth, seeing that as yet +Protestantism was only beginning its first infant struggles. Many Popish +errors were hardened and confirmed in the very furnace of the strife. +And though perilous errors had intermingled themselves with Popery, +which would eventually have strangled all the Christian truth which it +involved, yet that truth it was which gave its whole interest to the +Reformation. Had the Reformation fought against mere unmixed error, it +could not have been viewed as a reforming process, but as one entirely +innovating. So that even where it is most exclusively Popish, +Scholasticism has often a golden thread of truth running through its +texture; often it is not Popish in the sense of being Anti-Protestant, +but in the elder sense of being Anti-Pagan. However, generally speaking, +it is upon the neutral ground common to all modes of Christianity that +this philosophy ranges. That being so, there was truth enough of a high +order to sustain the sublimer motives of the Schoolmen; whilst the +consciousness of supporting the mixed interests, secular and spiritual, +of that mighty Christian church which at that time was co-extensive with +Christianity in the West, gave to the Schoolmen a more instant, human, +and impassioned interest in the labours of that mysterious loom which +pursued its aerial web through three centuries. + +As a consequence from all this, we affirm that the parallel is complete +between the situation on the one side of the early Greek authors, the +creators of Greek literature in the age of Pericles, and, on the other +side, of the Christian Schoolmen; (1) the same intense indolence, which +Helvetius fancied to be the most powerful stimulant to the mind under +the reaction of _ennui_; (2) the same tantalizing dearth of books--just +enough to raise a craving, too little to meet it; (3) the same chilling +monotony of daily life and absence of female charities to mould social +intercourse--for the Greeks from false composition of society and +vicious sequestration of women--for the scholastic monks from the +austere asceticism of their founders and the 'rule' of their order; (4) +finally the same (but far different) enthusiasm and permanent elevation +of thought from disinterested participation in forwarding a great +movement of the times--for the one side tending to the unlimited +aggrandisement of their own brilliant country; for the other, +commensurate with what is conceivable in human grandeur. + +This sketch of Christianity as it is mysteriously related to the total +body of Philosophy actual or possible, present or in reversion, may seem +inadequate. In some sense it _is_ so. But call it a note or +'_excursus_,' which is the scholarlike name for notes a little longer +than usual, and all will be made right. What we have in view, is to +explain the situation of the Greeks under Pericles by that of the +Schoolmen. We use the modern or Christian case, which is more striking +from its monastic peculiarity, as a reflex picture of the other. We rely +on the moulding circumstances of Scholasticism, its awakened intellect, +its famishing eagerness from defect of books, its gloom from the exile +of all feminine graces, and its towering participation in an interest +the grandest of the age, as a sort of _camera obscura_ for bringing down +on the table before us a portraiture essentially the same of early Greek +society in the rapturous spring-time of Pericles. + +If the governing circumstances were the same in virtue, then probably +there would be a virtual sameness in some of the results: and amongst +these results would be the prevailing cast of thinking, and therefore to +some extent the prevailing features of style. It may seem strange to +affirm any affinities between the arid forms of Scholastic style and the +free movement of the early Grecian style. They seem rather to be +repelling extremes. But extremes meet more often than is supposed. And +there really _are_ some remarkable features of conformity even as to +this point between the tendencies of Christian monachism and the +unsocial sociality of Paganism. However, it is not with this view that +we have pressed the parallel. Not by way of showing a general affinity +in virtues and latent powers, and thence deducing a probable affinity in +results, but generally for the sake of fixing and illustrating +circumstances which made it _physically_ impossible that the movement +could have been translated by contagion from one country to the others. +Roads were too bad, cities too difficult of access, travellers too rare, +books too incapable of transmission, for any solution which should +explain the chain of coincidences into a chain of natural causations. +No; the solution was, that Christianity had everywhere gone ahead +spontaneously with the same crying necessities for purification, that +is, for progress. One deep, from North to South, called to another; but +the deeps all alike, each separately for itself, were ready with their +voices, ready without collusion to hear and to reverberate the cry to +God. The light, which abides and lodges in Christianity, had everywhere, +by measured steps and by unborrowed strength, kindled into mortal +antagonism with the darkness which had gathered over Christianity from +human corruptions. But in science this result is even more conspicuous. +Not only by their powers and energies the parallel currents of science +in different lands enter into emulations that secure a general +uniformity of progress, run neck and neck against each other, so as to +arrive at any killing rasper of a difficulty pretty nearly about the +same time; not only do they thus make it probable that coincidences of +victory will continually occur through the rivalships of power; but also +through the rivalships of weakness. Most naturally for the same reason +that they worshipped in spirit and in truth, for the same reason that +led them to value such a worship, they valued its distant fountain-head. +Hence their interest in the Messiah. Hence their delegation. + + + + +_XVIII. THE MESSIANIC IDEA ROMANIZED._ + + +The Romans, so far from looking with the Jews to the Tigris, looked to +the Jews themselves. Or at least they looked to that whole Syria, of +which the Jews were a section. Consequently, there is a solution of two +points: + +1. The wise men of the East were delegates from the trans-Tigridian +people. + +2. The great man who should arise from the East to govern the world was, +in the sense of that prophecy, _i.e._, in the terms of that prophecy +interpreted according to the sense of all who circulated and partook +in--or were parties to--the belief of that prophecy, was to come from +Syria: _i.e._, from Judea. + +Now take it either way, observe the sublimity and the portentous +significance of this expectation. Every man of imaginative feeling has +been struck with that secret whisper that stirred through France in +1814-15--that a man was to come with the violets. The violets were +symbolically Napoleonic, as being the colour of his livery: it was also +his cognizance: and the time for his return was _March_, from which +commence the ever memorable Hundred days. And the sublimity lies in the +circumstances of: + +1. A whisper running through Christendom: people in remotest quarters +bound together by a tie so aerial. + +2. Of the dread augury enveloped in this little humble but beautiful +flower. + +3. Of the awful revolution at hand: the great earthquake that was mining +and quarrying in the dark chambers beneath the thrones of Europe. + +These and other circumstances throw a memorable sublimity upon this +whisper of conspiracy. But what was this to the awful whisper that +circled round the earth ([Greek: he oikoumene]) as to the being that was +coming from Judea? There was no precedent, no antagonist whisper with +which it could enter into any terms of comparison, unless there had by +possibility been heard that mysterious and ineffable sigh which Milton +ascribes to the planet when man accomplished his mysterious rebellion. +The idea of such a sigh, of a whisper circling through the planet, of +the light growing thick with the unimaginable charge, and the purple +eclipse of Death throwing a penumbra; that may, but nothing else ever +can, equal the unutterable sublimity of that buzz--that rumour, that +susurrus passing from mouth to mouth--nobody knew whence coming or +whither tending, and about a being of whom nobody could tell what he +should be--what he should resemble--what he should do, but that all +peoples and languages should have an interest in his appearance. + +Now, on the one hand, suppose this--I mean, suppose the Roman whisper to +be an authorized rumour utterly without root; in that case you would +have a clear intervention of Heaven. But, on the other hand, suppose, +which is to me the more probable idea, that it was not without a root; +that in fact it was the Judaean conception of a Messiah, translated into +Roman and worldly ideas; into ideas which a Roman could understand, +or with which the world could sympathize, viz., that _rerum +potiretur_. (The plural here indicates only the awful nature, its +indeterminateness.) + +I have, in fact, little doubt that it _was_ a Romanized appropriation or +translation of the Judaean Messiah. One thing only I must warn you +against. You will naturally say: 'Since two writers among the very few +surviving have both refuted this prophecy, and Josephus besides, this +implies that many thousands did so. For if out of a bundle of newspapers +two only had survived quite disconnected, both talking of the same man, +we should argue a great popularity for that man.' And you will say: 'All +these Roman people, did they interpret?' You know already--by Vespasian. +Now whilst, on the one hand, I am far from believing that chance only +was the parent of the ancient [Greek: eustochia], their felicitous +guessing (for it was a higher science), yet, in this new matter, what +coincidence of Pagan prophecy, as doubtless a horrid mistrust in the +oracles, etc., made them 'sagacious from a fear' of the coming peril, +and, as often happens in Jewish prophecies--God when He puts forth His +hand the purposes attained roll one under the other sometimes three deep +even to our eyes. + + + + +_XIX. CONTRAST OF GREEK AND PERSIAN FEELING IN CERTAIN ASPECTS._ + + +Life, naturally the antagonism of Death, must have reacted upon Life +according to its own development. Christianity having so awfully +affected the [Greek: to] + of Death, this + must have reacted on Life. +Hence, therefore, a phenomenon existing broadly to the human sensibility +in these ages which for the Pagans had no existence whatever. If to a +modern spectator a very splendid specimen of animal power, suppose a +horse of three or four years old in the fulness of his energies, that +saith _ha_ to the trumpets and is unable to stand _loco_ if he hears any +exciting music, be brought for exhibition--not one of the spectators, +however dull, but has a dim feeling of excitement added to his +admiration from the lurking antagonism of the fugacious life attached to +this ebullient power, and the awful repulsion between that final +tendency and the meridian development of the strength. Hence, therefore, +the secret rapture in bringing forward tropical life--the shooting of +enormous power from darkness, the kindling in the midst of winter and +sterility of irrepressible, simultaneous, tropical vegetation--the +victorious surmounting of foliage, blossoms, flowers, fruits--burying +and concealing the dreary vestiges of desolation. + +Reply to the fact that Xerxes wept over his forces, by showing that in +kind, like the Jewish, the less ignoble superstition of Persia--which +must in the time of Balaam, if we suppose the Mesotam meant to have been +the tract between the Euphrates and the Tigris, have been almost +coincident with the Jewish as to the unity of God--had always, amidst +barbarism arising from the forces moulding social sentiment, prompted a +chivalry and sensibility far above Grecian. For how else account for the +sole traits of Christian sensibility in regard to women coming forward +in the beautiful tale of the Armenian prince, whose wife when asked for +her opinion of Cyrus the Conqueror, who promised to restore them all to +liberty and favour (an act, by the way, in itself impossible to Greek +feelings, which exhibit no one case of relinquishing such rights over +captives) in one hour, replied that she knew not, had not remarked his +person; for that _her_ attention had been all gathered upon that prince, +meaning her youthful husband, who being asked by the Persian king what +sacrifice he would esteem commensurate to the recovery of his bride, +answered so fervently, that life and all which it contained were too +slight a ransom to pay. Even that answer was wholly impossible to a +Grecian. And again the beautiful catastrophe in the tale of Abradates +and Panthea--the gratitude with which both husband and wife received the +royal gift of restoration to each other's arms, implying a sort of holy +love inconceivable to a state of Polygamy--the consequent reaction of +their thought in testifying this gratitude; and as war unhappily offered +the sole chance for displaying it, the energy of Panthea in adorning +with her own needle the habiliments of her husband--the issuing forth +and parting on the morning of battle--the principle of upright duty and +of immeasurable gratitude in Abradates forming 'a nobler counsellor' +than his wife's 'poor heart'--his prowess--his glorious death--his +bringing home as a corpse--the desolation of Panthea--the visit and +tears of the Persian king to the sorrowing widow stretched upon the +ground by the corpse of her hero--the fine incident of the right hand, +by which Cyrus had endeavoured to renew his pledges of friendship with +the deceased prince, coming away from the corpse and following the royal +touch (this hand having been struck off in the battle)--the burial--and +the subsequent death of Panthea, who refused to be comforted under all +the kind assurances, the kindest protection from the Persian king--these +traits, though surviving in Greek, are undoubtedly Persian. For Xenophon +had less sensibility than any Greek author that survives. And besides, +abstracting from the writer, how is it that Greek records offer no such +story; nothing like it; no love between married people of that chivalric +order--no conjugal fidelity--no capacity of that beautiful reply--that +she saw him not, for that _her_ mind had no leisure for any other +thought than _one_? + + + + +_XX. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIED READINGS._ + + +1.--DINNER. + +In London and other great capitals it is well known that new diseases +have manifested themselves of late years: and more would be known about +them, were it not for the tremulous delicacy which waits on the +afflictions of the rich. We do not say this invidiously. It is right +that such forbearance should exist. Medical men, as a body, are as manly +a race as any amongst us, and as little prone to servility. But +obviously the case of exposure under circumstances of humiliating +affliction is a very different thing for the man whose rank and +consideration place him upon a hill conspicuous to a whole city or +nation, and for the unknown labourer whose name excites no feeling +whatever in the reader of his case. Meantime it is precisely amongst the +higher classes, privileged so justly from an exposure pressing so +unequally upon _their_ rank, that these new forms of malady emerge. Any +man who visits London at intervals long enough to make the spectacle of +that great vision impressive to him from novelty and the force of +contrast, more especially if this contrast is deepened by a general +residence in some quiet rural seclusion, will not fail to be struck by +the fever and tumult of London as its primary features. _Struck_ is not +the word: _awed_ is the only adequate expression as applied to the +hurry, the uproar, the strife, the agony of life as it boils along some +of the main arteries among the London streets. About the hour of +equinoctial sunset comes a periodic respite in the shape of dinner. Were +it not for that, were it not for the wine and the lustre of lights, and +the gentle restraints of courtesies, and the soothing of conversation, +through which a daily reaction is obtained, London would perish from +excitement in a year. The effect upon one who like ourselves simply +beholds the vast frenzy attests its power. The mere sympathy, into which +the nerves are forced by the eye, expounds the fury with which it must +act upon those who are acting and suffering participators in the mania. +Rome suffered in the same way, but in a less degree: and the same relief +was wooed daily in a brilliant dinner (_caena_), but two and a half hours +earlier. + +The same state of things exists proportionately in other +capitals--Edinburgh, Dublin, Naples, Vienna. And doubtless, if the +curtain were raised, the same penalties would be traced as pursuing this +agitated life; the penalties, we mean, that exist in varied shapes of +nervous disease. + + +2.--OMITTED PASSAGES FROM THE REVIEW OF BENNETT'S CEYLON. + +Mr. Bennett personally is that good man who interests us the more +because he seems to be an ill-used one. By the way, here is a +combination which escaped the Roman moralist: _Vir bonus_, says he, +_mala fortuna compositus_, is a spectacle for the gods. Yet what is that +case, the case of a man matched in duel with the enmity of a malicious +fellow-creature--naturally his inferior, but officially having means to +oppress him? No man is naturally or easily roused to anger by a blind +abstraction like Fortune; and therefore he is under no temptation to +lose his self-command. He sustains no trial that can make him worthy of +a divine contemplation. Amongst all the extravagancies of human nature, +never yet did we hear of a person who harboured a sentiment of private +malice against Time for moving too rapidly, or against Space for being +infinitely divisible. Even animated annoyers, if they are without spite +towards ourselves, we regard with no enmity. No man in all history, if +we except the twelfth Caesar, has nourished a deadly feud against +flies[54]: and if Mrs. Jameson allowed a sentiment of revenge to nestle +in her heart towards the Canadian mosquitoes, it was the race and not +the individual parties to the trespass on herself against whom she +protested. Passions it is, human passions, intermingling with the wrong +itself that envenom the sense of wrong. We have ourselves been caned +severely in passing through a wood by the rebound, the recalcitration we +may call it, of elastic branches which we had displaced. And passing +through the same wood with a Whitehaven dandy of sixty, now in _Hades_, +who happened to wear a beautiful wig from which on account of the heat +he had removed his hat, we saw with these eyes of ours one of those same +thickets which heretofore had been concerned in our own caning, +deliberately lift up, suspend, and keep dangling in the air for the +contempt of the public that auburn wig which was presumed by its wearer +to be simular of native curls. The ugliness of that death's head which +by this means was suddenly exposed to daylight, the hideousness of that +grinning skull so abruptly revealed, may be imagined by poets. Neither +was the affair easily redressed: the wig swung buoyantly in the playful +breezes: to catch it was hard, to release it without injuring the +tresses was a matter of nicety: ladies were heard approaching from Rydal +Mount: the dandy was agitated: he felt himself, if seen in this +condition, to be a mere _memento mori_: for the first time in his life, +as we believe, he blushed on meeting our eye: he muttered something, in +which we could only catch the word 'Absalom': and finally we extricated +ourselves from the cursed thicket barely in time to meet the ladies. +Here were insufferable affronts: greater cannot be imagined: wanton +outrages on two inoffensive men: and for ourselves, who could have +identified and sworn to one of the bushes as an accomplice in _both_ +assaults, it was not easy altogether to dismiss the idea of malice. Yet, +because this malice did not organize and concentrate itself in an eye +looking on and genially enjoying our several mortifications, we both +pocketed the affronts. All this we say to show Mr. Bennett how fully we +do justice to his situation, and allow for the irritation natural to +such cases as his, where the loss is clothed with contumely, and the +wrong is barbed by malice. But, for all _that_, we do not think such +confidential communications of ill-usage properly made to the public. + +In fact, this querulous temper of expostulation, running through the +book, disfigures its literary aspect. And possibly for our own comfort +we might have turned away from a feature of discontent so gloomy and +painful, were it not that we are thus accidentally recalled to a +grievance in our Eastern administrations upon which we desire to enter a +remark. Life is languid, the blood becomes lazy, at the extremities of +our bodily system, as we ourselves know by dolorous experience under the +complaint of _purpura_; and analogously we find the utility of our +supreme government to droop and languish before it reaches the Indian +world. Hence partly it is (for nearer home we see nothing of the kind), +that foreign adventurers receive far too much encouragement from our +British Satraps in the East. To find themselves within 'the regions of +the morn,' and cheek to cheek with famous Sultans far inferior in power +and substantial splendour, makes our great governors naturally proud. +They are transfigured by necessity; and, losing none of their justice or +integrity, they lose a good deal of their civic humility. In such a +state they become capable of flattery, apt for the stratagems of foreign +adulation. We know not certainly that Mr. Bennett's injuries originated +in that source; though we suspect as much from the significant stories +which he tells of interloping foreigners on the pension list in Ceylon. +But this we _do_ know, that, from impulses easily deciphered, foreigners +creep into favour where an Englishman would not; and why? For two +reasons: 1st, because a foreigner _must_ be what is meant by 'an +adventurer,' and in his necessity he is allowed to find his excuse; +2ndly, because an Englishman, attempting to play the adulatory +character, finds an obstacle to his success in the standard of his own +national manners from which it requires a perpetual effort to wean +himself: whereas the oily and fluent obsequiousness found amongst +Italians and Frenchmen makes the transition to a perfect Phrygian +servility not only more easy to the artist, and less extravagantly +palpable, but more agreeable in the result to his employer. This cannot +be denied, and therefore needs no comment. But, as to the other reason, +viz., that a foreigner _must_ be an adventurer, allow us to explain. +Every man is an adventurer, every man is _in sensu strictissimo_ +sometimes a knave. + +You might imagine the situation of an adventurer who had figured +virtually in many lives, to resemble that of the late revered Mr. Prig +Bentham, when sitting like a contrite spider at the centre of his +'panopticon'; all the lines, which meet in a point at his seat, radiate +outwards into chambers still widening as they increase their distance. +This _may_ be an image of an adventurer's mind when open to compunction, +but generally it is exactly reversed; he sees the past sections of his +life, however spacious heretofore, crowding up and narrowing into +vanishing points to his immediate eye. And such also they become for the +public. The villain, who walks, like AEneas at Carthage, shrouded in +mist, is as little pursued by any bad report for his forgotten misdeeds +as he is usually by remorse. In the process of losing their relation to +any known and visible person, acts of fraud, robbery, murder, lose all +distinct place in the memory. Such acts are remembered only through +persons. And hence it is that many interesting murders, worthy to become +cabinet gems in a museum of such works, have wasted their sweetness on +the desert air even in our time, for no other reason than that the +parties concerned did not amplify their proportions upon the public eye; +the sufferers were perhaps themselves knaves; and the doers had +retreated from all public knowledge into the mighty crowds of London or +Glasgow. + +This excursus, on the case of adventurers who run away from their own +crimes into the pathless wildernesses of vast cities, may appear +disproportionate. But excuse it, reader, for the subject is interesting; +and with relation to our Eastern empire it is peculiarly so. Many are +the anecdotes we could tell, derived from Oriental connections, about +foreign scamps who have first exposed the cloven foot when inextricably +connected with political intrigues or commercial interests, or possibly +with domestic and confidential secrets. The dangerousness of their +characters first began to reveal itself after they had become dangerous +by their present position. + +Mr. Bennett mentions one lively illustration of this in the case of a +foreigner, who had come immediately from the Cape of Good Hope; so far, +but not farther, he could be traced. And what part had he played at the +Cape? The illustrious one of private sentinel, with a distant prospect +perhaps of rising to be a drum-major. This man--possibly a refugee from +the bagnio at Marseilles, or from the Italian galleys--was soon allowed +to seat himself in an office of L1,000 per annum. For what? For which of +his vices? Our English and Scottish brothers, honourable and educated, +must sacrifice country, compass land and sea, face a life of storms, +with often but a slender chance of any result at all from their pains, +whilst a foreign rascal (without any allegation of merit in his favour) +shall at one bound, by planting his servility in the right quarter and +at the fortunate hour, vault into an income of 25,000 francs per +annum; the money, observe, being national money--yours, ours, +everybody's--since at that period Ceylon did not pay her own expenses. +Now, indeed, she does, and furnishes beside, annually, a surplus of +L50,000 sterling. But still, we contend that places of trust, honour, +and profit, won painfully by British blood, are naturally and rightfully +to be held in trust as reversions for the children of the family. To +return, however, and finish the history of our scamp, it happened that +through the regular action of his office, and in part perhaps through +some irregular influence or consideration with which his station +invested him, he became the depositary of many sums saved laboriously +by poor Ceylonese. These sums he embezzled; or, as a sympathizing +countryman observed of a similar offence in similar circumstances, he +'gave an irregular direction to their appropriation.' You see, he could +not forget his old Marseilles tricks. This, however, was coming it too +strong for his patron, who in spite of his taste for adulation was a +just governor. Our poor friend was summoned most peremptorily to account +for the missing dollars; and because it did not occur to him that he +might plead, as another man from Marseilles in another colony had done, +'that the white ants had eaten the dollars,' he saw no help for it but +to cut his throat, and cut his throat he did. This being done, you may +say that he had given such a receipt as he could, and had entitled +himself to a release. Well, we are not unmerciful; and were the case of +the creditors our own, we should not object. But we remark, besides the +private wrong, a posthumous injury to the British nation which this +foreigner was enabled to commit; and it was twofold: he charged the +pension-list of Ceylon with the support of his widow, in prejudice of +other widows left by our meritorious countrymen, some of whom had died +in battle for the State; and he had attainted, through one generation at +least, the good faith of our nation amongst the poor ignorant +Cinghalese, who cannot be expected to distinguish between true +Englishmen and other Europeans whom English governors may think proper +to exalt in the colony. + +Cases such as these, it is well known to the learned in that matter, +have been but too frequent in our Eastern colonies; and we do assert +that any single case of that nature is too much by one. Even where the +question is merely one of courtesy to science or to literature, we +complain heavily, not at all of that courtesy, but that by much too +great a preponderance is allowed to the pretensions of foreigners. +Everybody at Calcutta will recollect the invidious distinctions +(invidious upon contrast) paid by a Governor-General some years ago to a +French _savant_, who came to the East as an itinerant botanist and +geologist on the mission of a Parisian society. The Governor was Lord +William Bentinck. His Excellency was a radical, and, being such, could +swallow 'homage' by the gallon, which homage the Frenchman took care to +administer. In reward he was publicly paraded in the _howdah_ of Lady +William Bentinck, and caressed in a way not witnessed before or since. +Now this Frenchman, after visiting the late king of the Sikhs at Lahore, +and receiving every sort of service and hospitality from the English +through a devious route of seven thousand miles (treatment which in +itself we view with pleasure), finally died of liver complaint through +his own obstinacy. By way of honour to his memory, the record of his +three years' wanderings has been made public. What is the expression of +his gratitude to the English? One service he certainly rendered us: he +disabused, if _that_ were possible, the French of their silly and most +ignorant notions as to our British government in India and Ceylon: he +could do no otherwise, for he had himself been astounded at what he saw +as compared with what he had been taught to expect. Thus far he does us +some justice and therefore some service, urged to it by his bitter +contempt of the French credulity wherever England is slandered. But +otherwise he treats with insolence unbounded all our men of science, +though his own name has made little impression anywhere: and, in his +character of traveller he speaks of himself as of one laying the +foundation-stone of any true knowledge with regard to India. In +particular he dismisses with summary contempt the Travels of Bishop +Heber--not very brilliant perhaps, but undoubtedly superior both in +knowledge and in style to his own. Yet this was the man selected for +_feting_ by the English Governor-General; as though courtesy to a +Frenchman could not travel on any line which did not pass through a +mortifying slight to Englishmen. + + +3.--GILLMAN'S COLERIDGE. + +Variation on the opening of 'Coleridge and Opium-eating.' + +What is the deadest thing known to philosophers? According to popular +belief, it is a door-nail. For the world says, 'Dead as a door-nail!' +But the world is wrong. Dead may be a door-nail; but deader and most +dead is Gillman's Coleridge. Which fact in Natural History we +demonstrate thus: Up to Waterloo it was the faith of every child that a +sloth took a century for walking across a street. His mother, if she +'knew he was out,' must have had a pretty long spell of uneasiness +before she saw him back again. But Mr. Waterton, Baptist of a new +generation in these mysteries, took that conceit out of Europe: the +sloth, says he, cannot like a snipe or a plover run a race neck and neck +with a first-class railway carriage; but is he, therefore, a slow coach? +By no means: he would go from London to Edinburgh between seedtime and +harvest. Now Gillman's Coleridge, vol. i., has no such speed: it has +taken six years to come up with those whom chiefly it concerned. Some +dozen of us, Blackwood-men and others, are stung furiously in that book +during the early part of 1838; and yet none of us had ever perceived the +nuisance or was aware of the hornet until the wheat-fields of 1844 were +white for the sickle. In August of 1844 we saw Gillman. + + +4.--WHY SCRIPTURE DOES NOT DEAL WITH SCIENCE ('PAGAN ORACLES'). + +The Fathers grant to the Oracles a real power of foresight and prophecy, +but in all cases explain these supernatural functions out of diabolic +inspiration. Van Dale, on the other hand, with all his Vandalish +followers, treats this hypothesis, both as regards the power itself of +looking into the future and as regards the supposed source of that +power, in the light of a contemptible chimera. They discuss it scarcely +with gravity: indeed, the very frontispiece to Van Dale's book already +announces the repulsive spirit of scoffing and mockery in which he means +to dismiss it; men are there represented in the act of juggling and +coarsely exulting over their juggleries by protruding the tongue or +exchanging collusive winks with accomplices. Now, in a grave question +obliquely affecting Christianity and the course of civilization, this +temper of discussion is not becoming, were the result even more +absolutely convincing than it is. Everybody can see at a glance that it +is not this particular agency of evil spirits which Van Dale would have +found so ridiculous, were it not that he had previously addicted himself +to viewing the whole existence of evil spirits as a nursery fable. Now +it is not our intention to enter upon any speculation so mysterious. It +is clear from the first that no man by human researches can any more +add one scintillation of light to the obscure indications of Scripture +upon this dark question, than he can add a cubit to his stature. We do +not know, nor is it possible to know, what is even likely to be the +exact meaning of various Scriptural passages partly, perhaps, adapted to +the erring preconceptions of the Jews; for never let it be forgotten +that upon all questions alike, which concerned no moral interest of man, +all teachers alike who had any heavenly mission, patriarchs or lawgivers +conversing immediately with God, prophets, apostles, or even the Founder +of our religion Himself, never vouchsafe to reveal one ray of +illumination. And to us it seems the strangest oversight amongst all the +oversights of commentators that, in respect to the Jewish errors as to +astronomy, etc., they should not have seen the broad open doctrine which +vindicates the profound Scriptural neglect of errors however gross in +that quality of speculation. The solution of this neglect is not such as +to leave a man under any excuse for apologizing or shuffling. The +solution is technical, precise, and absolute. It is not sufficient to +say, as the best expounders do generally say, that science, that +astronomy for instance, that geology, that physiology, were not the kind +of truth which divine missionaries were sent to teach; that is true, but +is far short of the whole truth. Not only was it negatively no part of +the offices attached to a divine mission that it should extend its +teaching to merely intellectual questions (an argument which still +leaves the student to figure it as a work not indispensable, not +absolutely to be expected, yet in case it _were_ granted as so much of +advantage, as a _lucro ponatur_), but in the most positive and +commanding sense it _was_ the business of revelation to refuse all +light of this kind. According to all the analogies which explain the +meaning of a revelation, it would have been a capital schism in the +counsels of Providence, if in one single instance it had condescended to +gratify human curiosity by anticipation with regard to any subject +whatever, which God had already subjected to human capacity through the +ample faculties of the human intellect. + + +5.--VARIATION ON A FAMOUS PASSAGE IN 'THE DAUGHTER OF LEBANON.' + +The evangelist, stepping forward, touched her forehead. 'She is mortal,' +he said; and guessing that she was waiting for some one amongst the +youthful revellers, he groaned heavily; and then, half to himself and +half to _her_, he said, 'O flower too gorgeous, weed too lovely, wert +thou adorned with beauty in such excess, that not Solomon in all his +glory was arrayed like thee, no nor even the lily of the field, only +that thou mightest grieve the Holy Spirit of God?' The woman trembled +exceedingly, and answered, 'Rabbi, what should I do? For, behold! all +men forsake me.' + +Brief had been the path, and few the steps, which had hurried her to +destruction. Her father was a prince amongst the princes of Lebanon; but +proud, stern, and inflexible. + + +THE END. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[54] 'Against flies'--whence he must have merited the anger of +Beelzebub, whom Syrians held to be the tutelary god of flies; meaning +probably by 'flies' all insects whatever, as the Romans meant by +_passer_ and _passerculus_, all little birds of whatsoever family, and +by _malum_ every fruit that took the shape and size of a ball. How +honoured were the race of flies, to have a deity of the first rank for +their protector, a Caesar for their enemy! Caesar made war upon them with +his stylus; he is supposed to have massacred openly, or privately and +basely to have assassinated, more than seven millions of that +unfortunate race, who however lost nothing of that indomitable +pertinacity in retaliating all attacks, which Milton has noticed with +honour in 'Paradise Regained.' In reference to this notorious spirit of +persecution in the last prince of the Flavian house, Suetonius records a +capital repartee: 'Is the Emperor alone?' demanded a courtier. 'Quite +alone.' 'Are you sure? Really now is nobody with him?' Answer: '_Ne +musca quidem._' + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Posthumous Works of Thomas De +Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols), by Thomas De Quincey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POSTHUMOUS WORKS OF DE QUINCEY *** + +***** This file should be named 25940.txt or 25940.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/9/4/25940/ + +Produced by Robert Connal, Josephine Paolucci and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by the Bibliotheque 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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