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diff --git a/37159-0.txt b/37159-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0e9f85 --- /dev/null +++ b/37159-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6226 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Res Judicatæ, by Augustine Birrell + +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: Res Judicatæ + Papers and Essays + +Author: Augustine Birrell + +Release Date: August 22, 2011 [EBook #37159] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RES JUDICATÆ *** + + + + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + RES JUDICATÆ + + + + + + _IN UNIFORM BINDING_ + + + =ANDREW LANG= + + Letters to Dead Authors $1 00 + + + =AUGUSTINE BIRRELL= + + Obiter Dicta--First Series 1 00 + Obiter Dicta--Second Series 1 00 + Res Judicatæ 1 00 + + + =W. E. HENLEY= + + Views and Reviews--Literature 1 00 + + + + RES JUDICATÆ + + _PAPERS AND ESSAYS_ + + BY + + AUGUSTINE BIRRELL AUTHOR OF 'OBITER DICTA,' ETC. + + + + 'It need hardly be added that such sentences do not any more + than the records of the superior courts conclude as to matters + which may or may not have been controverted.'--_See_ BLACKHAM'S + _Case I. Salkeld 290_ + + + NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1892 + + COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY + + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + + + + + PREFACE + + +The first two essays in this volume were composed as lectures, and are +now printed for the first time; the others have endured that indignity +before. The papers on 'The Letters of Charles Lamb' and 'Authors in +Court' originally appeared in _Macmillan's Magazine_; and the short +essays entitled 'William Cowper' and 'George Borrow' in the _Reflector_, +a lively sheet which owed its existence to and derived its inspiration +from the energy and genius of the late Mr. J. K. Stephen, whose too +early death has not only eclipsed the gaiety of many gatherings, but has +robbed the country of the service of a noble and truth-loving man. + +The other papers appeared either in _Scribner's Magazine_ or in the +columns of the _Speaker_ newspaper. + +Although, by the kindness of my present publishers, I have always been +practically a 'protected article' in the States, I cannot help +expressing my pleasure in finding myself in the enjoyment of the same +modest rights as an author in the new home of my people as in the old. + + A. B. + + LINCOLN'S INN, LONDON. + + + + + CONTENTS + PAGE + + I. SAMUEL RICHARDSON 1 + + II. EDWARD GIBBON 39 + + III. WILLIAM COWPER 84 + + IV. GEORGE BORROW 115 + + V. CARDINAL NEWMAN 140 + + VI. MATTHEW ARNOLD 181 + + VII. WILLIAM HAZLITT 224 + + VIII. THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB 232 + + IX. AUTHORS IN COURT 253 + + X. NATIONALITY 274 + + XI. THE REFORMATION 284 + + XII. SAINTE-BEUVE 298 + + + + + + SAMUEL RICHARDSON + + A LECTURE + + +It is difficult to describe mankind either in a book or in a breath, and +none but the most determined of philosophers or the most desperate of +cynics have attempted to do so, either in one way or the other. Neither +the philosophers nor the cynics can be said to have succeeded. The +descriptions of the former are not recognisable and therefore as +descriptions at all events, whatever may be their other merits, must be +pronounced failures; whilst those of the cynics describe something which +bears to ordinary human nature only the same sort of resemblance that +chemically polluted waters bear to the stream as it flows higher up than +the source of contamination, which in this case is the cynic himself. + +But though it is hard to describe mankind, it is easy to distinguish +between people. You may do this in a great many different ways: for +example, and to approach my subject, there are those who can read +Richardson's novels, and those who cannot. The inevitable third-class +passenger, no doubt, presents himself and clamours for a ticket: I mean +the man or woman who has never tried. But even a lecturer should have +courage, and I say boldly that I provide no accommodation for that +person tonight. If he feels aggrieved, let him seek his +remedy--elsewhere. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Samuel Richardson, of Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, printer, was, +if you have only an eye for the outside, a humdrum person enough. +Witlings, writing about him in the magazines, have often, out of +consideration for their pretty little styles, and in order to avoid the +too frequent repetition of his highly respectable if unromantic name, +found it convenient to dub him the 'little printer.' + +He undoubtedly was short of stature, and in later life, obese in figure, +but had he stood seven feet high in his stockings, these people would +never have called him the 'big printer.' Richardson has always been +exposed to a strong under-current of ridicule. I have known people to +smile at the mention of his name, as if he were a sort of +man-milliner--or, did the thing exist, as some day it may do, a male +nursery-governess. It is at first difficult to account for this strange +colouring of the bubble reputation. Richardson's life, admirable as is +Mrs. Barbauld's sketch, cannot be said to have been written--his +letters, those I mean, he wrote in his own name, not the nineteen +volumes he made his characters write, have not been reprinted for more +than eighty years. He of all men might be suffered to live only in his +works, and when we turn to those works, what do we find? _Pamela_ and +_Clarissa_ are both terribly realistic; they contain passages of horror, +and are in parts profoundly pathetic, whilst _Clarissa_ is desperately +courageous. Fielding, with all his swagger and bounce, gold lace and +strong language, has no more of the boldness than he has of the +sublimity of the historian of Clarissa Harlowe. But these qualities +avail poor Richardson nothing. The taint of afternoon tea still clings +to him. The facts--the harmless, nay, I will say the attractive, +facts--that he preferred the society of ladies to that of his own sex, +and liked to be surrounded by these, surely not strange creatures, in +his gardens and grottos, first at North End, Hammersmith, and afterwards +at Parsons Green, are still remembered against him. Life is indeed full +of pitfalls, if estimates of a man's genius are to be formed by the +garden-parties he gave, and the tea he consumed a century and a quarter +ago. The real truth I believe to be this: we are annoyed with Richardson +because he violates a tradition. The proper place for an +eighteenth-century novelist was either the pot or the sponging house. He +ought to be either disguised in liquor or confined for debt. Richardson +was never the one or the other. Let us see how this works: take Dr. +Johnson; we all know how to describe him. He is our great moralist, the +sturdy, the severe, the pious, the man who, as Carlyle puts it in his +striking way, worshipped at St. Clement Danes in the era of Voltaire, +or, as he again puts it, was our real primate, the true spiritual +edifier and soul's teacher of all England? Well, here is one of his +reminiscences: 'I remember writing to Richardson from a sponging-house +and was so sure of my deliverance through his kindness and liberality, +that before his reply was brought I knew I could afford to joke with the +rascal who had me in custody, and did so over a pint of adulterated wine +for which at that moment I had no money to pay.' + +Now, there we have the true, warm-hearted, literary tradition of the +eighteenth century. It is very amusing, it is full of good feeling and +fellowship, but the morality of the transaction from the great +moralist's point of view is surely, like his linen, a trifle dingy. The +soul's teacher of all England, laid by the heels in a sponging-house, +and cracking jokes with a sheriff's officer over a pint of wine on the +chance of another man paying for it, is a situation which calls for +explanation. It is not my place to give it. It could, I think, easily be +given. Dr. Johnson was, in my judgment, all Carlyle declared him to be, +and to have been called upon to set him free was to be proudly +privileged, and, after all, why make such a fuss about trifles? The +debt and costs together only amounted to £5 18s., so that the six +guineas Richardson promptly sent more than sufficed to get our 'real +primate' out of prison, and to pay for the pint. All I feel concerned to +say here is, that the praise of this anecdote belongs to the little +printer, and not to the great lexicographer. The hero of the parable of +the Good Samaritan is the Good Samaritan himself, and not the +unfortunate, and therefore probably foolish, traveller who must need +fall amongst thieves. + +But if you violate traditions, and disturb people's notions as to what +it is becoming for you to be, to do, or to suffer, you have to pay for +it. An eighteenth-century novelist who made a fortune first by honest +labour and the practice of frugality, and wrote his novels afterwards; +who was fond of the society of ladies, and a vegetarian in later life; +who divided his time between his shop and his villa, and became in due +course master of a city company, is not what we have a right to expect, +and makes a figure which strongly contrasts with that of Richardson's +great contemporary, the entirely manly Henry Fielding, whose very name +rings in the true tradition; whilst as for his books, to take up _Tom +Jones_ is like re-entering in middle life your old college rooms, where, +so at least Mr. Lowell assures us, + + 'You feel o'er you stealing + The old, familiar, warm, champagny, brandy-punchy feeling.' + +It may safely be said of Richardson that, after attaining to +independence, he did more good every week of his life--for he was a wise +and most charitable man--than Fielding was ever able to do throughout +the whole of his; but this cannot alter the case or excuse a violated +tradition. + +The position, therefore, of Richardson in our literature is that of a +great Nonconformist. He was not manufactured according to any +established process. If I may employ a metaphor borrowed from his own +most honourable craft, he was set up in a new kind of type. He was born +in 1689 in a Derbyshire village, the name of which, for some +undiscovered reason, he would never tell. The son of poor parents--his +father was a joiner--he had never any but a village school education, +nor did he in later life worry much about learning, or seek, as so many +printers have done, to acquire foreign tongues. At fourteen years of age +he was bound apprentice to a printer in Aldersgate Street, and for seven +years toiled after a fashion which would certainly nowadays be forbidden +by Act of Parliament, were there the least likelihood of anybody either +demanding or performing drudgery so severe. When out of his +apprenticeship, he worked for eight years as a compositor, reader, and +overseer, and then, marrying his late master's daughter, set up for +himself, and slowly but steadily grew prosperous and respected. His +first wife dying, he married again, the daughter of a bookseller of +Bath. At the age of fifty he published his first novel, _Pamela_. John +Bunyan's life was not more unlike an Archbishop of Canterbury's than was +Richardson's unlike the life of an ordinary English novelist of his +period. + +This simile to Nonconformity also holds good a little when we seek to +ascertain the ambit of Richardson's popularity. To do this we must take +wide views. We must not confine our attention to what may be called the +high and dry school of literary orthodoxy. There, no doubt, Richardson +has his admirers, just as Spurgeon's sermons have been seen peeping out +from under a heap of archidiaconal, and even episcopal Charges, although +the seat of Spurgeon's popularity is not in bishops' palaces, but in +shop parlours. I do not mean by this that Richardson is now a popular +novelist, for the fact, I suppose, is otherwise; but I mean that to take +the measure of his popularity, you must look over the wide world and not +merely at the clans and the cliques, the noble army of writers, and the +ever lessening body of readers who together constitute what are called +literary circles. Of Richardson's great fame on the Continent, it will +be time enough to speak in a few minutes; for the moment I will stop at +home. Mr. Leslie Stephen, who has been called to be editor of our first +really great Dictionary of National Biography, and has in that capacity +to sit like a coroner's jury upon every dead author, and to decide +whether his exploits are to be squeezed into one miserable paragraph, +or may be allowed proudly to expand over a page--he, I say, pronounces +_Pamela_ to be neither moral nor amusing. Poor Pamela, who through two +mortal volumes thinks of nothing but her virtue, and how to get married +according to law! to be thus dismissed by her most recent, most +distinguished editor! But, I repeat, we must take wide views. We must +not be content with the verdict of the university; we must seek that of +the kitchen: nor is the distance ever great between these institutions. +Two months ago a cook in a family of my acquaintance, one Saturday +evening, when like old Caspar 'her work was done,' suddenly bethought +herself of _Pamela_, a book she had not read since girlhood. Rest was +impossible--get it forthwith she must. The housemaid proffered her _The +Heir of Redclyffe_, and the kitchen-maid, a somewhat oppressed damsel, +timidly produced _Gates Ajar_. The cook was not to be trifled with after +any such feeble fashion. The spell of _Pamela_ was upon her, and out she +sallied, arrayed in her majesty, to gratify her soul's desire. Had she +been a victim of what is called 'Higher Education of Women,' and +therefore in the habit of frequenting orthodox bookshops, she would +doubtless have found the quest at so late an hour as hopeless as that of +the _Holy Grail_; but she was not that sort of person, and the shop she +had in her mind, and whither she straightway bent her steps, was a small +stationer's where are vended _Family Heralds_ and _Ballads_ and +_Pamelas_; for the latter, in cheap sixpenny guise--and I hope complete, +but for this I cannot vouch--is a book which is constantly reprinted for +sale amongst the poor. The cook, having secured her prize, returned to +her home in triumph, where a dinner worthy of the name was not to be had +until Pamela's virtue was rewarded, which, as you doubtless remember, it +only was when her master brings her a license and presses for a day. She +desires it may be on a Thursday, and gives her reasons. He rallies her +agreeably on that head. The Thursday following is fixed upon. She +reflects seriously on the near prospect of her important change of +condition, and is diffident of her own worthiness, and prays for +humility that her new condition may not be a snare to her, and makes up +her mind how to behave herself to the servants, she herself having been +one. + +There are well-authenticated instances of the extraordinary power +_Pamela_ possesses of affecting those who are not much in the habit of +reading. There is a story of its being read aloud by a blacksmith round +his anvil night after night, to a band of eager rustics, all dreadfully +anxious good Mr. Richardson would only move on a little faster, and yet +unwilling to miss a single one of poor Pamela's misadventures; and of +their greeting by hearty rounds of British cheers, the happy issue out +of her afflictions that awaits her, namely, her marriage with the cause +of every one of them. + +There are living writers who have written some admirable novels, and I +have known people to be glad when they were finished, but never to the +pitch of three times three. + +I am not, of course, recommending anyone to read _Pamela_; to do so +would be an impertinence. You have all done so, or tried to do so. 'I do +not remember,' says Charles Lamb, 'a more whimsical surprise than +having been once detected by a familiar damsel, reclining at my ease +upon the grass on Primrose Hill, reading _Pamela_. There was nothing in +the book to make a man seriously ashamed at the exposure; but as she +seated herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in company, I +could have wished it had been--any other book. We read on very socially +for a few pages; and not finding the author much to her taste, she got +up and went away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture +whether the blush (for there was one between us) was the property of the +nymph or the swain in the dilemma. From me you shall never learn the +secret.'[1] + +Miss Pamela Andrews was, to tell the truth, a vulgar young person. There +is nothing heroic or romantic about her; she has not a touch or a trace +of the moral sublimity of Jeannie Deans, who though of the same rank of +life, belonged to another country and had had an entirely different +up-bringing. What a reply was that of Jeannie's to the Rev. Mr. +Staunton, George Robertson's father, when he, entirely misapprehending +the purport of her famous journey, lets her perceive that he fancies she +is plotting for her own marriage with his son. Says the father to the +son: 'Perhaps you intend to fill up the cup of disobedience and +profligacy by forming a low and disgraceful marriage; but let me bid you +beware.' 'If you were feared for sic a thing happening with me, sir,' +said Jeannie, 'I can only say that not for all the land that lies +between the twa ends of the rainbow, wad I be the woman that should wed +your son.' 'There is something very singular in all this,' said the +elder Staunton; and so Pamela would have thought. She, honest girl that +she was, was always ready to marry anybody's son, only she must have the +marriage lines to keep in her desk and show to her dear parents. + +The book's origin ought not to be overlooked. Some London booksellers, +knowing Mr. Richardson to be a grave man of decorous life, and with a +talent for moralising, desired him to write a series of familiar letters +on the behaviour of young women going out to service for the first +time; they never intended a novel: they wanted a manual of conduct--that +conduct which, according to a precise Arithmetician is three-fourths, or +some other fraction, of human life. It was in this spirit that +Richardson sat down to write _Pamela_ and make himself famous. He had a +facile pen, and the book, as it grew under his hand, outstripped its +design, but never lost sight of it. It was intended for Pamelas, and is +_bourgeois_ to the very last degree. The language is simple, but its +simplicity is not the noble, soul-stirring simplicity of Bunyan, nor is +it the manly simplicity of Cobbett or Hugh Miller: it is the ignoble, +and at times almost the odious, simplicity of a merely uncultured life. +It abounds in vulgar phrases and vulgar thoughts; still, it reflects +powerfully the scenes it portrays, and you feel as you read a fine +affinity between the communicating medium, the language, and the thing +communicated, the story. When people said, in the flush of their first +enthusiasm, as they did say, that there were but two good books in the +world, the _Bible_, and _Pamela_, this is what, perhaps unconsciously +they were thinking of; otherwise they were talking nonsense. Pamela +spoke a language still understood of many, and if she was not romantic +or high-flown, there are others like her. We are always well pleased, +and it is perhaps lucky for the majority of novelists that it should be +so, to read about people who do not in the least resemble us; still, +anyone who describes us as we are, 'strikes the electric chain wherewith +we are darkly bound,' and makes humanity quiver right down the +centuries. Pamela was a vulgar little thing, and saucy withal: her +notions of honour and dishonour were neither lofty nor profound; but she +had them and stuck to them in perilous paths along which the defenceless +of her sex are too often called to tread; and when finally her virtue is +rewarded, and she is driven off in a chariot drawn by the four +long-tailed mares upon whom she had been cruelly twitted for setting her +affections, I for one am quite prepared to join with the rustics round +the blacksmith's anvil in loud cheers for Pamela. + +Ten years after _Pamela_ came _Clarissa_. It is not too much to say that +not only Great Britain and Ireland, (the latter country not yet +deprived of her liberties by the Act of Union, and therefore in a +position to pirate popular authors, after the agreeable fashion of our +American cousins,[2]) but also France, Germany, and Holland, simply +gulped _Clarissa_ down; and she was in seven volumes. It was a kind of +gospel, something good and something new. Its author was a stout +tradesman of sixty, but he was not in the very least degree what is now +called--perhaps to the point of nausea--a Philistine. By a Philistine I +suppose we must understand someone who lives and moves and has his being +in the realm of ordinary stock conventional ideas--a man who is as blind +to the future as he is deaf to the past. For example, that Dr. Drummond, +Archbishop of York, who just about this very time told the Rev. Mr. +Conyers, one of his clergy, 'that he would be better employed preaching +the morality of Socrates than canting about the New Birth,' was a +Philistine--I doubt not a very amiable one, but, being a Philistine, he +had no chance of recognising what this nascent methodism was, and as +for dreaming what it might become--had he been capable of this--he would +not have been a Philistine or, probably, Archbishop of York! + +Richardson on the other hand had his quiver full of new ideas; he had +his face to the east; he was no mere inheritor, he was a progenitor. He +is, in short, as has been often said, our Rousseau; his characters were +not stock characters. Think of Fielding's characters, his Tom Joneses +and Booths, his Amelias and Sophias. They are stage properties as old as +the Plantagenets. They are quite unidea'd, if I may use a word which, as +applied to girls, has the authority of Dr. Johnson. Fielding's men are +either good fellows with large appetites, which they gratify openly, or +sneaks with equally large appetites, which they gratify on the sly; +whilst the characters of his women are made to hinge solely upon their +willingness or unwillingness to turn a blind eye. If they are ready to +do this, they are angels; Sophia comes upon the stage in a chapter +headed 'A short hint of what we can do in the sublime, and a description +of Miss Sophia Western.' Poor neglected Amelia, whenever she is +forgiving her husband, is described as 'all one blaze of beauty;' but if +they are not willing to play this _rôle_, why then they are unsexed and +held up to the ridicule and reprobation of all good fellows and pretty +women. This sort of thing was abhorrent to the soul of the little +printer; he hated Fielding's boisterous drunkards with an entire hatred. +I believe he would have hated them almost as much if Fielding had not +been a rival of his fame. He said he was not able to read any more than +the first volume of _Amelia_, and as for _Tom Jones_, in the year 1750, +he was audacious enough to say that its run was over. Regarded merely as +writers, there can, I suppose, be no real rivalry between Fielding and +Richardson. The superiority of Fielding is apparent on every page. Wit, +good-humour, a superb lusty style which carries you along like a pair of +horses over a level moorland road, incidents, adventures, inns, and all +the glory of motion, high spirits, huge appetites, pretty women--what a +catalogue it makes of things no doubt smacking of this world and the +kingdom thereof, but none the less delightful on that account! No +wonder _Tom Jones_ is still running; where, I should like to know, is +the man bold enough to stop him. But for all this, Richardson was the +more remarkable and really interesting man of the two; and for the +reason that he was the evangel of the new sentimentalism, that word +which so puzzled one of his most charming correspondents that she wrote +to ask him what it meant--this new word sentimental which was just +beginning to be in everybody's mouth. We have heard a good deal of it +since. + +_Clarissa Harlowe_ has a place not merely amongst English novels, but +amongst English women. + +It was a new thing for a woman to be described as being not only in +herself but by herself commendable and altogether lovely, as triumphing +in her own right over the cruelest dishonour, and rejecting, with a +noble scorn new to literature, the hand in marriage of the villain who +had done her wrong. The book opened the flood-gates of human tears. The +waters covered the earth. We cannot weep as they used to do in 'the +brave days of old.' + +Listen to the wife of a Lancashire baronet: 'I verily believe I have +shed a pint of tears, my heart is still bursting though they cease not +to flow at this moment, nor will I fear for some time.... Had you seen +me I surely should have moved your pity. When alone in agonies would I +lay down the book, take it up again, walk about the room, let fall a +flood of tears, wipe my eyes, read again, perhaps not three lines, throw +away the book, crying out: "Excuse me, good Mr. Richardson, I cannot go +on, it is your fault, you have done more than I can bear;" threw myself +upon my couch to compose; again I read, again I acted the same part, +sometimes agreeably interrupted by my dear man, who was at that time +labouring through the sixth volume with a heart capable of impressions +equal to my own--tho' the effects shown in a more justifiable +manner--which I believe may be compared to what Mr. Belfort felt when he +found the beauteous sufferer in her prison-room. Something rose in my +throat, I knew not what, which made me guggle as it were for speech.' + +Nor did the men escape; a most grave and learned man writes: + +'That _Pamela_ and _Clarissa_ have again "obtained the _honour_ of my +perusal," do you say, my dear Mr. Richardson. I assure you I think it an +_honour_ to be able to say I have read, and as long as I have eyes will +read, all your three most excellent _pieces_ at least once a year, that +I am capable of doing it with increasing pleasure which is perpetually +doubled by the reflection, that this good man, this charming author, is +_my friend_. I have been this day weeping over the seventh volume of +_Clarissa_ as if I had attended her dying bed and assisted at her +funeral procession. Oh may my latter end be like hers!' + +It is no wonder the author of _Clarissa_ had soon a great correspondence +with ladies, married and single, young and old, virtuous and the +reverse. Had he not written seven volumes, all about a girl? had he not +made her beautiful, wise and witty and learned withal? had he not +depicted with extraordinary skill the character of the fascinating--the +hitherto resistless Lovelace, who, though accomplishing Clarissa's ruin +does thereby but establish her triumph and confound himself? It is no +doubt unhappily the case that far too many of Richardson's fair +correspondents lacked the splendid courage of their master, and to his +infinite annoyance fell in love with his arch-scamp, and prayed his +creator that Lovelace might first be led to see the error of his ways, +and then to the altar with the divine Clarissa. But the heroic printer +was adamant to their cries, and he was right if ever man was. As well +might _King Lear_ end happily as _Clarissa Harlowe_. + +The seven volumes caused immense talk and discussion, and it was all +Clarissa, Clarissa, Clarissa. Sophia Western was, as we have seen, a +comely girl enough, but she was as much like Clarissa as a ship in dock +is like a ship at sea and on fire. What can you find to say of her or to +her?[3] When you have dug Tom Jones in the ribs, and called him a lucky +dog, and wished her happy, you turn away with a yawn; but Clarissa is +immense. Do you remember Thackeray's account in the _Roundabout Papers_ +of Macaulay's rhapsody in the Athenæum Club? 'I spoke to him once about +_Clarissa_. "Not read _Clarissa_?" he cried out. "If you have once +thoroughly entered on _Clarissa_ and are infected by it, you can't leave +off. When I was in India I passed one hot season at the hills, and there +were the governor-general, the secretary of government, the +commander-in-chief and their wives. I had _Clarissa_ with me, and as +soon as they began to read the whole station was in a passion of +excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly +Lovelace. The governor's wife seized the book, and the secretary waited +for it, and the chief justice could not read it for tears." He acted the +whole scene, he paced up and down the Athenæum Library. I dare say he +could have spoken pages of the book, of that book, and of what countless +piles of others.' + +I must be permitted to observe that lawyers have been great +Richardsonians. The Rev. Mr. Loftus, writing to our author from Ireland, +says: 'I will tell you a story about your sweet girl Pamela. Our late +lord chancellor,[4] who was a man more remarkable for the goodness of +his heart than even for the abilities of his head, which were of the +most exalted kind, was so struck with her history that he sat up reading +it the whole night, although it was then the middle of term, and +declared to his family he could not find it in his heart to quit his +book, nor imagined it to be so late by many hours.' + +The eminent Sergeant Hill, though averse to literature, used to set +Clarissa's will before his pupils, and bid them determine how many of +its uses and trusts could be supported in court. I am sorry to have to +add that in the learned sergeant's opinion, poor Clarissa, in addition +to all her other misfortunes, died intestate. + +All this commotion and excitement and Clarissa-worship meant that +something was brewing, and that good Mr. Richardson, with his fat, +round face flushed with the fire, had his ladle in the pan and was busy +stirring it about. What is called the correspondence of Samuel +Richardson, which was edited by that admirable woman, Mrs. Barbauld, and +published in six volumes in 1804, is mostly made up, not of letters +from, but to, the author of _Clarissa_. All the more effectually on that +account does it let us into the manufactory of his mind. The letters a +man receives are perhaps more significant of his real character than +those he writes. People did not write to Mr. Richardson about themselves +or about their business, or about literature, unless it were to say they +did not like _Tom Jones_, or about politics, or other sports, but they +wrote to him about himself and his ideas, his good woman, Clarissa, his +good man, Sir Charles, and the true relation between the sexes. They are +immense fun, these letters, but they ought also to be taken seriously; +Mr. Richardson took them as seriously as he always took himself. There +was, perhaps, only one subject Richardson regarded as of equal +importance with himself, and that was the position of woman. This is +why he hated Fielding, the triumphant, orthodox Fielding, to whom man +was a rollicking sinner, and woman a loving slave. He pondered on this +subject, until the anger within him imparts to his style a virility and +piquancy not usually belonging to it. The satire in the following +extract from a letter he wrote to the good lady who shed a pint of tears +over _Clarissa_, is pungent: 'Man is an animal that must bustle in the +world, go abroad, converse, fight battles, encounter other dangers of +seas, winds, and I know not what, in order to protect, provide for, +maintain in ease and plenty, women. Bravery, anger, fierceness are made +familiar to them. They buffet and are buffeted by the world; are +impatient and uncontrollable; they talk of honour, run their heads +against stone walls to make good their pretensions to it, and often +quarrel with one another and fight duels upon any other silly thing that +happens to raise their choler--their shadows if you please; while women +are meek, passive, good creatures, who used to stay at home, set their +maids at work, and formerly themselves, get their houses in order to +receive, comfort, oblige, give joy to their fierce, fighting, bustling, +active protectors, providers, maintainers, divert him with pretty pug's +tricks, tell him soft tales of love, and of who and who's together, what +has been done in his absence, bring to him little master, so like his +own dear papa, and little pretty miss, a soft, sweet, smiling soul, with +her sampler in her hand, so like what her meek mamma was at her years.' + +You cannot, indeed, lay hold of many specific things which Richardson +advocated. Ignorant of the classics himself, he was by no means disposed +to advocate the teaching of them to women. Clarissa, indeed, knew Latin, +but Harriet Byron did not. The second Mrs. Richardson was just a little +bit too much for her husband, and he was consequently led to hold what +may be called 'high doctrine' as to the duty of wives obeying their +husbands. Though never was man less of a revolutionary than Richardson, +still he was on the side of the revolution. He had an ethical system +different from that which stood beside him. This did not escape the +notice of a keen-witted contemporary, the great Smollett, whose own +Roderick Randoms and Peregrine Pickles are such unmitigated, +high-coloured ruffians as to induce Sir Walter Scott to call him the +Rubens of fiction, but who none the less had an eye for the future; he +in his history speaks in terms of high admiration of the sublime code of +ethics of the author of _Clarissa_. Richardson was fierce against +duelling, and also against corporal punishment. He had the courage to +deplore the evil effects produced by the works of Homer, 'that fierce, +fighting _Iliad_,' as he called it. We may be sure his children were +never allowed to play with tin soldiers, at least, not with their +father's consent. + +Having written _Clarissa_ it became inevitable that Richardson should +proceed further and write _Grandison_. In reading his correspondence we +hail Sir Charles afar off. Richardson had deeply grieved to see how many +of his ladies had fallen in love with the scoundrelly Lovelace. It +wounded him to the quick, for he could not but feel that he was not in +the least like Lovelace himself. He turns almost savagely upon some of +his fair correspondents and upbraids them, telling them indeed plainly +that he feared they were no better than they should be. They had but one +answer: 'Ah, dear Mr. Richardson, in _Clarissa_ you have shown us the +good woman we all would be. Now show us the good man we all should +love.' And he set about doing so seriously, aye and humbly, too. He +writes with a sad sincerity a hundred years cannot hide: + +'How shall a man obscurely situated, never in his life delighting in +public entertainments, nor in his youth able to frequent them from +narrowness of fortune; one of the most attentive of men to the calls of +business--his situation for many years producing little but prospects of +a numerous family--a business that seldom called him abroad when he +might in the course of it see and know a little of the world, as some +employments give opportunities to do--naturally shy and sheepish, and +wanting more encouragement by smiles to draw him out than anybody +thought it worth their while to give him--and blest (in this he will +say blest) with a mind that set him above dependence, and making an +absolute reliance on Providence and his own endeavours--how I say, shall +such a man pretend to describe and enter into characters in upper life?' + +However, he set about it, and in 1754 produced _Sir Charles Grandison_, +or as he had originally intended to call it, the _Good Man_, in six +octavo volumes. + +I am not going to say he entirely succeeded with his good man, who I +know has been called an odious prig. I have read _Sir Charles Grandison_ +once--I cannot promise ever to read it again, and yet who knows what may +happen? Sir Walter Scott, in his delightful, good-humoured fashion, +tells a tale of a venerable lady of his acquaintance, who, when she +became subject to drowsy fits, chose to have _Sir Charles_ read to her +as she sat in her elbow chair in preference to any other work; because, +said she, 'should I drop asleep in the course of the reading, I am sure +when I awake I shall have lost none of the story, but shall find the +party where I left them, conversing in the cedar-parlour.' + +After _Sir Charles_, Richardson wrote no more. Indeed, there was nothing +to write about, unless he had taken the advice of a morose clerical +friend who wrote to him: 'I hope you intend to give us a bad +woman--expensive, imperious, lewd, and, at last, a drammer. This is a +fruitful and necessary subject which will strike and entertain to a +miracle.' Mr. Richardson replied jocosely that if the Rev. Mr. Skelton +would only sketch the she-devil for him, he would find room for her +somewhere, and the subject dropped. The wife of the celebrated German +poet, Klopstock, wrote to him in her broken English: 'Having finished +your _Clarissa_ (oh, the heavenly book!) I would prayed you to write the +history of a manly _Clarissa_, but I had not courage enough at that +time. I should have it no more to-day, as this is only my first English +letter; but I am now Klopstock's wife, and then I was only the single +young girl. You have since written the manly _Clarissa_ without my +prayer. Oh, you have done it to the great joy and thanks of all your +happy readers! Now you can write no more. You must write the history of +an Angel.' + +The poor lady died the following year under melancholy circumstances, +but her prophecy proved true. Richardson wrote no more. He died in 1761, +seventy-two years of age. His will, after directing numerous +mourning-rings to be given to certain friends, proceeds as follows: 'Had +I given rings to all the ladies who have honoured me with their +correspondence, and whom I sincerely venerate for their amiable +qualities, it would even in this last solemn act appear like +ostentation.' + +It now only remains to say two or three words about Richardson's great +popularity abroad. Until quite recently, he and Sterne may be said to +have been the only popular English authors abroad; perhaps Goldsmith +should be added to the party. Foreigners never felt any difficulty about +him or about the tradition he violated. The celebrated author of _Manon +Lescaut_ translated _Clarissa_ into French, though it was subsequently +better done by a less famous hand. She was also turned into German and +Dutch. Foreigners, of course, could not be expected to appreciate the +hopeless absurdity of a man who lived at Parson's Green attempting to +describe the upper classes. Horace Walpole when in Paris did his best to +make this plain, but he failed. Say what he might, _Clarissa_ lay on the +toilet tables of the French Princesses, and everybody was raving about +her. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was also very angry. 'Richardson,' says +she, writing to the Countess of Bute, 'has no idea of the manners of +high life. Such liberties as pass between Mr. Lovelace and his cousins +are not to be excused by the relation. I should have been much +astonished if Lord Denbigh should have offered to kiss me; and, I dare +swear Lord Trentham never attempted such impertinence to you.' To the +English reader these criticisms of Lady Mary's have immense value; but +the French sentimentalist, with his continental insolence, did not care +a sou what impertinences Lord Denbigh and Lord Trentham might or might +not have attempted towards their female cousins. He simply read his +_Clarissa_ and lifted up his voice and wept: and so, to do her justice, +did Lady Mary herself. 'This Richardson,' she writes, 'is a strange +fellow. I heartily despise him and eagerly read him, nay, sob over his +works in a most scandalous manner.' + +The effect produced upon Rousseau by Richardson is historical. Without +_Clarissa_ there would have been no _Nouvelle Heloïse_, and had there +been no _Nouvelle Heloïse_ everyone of us would have been somewhat +different from what we are. + +The elaborate eulogy of Diderot is well-known, and though extravagant in +parts is full of true criticism. One sentence only I will quote: 'I have +observed,' he says, 'that in a company where the works of Richardson +were reading either privately or aloud the conversation at once became +more interesting and animating.' This, surely, is a legitimate test to +which to submit a novel. You sometimes hear people say of a book, 'Oh, +it is not worth talking about! I was only reading it.' + +The great Napoleon was a true Richardsonian. Only once did he ever seem +to take any interest in an Englishman. It was whilst he was first +consul and when he was introduced to an officer called Lovelace, 'Why,' +he exclaimed with emotion, 'that is the name of the man in _Clarissa_!' +When our own great critic, Hazlitt, heard of this incident he fell in +love with Napoleon on the spot, and subsequently wrote his life in +numerous volumes. + +In Germany _Clarissa_ had a great sale, and those of you who are +acquainted with German sentiment, will have no difficulty in tracing a +good deal of it to its original fountain in Fleet Street. + +As a man, Richardson had perhaps only two faults. He was very nervous on +the subject of his health and he was very vain. His first fault gave a +great deal of trouble to his wives and families, his second afforded +nobody anything but pleasure. The vanity of a distinguished man, if at +the same time he happens to be a good man, is a quality so agreeable in +its manifestations that to look for it and not to find it would be to +miss a pleasure. When the French poet Boileau was invited to Versailles +by Louis Quatorze, he was much annoyed by the vanity of that monarch. +'Whenever,' said he, 'the conversation left the king's doings'--and, let +us guess, just approached the poet's verses--'his majesty always had a +yawning-fit, or suggested a walk on the terrace.' The fact is, it is not +vanity, but contending vanities, that give pain. + +As for those of you who cannot read Richardson's nineteen volumes, it +can only be said you are a large and intelligent class of persons. You +number amongst you poets like Byron--for I presume Byron is still among +the poets--and philosophers like d'Alembert, who, when asked whether +Richardson was not right in imitating Nature, replied, 'Yes, but not to +the point of ennui.' We must not bear you malice or blacken your private +characters. On the other hand, you must not sneer at us or call us +milksops. There is nothing to be proud of, I can assure you, in not +being able to read _Clarissa Harlowe_, or to appreciate the genius which +created Lovelace. + +A French critic, M. Scherer, has had the audacity to doubt whether +_Tristram Shandy_ is much read in England, and it is commonly asserted +in France that _Clarissa_ is too good for us. Tristram may be left to +his sworn admirers who could at any moment take the field with all the +pomp and circumstance of war, but with Clarissa it is different. Her +bodyguard is small and often in need of recruits. This indeed is my +apology for the trouble I have put you to. + + + + + EDWARD GIBBON + + A LECTURE + + +'It was at Rome, on the 15th of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst +the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing +vespers in the Temple of Jupiter that the idea of writing the Decline +and Fall of the City first started to my mind. + +'It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June, 1787, between +the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last +page, in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen I took +several turns in a _berceau_, or covered walk of acacias, which commands +a prospect of the country, the lake and the mountains. The air was +temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected +from the waters and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the +first emotions of joy on recovery of my freedom and perhaps of the +establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled and a sober +melancholy was spread over my mind by the idea that I had taken an +everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatever +might be the future date of my history, the life of the historian must +be short and precarious.' + +Between these two passages lies the romance of Gibbon's life--a romance +which must be looked for, not, indeed, in the volumes, whether the +original quartos or the subsequent octavos, of his history--but in the +elements which went to make that history what it is: the noble +conception, the shaping intellect, the mastered learning, the stately +diction and the daily toil. + +Mr. Bagehot has declared that the way to reverence Gibbon is not to read +him at all, but to look at him, from outside, in the bookcase, and think +how much there is within; what a course of events, what a muster-roll of +names, what a steady solemn sound. All Mr. Bagehot's jokes have a kernel +inside them. The supreme merit of Gibbon's history is not to be found in +deep thoughts, or in wide views, or in profound knowledge of human +nature, or prophetic vision. Seldom was there an historian less +well-equipped with these fine things than he. Its glory is its +architecture, its structure, its organism. There it is, it is worth +looking at, for it is invulnerable, indispensable, immortal. The +metaphors which have been showered upon it, prove how fond people have +been of looking at it from outside. It has been called a Bridge, less +obviously an Aqueduct, more prosaically a Road. We applaud the design +and marvel at the execution. + +There is something mournful in this chorus of approbation in which it is +not difficult to detect the notes of surprise. It tells a tale of +infirmity both of life and purpose. A complete thing staggers us. We are +accustomed to failure. + + 'What act proves all its thought had been?' + +The will is weak, opportunities are barren, temper uncertain and life +short. + + 'I thought all labour, yet no less, + Bear up beneath their unsuccess; + Look at the end of work: contrast + The petty done--the undone vast.' + + +It is Gibbon's triumph that he made his thoughts acts. He is not exactly +what you call a pious writer, but he is provocative of at least one +pious feeling. A sabbatical calm results from the contemplation of his +labours. Succeeding scholars have read his history and pronounced it +good. It is likewise finished. Hence this feeling of surprise. + +Gibbon's life has the simplicity of an epic. His work was to write his +history. Nothing else was allowed to rob this idea of its majesty. It +brooked no rival near its throne. It dominated his life, for though a +man of pleasure, and, to speak plainly, a good bit of a coxcomb, he had +always the cadences of the _Decline and Fall_ in his ears. It has been +wittily said of him, that he came at last to believe that he was the +Roman Empire, or, at all events, something equally majestic and +imposing. His life had, indeed, its episodes, but so has an epic. +Gibbon's episodes are interesting, abrupt, and always concluded. In his +sixteenth year he, without the aid of a priest or the seductions of +ritual, read himself into the Church of Rome, and was one fine June +morning in 1753 baptized by a Jesuit father. By Christmas, 1754, he had +read himself out again. Gibbon's conversion was perfectly genuine and +should never be spoken of otherwise than respectfully, but it was +entirely a matter of books and reading. 'Persons influence us,' cries +Dr. Newman, 'voices melt us, looks subdue us, deeds inflame us. Many a +man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a +conclusion.' It takes all sorts to make a world, and our plump historian +was one of those whose actions are determined in libraries, whose lives +are unswayed by personal influences, to whom conclusions may mean a +great deal, but dogmas certainly nothing. Whether Gibbon on leaving off +his Catholicism ever became a Protestant again, except in the sense that +Bayle declared himself one, is doubtful. But all this makes an +interesting episode. The second episode is his well-known love affair +with Mademoiselle Curchod, afterwards Madame Neckar and the mother of +that social portent, Madame de Stael. Gibbon, of course, behaved badly +in this affair. He fell in love, made known his plight, obtained +mademoiselle's consent, and then speeded home to tell his father. +'Love,' said he, 'will make me eloquent.' The elder Gibbon would not +hear of it: the younger tamely acquiesced. His very acquiescence, like +all else about him, has become classical. 'I sighed as a lover, I obeyed +as a son.' He proceeds: 'My wound was insensibly healed by time, absence +and the habits of a new life.' It is shocking. Never, surely, was love +so flouted before. Gibbon is charitably supposed by some persons to have +regretted Paganism, but it was lucky for both him and for me that the +gods had abandoned Olympus, since otherwise it would have required the +pen of a Greek dramatist to depict the horrors that must have eventually +overtaken him for so impious an outrage; as it was, he simply grew +fatter every day. A very recent French biographer of Madame Neckar, who +has published some letters of Gibbon's for the first time, evidently +expects his readers to get very angry with this perfidious son of +Albion. It is much too late to get angry. Of all the many wrongs women +suffer at the hands of men, that of not marrying them, is the one they +ought to find it easiest to forgive; they generally do forgive. Madame +Neckar forgave, and if she, why not you and I? Years after she welcomed +Gibbon to her house, and there he used to sit, fat and famous, tapping +his snuff-box and arranging his ruffles, and watching with a smile of +complacency the infantine, yet I doubt not, the pronounced gambols of +the vivacious Corinne. After Neckar's fall, Gibbon writes to Madame: +'Your husband's condition is always worthy of envy, he knows himself, +his enemies respect him, Europe admires him, _you_ love him.' I decline +to be angry with such a man. + +His long residence in Switzerland, an unusual thing in those days, makes +a third episode, which, in so far as it led him to commence author in +the French language, and to study Pascal as a master of style, was not +without its effects on his history, but it never diverted him from his +studies or changed their channels. Though he lived fifteen years in +Lausanne, he never climbed a mountain or ever went to the foot of one, +for though not wholly indifferent to Nature, he loved to see her framed +in a window. He actually has the audacity, in a note to his fifty-ninth +chapter, to sneer at St. Bernard because that true lover of nature on +one occasion, either because his joy in the external world at times +interfered with his devotions, or, as I think, because he was bored by +the vulgar rhapsodies of his monkish companions, abstained from looking +at the lake of Geneva. Gibbon's note is characteristic, 'To admire or +despise St. Bernard as he ought, the reader should have before the +windows of his library the beauty of that incomparable landscape.' St. +Bernard was to Gibbon, as Wordsworth to Pope, + + 'A forest seer, + A minstrel of the natural year, + A lover true who knew by heart + Each joy the mountain dales impart.' + +He was proud to confess that whatever knowledge he had of the scriptures +he had acquired chiefly in the woods and the fields, and that beeches +and oaks had been his best teachers of the Word of God. One cannot fancy +Gibbon in a forest. But if Gibbon had not been fonder of the library +than of the lake, though he might have known more than he did of 'moral +evil and of good,' he would hardly have been the author he was. + +But the _Decline and Fall_ was threatened from a quarter more likely to +prove dangerous than the 'incomparable landscape.' On September 10th, +1774, Gibbon writes: + +'Yesterday morning about half-past seven, as I was destroying an army of +barbarians, I heard a double rap at the door and my friend Mr. Eliot was +soon introduced. After some idle conversation he told me that if I was +desirous of being in parliament he had an _independent_ seat, very much +at my service. This is a fine prospect opening upon me, and if next +spring I should take my seat and publish my book--(he meant the first +volume only)--it will be a very memorable era in my life. I am ignorant +whether my borough will be Liskeard or St. Germains.' + +Mr. Eliot controlled four boroughs and it was Liskeard that became +Gibbon's, and for ten years, though not always for Liskeard, he sat in +parliament. Ten most eventful years they were too, both in our national +and parliamentary history. This might have been not an episode, but a +catastrophe. Mr. Eliot's untimely entrance might not merely have +postponed the destruction of a horde of barbarians, but have destroyed +the history itself. However Mr. Gibbon never opened his mouth in the +House of Commons; 'I assisted,' says he, in his magnificent way, 'at,' +(mark the preposition,) 'at the debates of a free assembly,' that is, he +supported Lord North. He was not from the first content to be a mute; he +prepared a speech and almost made up his mind to catch Sir Fletcher +Norton's eye. The subject, no mean one, was to be the American war; but +his courage oozed away, he did not rise in his place. A month after he +writes from Boodle's: 'I am still a mute, it is more tremendous than I +imagined; the great speakers fill me with despair, the bad ones with +terror.' In 1779 his silent assistance was rewarded with a seat at the +Board of Trade, and a salary of between seven and eight hundred a year. +Readers of Burke's great speech on Economical Reform will remember the +twenty minutes he devoted to this marvellous Board of Trade, with its +perpetual virtual adjournment and unbroken sitting vacation. Such was +Gibbon's passion for style that he listened to the speech with delight, +and gives us the valuable assurance that it was spoken just as it reads, +and that nobody enjoyed either hearing or reading it more than he did. +What a blessing it is to have a good temper! But Gibbon's constituency +did not approve of his becoming a minister's man, and he lost his seat +at the general election of 1783. 'Mr. Eliot,' this is Gibbon's account +of it, 'Mr. Eliot was now deeply engaged in the measures of opposition +and the electors of Liskeard are commonly of the same opinion as Mr. +Eliot.' Lord North found him another seat, and for a short time he sat +in the new parliament for the important seaport of Lymington, but his +office being abolished in 1784, he bade parliament and England farewell, +and, taking his library with him, departed for Lausanne to conclude his +history. + +Gibbon, after completing his history, entertained notions of writing +other books, but, as a matter of fact, he had but one thing left him to +do in order to discharge his duty to the universe. He had written a +magnificent history of the Roman Empire. It remained to write the +history of the historian. Accordingly we have the autobiography. These +two immortal works act and react upon one another; the history sends us +to the autobiography, and the autobiography returns us to the history. + +The style of the autobiography is better than that of the history. The +awful word 'verbose' has been launched against certain pages of the +history by a critic, formidable and friendly--the great Porson. There is +not a superfluous word in the autobiography. The fact is, in this matter +of style, Gibbon took a great deal more pains with himself than he did +with the empire. He sent the history, except the first volume, straight +to his printer from his first rough copy. He made six different sketches +of the autobiography. It is a most studied performance, and may be +boldly pronounced perfect. Not to know it almost by heart is to deny +yourself a great and wholly innocent pleasure. Of the history it is +permissible to say with Mr. Silas Wegg, 'I haven't been, not to say +right slap through him very lately, having been otherwise employed, Mr. +Boffin;' but the autobiography is no more than a good-sized pamphlet. It +has had the reward of shortness. It is not only our best, but our best +known autobiography. Almost its first sentence is about the style it is +to be in: 'The style shall be simple and familiar, but style is the +image of character, and the habits of correct writing may produce +without labour or design the appearance of art and study.' There is +nothing artless or unstudied about the autobiography, but is it not +sometimes a relief to exchange the quips and cranks of some of our +modern writers, whose humour it is to be as it were for ever slapping +their readers in the face or grinning at them from unexpected corners, +for the stately roll of the Gibbonian sentence? The style settled, he +proceeds to say something about the pride of race, but the pride of +letters soon conquers it, and as we glance down the page we see +advancing to meet us, curling its head, as Shakespeare says of billows +in a storm, the god-like sentence which makes it for ever certain, not +indeed that there will never be a better novel than _Tom Jones_, for +that I suppose is still just possible, but that no novel can ever +receive so magnificent a compliment. The sentence is well known but +irresistible. + +'Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh +who draw their origin from the Counts of Hapsburg. Far different have +been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family. The +former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to +the dignity of a peerage, the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings +of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the old and invaded the +treasures of the new world. The successors of Charles the Fifth may +disdain their brethren of England, but the romance of _Tom Jones_, that +exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the Palace of the +Escurial, and the imperial eagle of the House of Austria.' + +Well might Thackeray exclaim in his lecture on Fielding, 'There can be +no gainsaying the sentence of this great judge. To have your name +mentioned by Gibbon is like having it written on the dome of St. +Peter's. Pilgrims from all the world admire and behold it.' + +After all this preliminary magnificence Gibbon condescends to approach +his own pedigree. There was not much to tell, and the little there was +he did not know. A man of letters whose memory is respected by all +lovers of old books and Elizabethan lyrics, Sir Egerton Brydges, was a +cousin of Gibbon's, and as genealogies were this unfortunate man's +consuming passion, he of course knew all that Gibbon ought to have known +about the family, and speaks with a herald's contempt of the historian's +perfunctory investigations. 'It is a very unaccountable thing,' says Sir +Egerton, 'that Gibbon was so ignorant of the immediate branch of the +family whence he sprang'; but the truth is that Gibbon was far prouder +of his Palace of the Escurial, and his imperial eagle of the House of +Austria, than of his family tree, which was indeed of the most ordinary +hedge-row description. His grandfather was a South Sea director, and +when the bubble burst he was compelled by act of parliament to disclose +on oath his whole fortune. He returned it at £106,543 5s. 6d., exclusive +of antecedent settlements. It was all confiscated, and then £10,000 was +voted the poor man to begin again upon. Such bold oppression, says the +grandson, can scarcely be shielded by the omnipotence of parliament. The +old man did not keep his £10,000 in a napkin, and speedily began, as his +grandson puts it, to erect on the ruins of the old, the edifice of a new +fortune. The ruins must, I think, have been more spacious than the +affidavit would suggest, for when only sixteen years afterwards, the +elder Gibbon died he was found to be possessed of considerable property +in Sussex, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, and the New River Company, as +well as of a spacious house with gardens and grounds at Putney. A +fractional share of this inheritance secured to our historian the +liberty of action so necessary for the accomplishment of his great +design. Large fortunes have their uses. Mr. Milton, the scrivener, Mr. +Gibbon, the South Sea director, and Dr. Darwin of Shrewsbury had +respectively something to do with _Paradise Lost_, _The Decline and +Fall_, and _The Origin of Species_. + +The most, indeed the only, interesting fact about the Gibbon _entourage_ +is that the greatest of English mystics, William Law, the inimitable +author of _A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, adapted to the +State and Conditions of all Orders of Christians_, was long tutor to the +historian's father, and in that capacity accompanied the future +historian to Emanuel College, Cambridge, and was afterwards, and till +the end of his days, spiritual director to Miss Hester Gibbon, the +historian's eccentric maiden aunt. + +It is an unpleasing impertinence for anyone to assume that nobody save +himself reads any particular book. I read with astonishment the other +day that Sir Humphry Davy's _Consolations in Travel; or, The Closing +Days of a Philosopher's Life_, was a curious and totally forgotten work. +It is, however, always safe to say of a good book that it is not read +as much as it ought to be, and of Law's _Serious Call_ you may add, 'or +as much as it used to be.' It is a book with a strange and moving +spiritual pedigree. Dr. Johnson, one remembers, took it up carelessly at +Oxford, expecting to find it a dull book, 'as,' (the words are his, not +mine,) 'such books generally are; but,' he proceeds, 'I found Law an +overmatch for me, and this was the first occasion of my thinking in +earnest.' George Whitfield writes, 'Soon after my coming up to the +university, seeing a small edition of Mr. Law's _Serious Call_ in a +friend's hand, I soon purchased it. God worked powerfully upon my soul +by that excellent treatise.' The celebrated Thomas Scott, of Aston +Sandford, with the confidence of his school, dates the beginning of his +spiritual life from the hour when he 'carelessly,' as he says, 'took up +Mr. Law's _Serious Call_, a book I had hitherto treated with contempt.' +When we remember how Newman in his _Apologia_ speaks of Thomas Scott as +the writer 'to whom, humanly speaking, I almost owe my soul,' we become +lost amidst a mazy dance of strange, spectral influences which flit +about the centuries and make us what we are. Splendid achievement though +the _History of the Decline and Fall_ may be, glorious monument though +it is, more lasting than brass, of learning and industry, yet in sundry +moods it seems but a poor and barren thing by the side of a book which, +like Law's _Serious Call_, has proved its power + + 'To pierce the heart and tame the will.' + +But I must put the curb on my enthusiasm, or I shall find myself +re-echoing the sentiment of a once celebrated divine who brought down +Exeter Hall by proclaiming, at the top of his voice, that he would +sooner be the author of _The Washerwoman on Salisbury Plain_ than of +_Paradise Lost_. + +But Law's _Serious Call_, to do it only bare literary justice, is a +great deal more like _Paradise Lost_ than _The Washerwoman on Salisbury +Plain_, and deserves better treatment at the hands of religious people +than to be reprinted, as it too often is, in a miserable, truncated, +witless form which would never have succeeded in arresting the +wandering attention of Johnson or in saving the soul of Thomas Scott. +The motto of all books of original genius is: + + 'Love me or leave me alone.' + +Gibbon read Law's _Serious Call_, but it left him where it found him. +'Had not,' so he writes, 'Law's vigorous mind been clouded by +enthusiasm, he might be ranked with the most agreeable and ingenious +writers of his time.' + +Upon the death of Law in 1761, it is sad to have to state that Miss +Hester Gibbon cast aside the severe rule of female dress which he had +expounded in his _Serious Call_, and she had practised for sixty years +of her life. She now appeared like Malvolio, resplendent in yellow +stockings. Still, it was something to have kept the good lady's feet +from straying into such evil garments for so long. Miss Gibbon had a +comfortable estate; and our historian, as her nearest male relative, +kept his eye upon the reversion. The fifteenth and sixteenth chapters +had created a coolness, but he addressed her a letter in which he +assured her that, allowing for differences of expression, he had the +satisfaction of feeling that practically he and she thought alike on the +great subject of religion. Whether she believed him or not I cannot say; +but she left him her estate in Sussex. I must stop a moment to consider +the hard and far different fate of Porson. Gibbon had taken occasion to +refer to the seventh verse of the fifth chapter of the First Epistle of +St. John as spurious. It has now disappeared from our Bibles, without +leaving a trace even in the margin. So judicious a writer as Dean Alford +long ago, in his Greek Testament, observed, 'There is not a shadow of a +reason for supposing it genuine.' An archdeacon of Gibbon's period +thought otherwise, and asserted the genuineness of the text, whereupon +Porson wrote a book and proved it to be no portion of the inspired text. +On this a female relative who had Porson down in her will for a +comfortable annuity of £300, revoked that part of her testamentary +disposition, and substituted a paltry bequest of £30: 'for,' said she, +'I hear he has been writing against the Holy Scriptures.' As Porson only +got £16 for writing the book, it certainly cost him dear. But the book +remains a monument of his learning and wit. The last quarter of the +annuity must long since have been paid. + +Gibbon, the only one of a family of five who managed to grow up at all, +had no school life; for though a short time at Westminster, his feeble +health prevented regularity of attendance. His father never won his +respect, nor his mother (who died when he was ten) his affection. 'I am +tempted,' he says, 'to enter my protest against the trite and lavish +praise of the happiness of our boyish years which is echoed with so much +affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known.' Upon which +passage Ste. Beuve characteristically remarks 'that it is those who have +been deprived of a mother's solicitude, of the down and flower of tender +affection, of the vague yet penetrating charm of dawning impressions, +who are most easily denuded of the sentiment of religion.' + +Gibbon was, however, born free of the 'fair brotherhood' Macaulay so +exquisitely described in his famous poem, written after the Edinburgh +election. Reading became his sole employment. He enjoyed all the +advantages of the most irregular of educations, and in his fifteenth +year arrived at Oxford, to use his celebrated words, though for that +matter almost every word in the _Autobiography_ is celebrated, with a +stock of erudition that might have puzzled a doctor, and a degree of +ignorance of which a schoolboy would have been ashamed--for example, he +did not know the Greek alphabet, nor is there any reason to suppose that +he would have been taught it at Oxford. + +I do not propose to refer to what he says about his university. I hate +giving pain, besides which there have been new statutes since 1752. In +Gibbon's time there were no public examinations at all, and no +class-lists--a Saturnian reign which I understand it is now sought to +restore. Had Gibbon followed his father's example and gone to Cambridge, +he would have found the Mathematical Tripos fairly started on its +beneficent career, and might have taken as good a place in it as Dr. +Dodd had just done, a divine who is still year after year referred to +in the University Calendar as the author of _Thoughts in Prison_, the +circumstance that the thinker was later on taken from prison, and hung +by the neck until he was dead being no less wisely than kindly omitted +from a publication, one of the objects of which is to inspire youth with +confidence that the path of mathematics is the way to glory. + +On his profession of Catholicism, Gibbon, _ipso facto_ ceased to be a +member of the university, and his father, with a sudden accession of +good sense, packed off the young pervert, who at that time had a very +big head and a very small body, and was just as full of controversial +theology as he could hold, to a Protestant pastor's at Lausanne, where +in an uncomfortable house, with an ill-supplied table and a scarcity of +pocket-money, the ex-fellow-commoner of Magdalen was condemned to live +from his sixteenth to his twenty-first year. His time was mainly spent +in reading. Here he learnt Greek; here also he fell in love with +Mademoiselle Curchod. In the spring of 1758 he came home. He was at +first very shy, and went out but little, pursuing his studies even in +lodgings in Bond Street. But he was shortly to be shaken out of his +dumps, and made an Englishman and a soldier. + +If anything could provoke Gibbon's placid shade, it would be the light +and airy way his military experiences are often spoken of, as if, like a +modern volunteer, he had but attended an Easter Monday review. I do not +believe the history of literature affords an equally striking example of +self-sacrifice. He was the most sedentary of men. He hated exercise, and +rarely took any. Once after spending some weeks in the summer at Lord +Sheffield's country place, when about to go, his hat was missing. +'When,' he was asked, 'did you last see it?' 'On my arrival,' he +replied. 'I left it on the hall-table; I have had no occasion for it +since.' Lord Sheffield's guests always knew that they would find Mr. +Gibbon in the library, and meet him at the dinner-table. He abhorred a +horse. His one vocation, and his only avocation, was reading, not lazy +glancing and skipping, but downright savage reading--geography, +chronology, and all the tougher sides of history. What glorious, what +martial times, indeed, must those have been that made Mr. Gibbon leap +into the saddle, desert his books, and for two mortal years and a half +live in camps! He was two months at Blandford, three months at +Cranbrook, six months at Dover, four months at Devizes, as many at +Salisbury, and six more at Southampton, where the troops were disbanded. +During all this time Captain Gibbon was energetically employed. He +dictated the orders and exercised the battalion. It did him a world of +good. What a pity Carlyle could not have been subjected to the same +discipline! The cessation, too, of his habit of continued reading, gave +him time for a little thinking, and when he returned to his father's +house, in Hampshire, he had become fixed in his determination to write a +history, though of what was still undecided. + +I am rather afraid to say it, for no two men could well be more unlike +one another, but Gibbon always reminds me in an odd inverted way of +Milton. I suppose it is because as the one is our grandest author, so +the other is our most grandiose. Both are self-conscious and make no +apology--Milton magnificently self-conscious, Gibbon splendidly so. +Everyone knows the great passages in which Milton, in 1642, asked the +readers of his pamphlet on the reason of Church government urged against +prelacy, to go on trust with him for some years for his great unwritten +poem, as 'being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the +vapour of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some +vulgar amorist or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be +obtained by the invocation of Dame Memory and her seven daughters, but +by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit who can enrich with all +utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim with the hallow'd +fire of His Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom He pleases: to +this must be added industrious and select reading, study, observation +and insight into all seemly opinions, arts, and affairs.' Different men, +different minds. There are things terrestrial as well as things +celestial. Certainly Gibbon's _Autobiography_ contains no passages like +those which are to be found in Milton's pamphlets; but for all that he, +in his mundane way, consecrated himself for his self-imposed task, and +spared no toil to equip himself for it. He, too, no less than Milton, +had his high hope and his hard attempting. He tells us in his stateliest +way how he first thought of one subject, and then another, and what +progress he had made in his different schemes before he abandoned them, +and what reasons induced him so to do. Providence watched over the +future historian of the Roman Empire as surely as it did over the future +author of _Paradise Lost_, as surely as it does over everyone who has it +in him to do anything really great. Milton, we know, in early life was +enamoured of King Arthur, and had it in his mind to make that blameless +king the hero of his promised epic, but + + 'What resounds + In fable or romance of Uther's son, + Begirt with British and Amoric knights,' + +can brook a moment's comparison with the baffled hero of _Paradise +Lost_; so too, what a mercy that Gibbon did not fritter away his +splendid energy, as he once contemplated doing, on Sir Walter Raleigh, +or squander his talents on a history of Switzerland or even of Florence! + +After the disbanding of the militia Gibbon obtained his father's consent +to spend the money it was originally proposed to lay out in buying him a +seat in Parliament, upon foreign travel, and early in 1763 he reached +Paris, where he abode three months. An accomplished scholar whose too +early death all who knew him can never cease to deplore, Mr. Cotter +Morison, whose sketch of Gibbon is, by general consent, admitted to be +one of the most valuable books of a delightful series, does his best, +with but partial success, to conceal his annoyance at Gibbon's stupidly +placid enjoyment of Paris and French cookery. 'He does not seem to be +aware,' says Mr. Morison, 'that he was witnessing one of the most +singular social phases which have ever yet been presented in the history +of man.' Mr. Morison does not, indeed, blame Gibbon for this, but +having, as he had, the most intimate acquaintance with this period of +French history, and knowing the tremendous issues involved in it, he +could not but be chagrined to notice how Gibbon remained callous and +impervious. And, indeed, when the Revolution came it took no one more by +surprise than it did the man who had written the _Decline and Fall of +the Roman Empire_. Writing, in 1792, to Lord Sheffield, Gibbon says, +'Remember the proud fabric of the French monarchy: not four years ago it +stood founded, and might it not seem on the rock of time, force, and +opinion, supported by the triple authority of the Church, the Nobility, +and the Parliament?' But the Revolution came for all that; and what, +when it did come, did it teach Mr. Gibbon? 'Do not, I beseech you, +tamper with Parliamentary representation. If you begin to improve the +Constitution, you may be driven step by step from the disfranchisement +of Old Sarum to the King in Newgate; the Lords voted useless, the +bishops abolished, the House of Commons _sans culottes_.' The importance +of shutting off the steam and sitting on the safety-valve was what the +French Revolution taught Mr. Gibbon. Mr. Bagehot says: 'Gibbon's horror +of the French Revolution was derived from the fact that he had arrived +at the conclusion that he was the sort of person a populace invariably +kills.' An excellent reason, in my opinion, for hating revolution, but +not for misunderstanding it. + +After leaving Paris Gibbon lived nearly a year in Lausanne, reading hard +to prepare himself for Italy. He made his own handbook. At last he felt +himself fit to cross the Alps, which he did seated in an osier basket +planted on a man's shoulders. He did not envy Hannibal his elephant. He +lingered four months in Florence, and then entered Rome in a spirit of +the most genuine and romantic enthusiasm. His zeal made him positively +active, though it is impossible to resist a smile at the picture he +draws of himself 'treading with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum.' He +was in Rome eighteen weeks; there he had, as we saw at the beginning, +his heavenly vision, to which he was not disobedient. He paid a visit of +six weeks' duration to Naples, and then returned home more rapidly. +'The spectacle of Venice,' he says, 'afforded some hours of +astonishment.' Gibbon has sometimes been called 'long-winded,' but when +he chooses, nobody can be shorter with either a city or a century. + +He returned to England in 1765, and for five rather dull years lived in +his father's house in the country or in London lodgings. In 1770 his +father died, and in 1772 Gibbon took a house in Bentinck Street, +Manchester Square, filled it with books--for in those days it must not +be forgotten there was no public library of any kind in London--and +worked hard at his first volume, which appeared in February, 1775. It +made him famous, also infamous, since it concluded with the fifteenth +and sixteenth chapters on Christianity. In 1781 two more volumes +appeared. In 1783 he gave up Parliament and London, and rolled over +Westminster Bridge in a post-chaise, on his way to Lausanne, where he +had his home for the rest of his days. In May, 1788, the three last +volumes appeared. He died in St. James's Street whilst on a visit to +London, on the 15th of January, 1794, of a complaint of a most +pronounced character, which he had with characteristic and almost +criminal indolence totally neglected for thirty years. He was buried in +Fletching Churchyard, Sussex, in the family burial-place of his faithful +friend and model editor, the first Lord Sheffield. He had not completed +his fifty-eighth year. + + * * * * * + +Before concluding with a few very humble observations on Gibbon's +writings, something ought to be said about him as a social being. In +this aspect he had distinguished merit, though his fondness of, and +fitness for, society came late. He had no schooldays, no college days, +no gilded youth. From sixteen to twenty-one he lived poorly in Lausanne, +and came home more Swiss than English. Nor was his father of any use to +him. It took him a long time to rub off his shyness; but the militia, +Paris, and Rome, and, above all, the proud consciousness of a noble +design, made a man of him, and after 1772, he became a well-known figure +in London society. He was a man of fashion as well as of letters. In +this respect, and, indeed, in all others, except their common love of +learning, he differed from Dr. Johnson. Lords and ladies, remarked that +high authority, don't like having their mouths shut. Gibbon never shut +anybody's mouth, and in Johnson's presence rarely opened his own. +Johnson's dislike of Gibbon does not seem to have been based upon his +heterodoxy, but his ugliness. 'He is such an amazing ugly fellow,' said +that Adonis. Boswell follows suit, and, with still less claim to be +critical, complains loudly of Gibbon's ugliness. He also hated him very +sincerely. 'The fellow poisons the whole club to me,' he cries. I feel +sorry for Boswell, who has deserved well of the human race. Ironical +people like Gibbon are rarely tolerant of brilliant folly. Gibbon, no +doubt, was ugly. We get a glance at him in one of Horace Walpole's +letters, which, sparkling as it does with vanity, spite, and humour, is +always pleasant. He is writing to Mr. Mason: + +'You will be diverted to hear that Mr. Gibbon has quarrelled with me. He +lent me his second volume in the middle of November; I returned it with +a most civil panegyric. He came for more incense. I gave it, but, alas! +with too much sincerity; I added: "Mr. Gibbon, I am sorry _you_ should +have pitched on so disgusting a subject as the Constantinopolitan +history. There is so much of the Arians and Eunomians and +semi-Pelagians; and there is such a strange contrast between Roman and +Gothic manners, that, though you have written the story as well as it +could be written, I fear few will have patience to read it." He +coloured, all his round features squeezed themselves into sharp angles; +he screwed up his button-mouth, and rapping his snuff-box, said, "It had +never been put together before"--so _well_ he meant to add, but gulped +it. He meant so _well_, certainly, for Tillemont, whom he quotes in +every page, has done the very thing. Well, from that hour to this, I +have never seen him, though he used to call once or twice a week; nor +has he sent me the third volume, as he promised. I well knew his vanity, +even about his ridiculous face and person, but thought he had too much +sense to avow it so palpably.' 'So much,' adds Walpole, with sublime +nescience of the verdict of posterity upon his own most amusing self, +'so much for literature and its fops.' + +Male ugliness is an endearing quality, and in a man of great talents it +assists his reputation. It mollifies our inferiority to be able to add +to our honest admiration of anyone's great intellectual merit, 'But did +you ever see such a chin!' + +Nobody except Johnson, who was morbid on the subject of looks, liked +Gibbon the less for having a button-mouth and a ridiculous nose. He was, +Johnson and Boswell apart, a popular member of the club. Sir Joshua and +he were, in particular, great cronies, and went about to all kinds of +places, and mixed in every sort of society. In May, June, and July, +1779, Gibbon sat for his picture--that famous portrait to be found at +the beginning of every edition of the History. Sir Joshua notes in his +Diary: 'No new sitters--hard at work repainting the "Nativity," and busy +with sittings of Gibbon.' + +If we are to believe contemporary gossip, this was not the first time +Reynolds had depicted the historian. Some years earlier the great +painter had executed a celebrated portrait of Dr. Beattie, still +pleasingly remembered by the lovers of old-fashioned poetry as the poet +of _The Minstrel_, but who, in 1773, was better known as the author of +an _Essay on Truth_. This personage, who in later life, it is melancholy +to relate, took to drinking, is represented in Reynolds's picture in his +Oxford gown of Doctor of Laws, with his famous essay under his arm, +while beside him is Truth, habited as an angel, holding in one hand a +pair of scales, and with the other thrusting down three frightful +figures emblematic of Sophistry, Scepticism, and Infidelity. That +Voltaire and Hume stood for two of these figures was no secret, but it +was whispered Gibbon was the third. Even if so, an incident so trifling +was not likely to ruffle the composure, or prevent the intimacy, of two +such good-tempered men as Reynolds and Gibbon. The latter was immensely +proud of Reynolds's portrait--the authorised portrait, of course--the +one for which he had paid. He had it hanging up in his library at +Lausanne, and, if we may believe Charles Fox, was fonder of looking at +it than out of the window upon that incomparable landscape, with +indifference to which he had twitted St. Bernard. + +But, as I have said, Gibbon was a man of fashion as well as a man of +letters. In another volume of Walpole we have a glimpse of him playing a +rubber of whist. His opponents were Horace himself, and Lady Beck. His +partner was a lady whom Walpole irreverently calls the Archbishopess of +Canterbury.[5] At Brooks's, White's, and Boodle's, Gibbon was a prime +favourite. His quiet manner, ironical humour, and perpetual good temper +made him excellent company. He is, indeed, reported once, at Brooks's, +to have expressed a desire to see the heads of Lord North and half a +dozen ministers on the table; but as this was only a few days before he +accepted a seat at the Board of Trade at their hands, his wrath was +evidently of the kind that does not allow the sun to go down upon it. +His moods were usually mild: + + 'Soon as to Brooks's thence thy footsteps bend, + What gratulations thy approach attend! + See Gibbon rap his box, auspicious sign + That classic wit and compliment combine.' + +To praise Gibbon heartily, you must speak in low tones. 'His cheek,' +says Mr. Morison, 'rarely flushes in enthusiasm for a good cause.' He +was, indeed, not obviously on the side of the angels. But he was a +dutiful son to a trying father, an affectionate and thoughtful stepson +to a stepmother who survived him, and the most faithful and warm-hearted +of friends. In this article of friendship he not only approaches, but +reaches, the romantic. While in his teens he made friends with a Swiss +of his own age. A quarter of a century later on, we find the boyish +companions chumming together, under the same roof at Lausanne, and +delighting in each other's society. His attachment to Lord Sheffield is +a beautiful thing. It is impossible to read Gibbon's letters without +responding to the feeling which breathes through Lord Sheffield's +preface to the miscellaneous writings: + +'The letters will prove how pleasant, friendly, and amiable Mr. Gibbon +was in private life; and if in publishing letters so flattering to +myself I incur the imputation of vanity, I meet the charge with a frank +confession that I am indeed highly vain of having enjoyed for so many +years the esteem, the confidence, and the affection of a man whose +social qualities endeared him to the most accomplished society, whose +talents, great as they were, must be acknowledged to have been fully +equalled by the sincerity of his friendship.' + +To have been pleasant, friendly, amiable and sincere in friendship, to +have written the _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, and the +_Autobiography_, must be Gibbon's excuse for his unflushing cheek. + +To praise Gibbon is not wholly superfluous; to commend his history would +be so. In May, 1888, it attained, as a whole, its hundredth year. Time +has not told upon it. It stands unaltered, and with its authority +unimpaired. It would be invidious to name the histories it has seen +born and die. Its shortcomings have been pointed out--it is well; its +inequalities exposed--that is fair; its style criticised--that is just. +But it is still read. 'Whatever else is read,' says Professor Freeman, +'Gibbon must be.' + +The tone he thought fit to adopt towards Christianity was, quite apart +from all particular considerations, a mistaken one. No man is big enough +to speak slightingly of the constructions his fellow-men have from time +to time put upon the Infinite. And conduct which in a philosopher is +ill-judged, is in an historian ridiculous. Gibbon's sneers could not +alter the fact that his History, which he elected to style the _Decline +and Fall of the Roman Empire_, might equally well, as Dean Stanley has +observed, have been called the 'Rise and Progress of the Christian +Church.' This tone of Gibbon's was the more unfortunate because he was +not of those men who are by the order of their minds incapable of +theology. He was an admirable theologian, and, even as it is, we have +Cardinal Newman's authority for the assertion, that Gibbon is the only +Church historian worthy of the name who has written in English. + +Gibbon's love of the unseemly may also be deprecated. His is not the +boisterous impropriety which may sometimes be observed staggering across +the pages of Mr. Carlyle, but the more offensive variety which is +overheard sniggering in the notes. + +The importance, the final value, of Gibbon's History has been assailed +in high quarters. Coleridge, in a well-known passage in his _Table +Talk_--too long to be quoted--said Gibbon was a man of immense reading; +but he had no philosophy. 'I protest,' he adds, 'I do not remember a +single philosophical attempt made throughout the work to fathom the +ultimate causes of the decline and fall of the empire.' This spoiled +Gibbon for Coleridge, who has told us that 'though he had read all the +famous histories, and he believed some history of every country or +nation, that is or ever existed, he had never done so for the story +itself--the only thing interesting to him being the principles to be +evolved from and illustrated by the facts.' + +I am not going to insult the majestic though thickly-veiled figure of +the Philosophy of History. Every sensible man, though he might blush to +be called a philosopher, must wish to be the wiser for his reading; but +it may, I think, be fairly said that the first business of an historian +is to tell his story, nobly and splendidly, with vivacity and vigour. +Then I do not see why we children of a larger growth may not be +interested in the annals of mankind simply as a story, without worrying +every moment to evolve principles from each part of it. If I choose to +be interested in the colour of Mary Queen of Scots' eyes, or the +authorship of the _Letters of Junius_, I claim the right to be so. Of +course, if I imagine either of these subjects to be matters of +importance--if I devote my life to their elucidation, if I bore my +friends with presentation pamphlets about them--why, then, I am either a +feeble fribble or an industrious fool; but if I do none of these things +I ought to be left in peace, and not ridiculed by those who seem to +regard the noble stream of events much as Brindley did rivers--mainly +as something which fills their ugly canals of dreary and frequently +false comment. + +But, thirdly, whilst yielding the first place to philosophy, divine +philosophy, as I suppose, when one comes to die, one will be glad to +have done, it is desirable that the text and the comment should be kept +separate and apart. The historian who loads his frail craft with that +perilous and shifting freight, philosophy, adds immensely to the dangers +of his voyage across the ocean of Time. Gibbon was no fool, yet it is as +certain as anything can be, that had he put much of his philosophy into +his history, both would have gone to the bottom long ago. And even +better philosophy than Gibbon's would have been, is apt to grow mouldy +in a quarter of a century, and to need three new coats of good oily +rhetoric, to make it presentable to each new generation. + +Gibbon was neither a great thinker nor a great man. He had neither light +nor warmth. This is what, doubtless, prompted Sir James Mackintosh's +famous exclamation, that you might scoop Gibbon's mind out of Burke's +without missing it. But hence, I say, the fitness of things that chained +Gibbon to his library chair, and set him as his task, to write the +history of the Roman Empire, whilst leaving Burke at large to illuminate +the problems of his own time. + +Gibbon avowedly wrote for fame. He built his History meaning it to last. +He got £6,000 for writing it. The booksellers netted £60,000 by printing +it. Gibbon did not mind. He knew it would be the volumes of his History, +and not the banking books of his publishers, who no doubt ran their +trade risks, which would keep their place upon men's shelves. He did an +honest piece of work, and he has had a noble reward. Had he attempted to +know the ultimate causes of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, he +must have failed, egregiously, childishly. He abated his pretensions as +a philosopher, was content to attempt some picture of the thing +acted--of the great pageant of history--and succeeded. + + + + + WILLIAM COWPER + + +The large and weighty family of Gradgrinds may, from their various +well-cushioned coigns of advantage, give forcible utterance to their +opinions as to what are the really important things in this life; but +the fact remains, distasteful as it may be to those of us who accomplish +the disciplinary end of vexing our fathers' souls by other means than +'penning stanzas,' that the lives of poets, even of people who have +passed for poets, eclipse in general and permanent interest the lives of +other men. Whilst above the sod, these poets were often miserable +enough. But charm hangs over their graves. The sternest pedestrian, even +he who is most bent on making his inn by the precise path he has, with +much study of the map, previously prescribed for himself, will yet often +veer to the right or to the left, to visit the lonely churchyard where, +as he hears by the way, lie the ashes of some brother of the tuneful +quill. It may well be that this brother's verses are not frequently on +our lips. It is not the lot of every bard to make quotations. It may +sometimes happen to you, as you stand mournfully surveying the little +heap, to rack your brains unavailingly for so much as a single couplet; +nay, so treacherous is memory, the very title of his best-known poem +may, for the moment, have slipped you. But your heart is melted all the +same, and you feel it would indeed have been a churlish thing to go on +your original way, unmindful of the fact that + + 'In yonder grave a Druid lies!' + +And you have your reward. When you have reached your desired haven, and +are sitting alone after dinner in the coffee-room, neat-handed Phyllis +(were you not fresh from a poet's grave, a homelier name might have +served her turn) having administered to your final wants, and +disappeared with a pretty flounce, the ruby-coloured wine the dead poet +loved, the bottled sunshine of a bygone summer, glows the warmer in +your cup as you muse over minstrels now no more, whether + + 'Of mighty poets in their misery dead,' + +or of such a one as he whose neglected grave you have just visited. + +It was a pious act, you feel, to visit that grave. You commend yourself +for doing so. As the night draws on, this very simple excursion down a +rutty lane and across a meadow, begins to wear the hues of devotion and +of love; and unless you are very stern with yourself, the chances are +that by the time you light your farthing dip, and are proceeding on your +dim and perilous way to your bedroom at the end of a creaking passage, +you will more than half believe you were that poet's only unselfish +friend, and that he died saying so. + +All this is due to the charm of poetry. Port has nothing to do with it. +Indeed, as a plain matter of fact, who would drink port at a village +inn? Nobody feels a bit like this after visiting the tombs of soldiers, +lawyers, statesmen, or divines. These pompous places, viewed through the +haze of one's recollections of the 'careers' of the men whose names +they vainly try to perpetuate, seem but, if I may slightly alter some +words of old Cowley's, 'An ill show after a sorry sight.' + +It would be quite impossible, to enumerate one half of the reasons which +make poets so interesting. I will mention one, and then pass on to the +subject-matter. They often serve to tell you the age of men and books. +This is most interesting. There is Mr. Matthew Arnold. How impossible it +would be to hazard even a wide solution of the problem of his age, but +for the way he has of writing about Lord Byron! Then we know + + 'The thought of Byron, of his cry + Stormily, sweet, his Titan agony.' + +And again: + + 'What boots it now that Byron bore, + With haughty scorn which mocked the smart, + Through Europe to the Ætolian shore, + The pageant of his bleeding heart?' + +Ask any man born in the fifties, or even the later forties, what he +thinks of Byron's Titan agony, and his features will probably wear a +smile. Insist upon his giving his opinion about the pageant of the +Childe's bleeding heart, and more likely than not he will laugh +outright. But, I repeat, how interesting to be able to tell the age of +one distinguished poet from his way of writing of another! + +So, too, with books. Miss Austen's novels are dateless things. Nobody in +his senses would speak of them as 'old novels.' _John Inglesant_ is an +old novel, so is _Ginx's Baby_. But _Emma_ is quite new, and, like a +wise woman, affords few clues as to her age. But when, taking up _Sense +and Sensibility_, we read Marianne Dashwood's account of her sister's +lover-- + +'And besides all this, I am afraid, mamma, he has no real taste. Music +seems scarcely to attract him, and though he admires Elinor's drawings +very much, it is not the admiration of a person who can understand their +worth. He admires as a lover, and not as a connoisseur. Oh, mamma! how +spiritless, how tame was Edward's manner in reading last night! I felt +for my sister most severely. I could hardly keep my seat to hear those +beautiful lines which have frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced +with such impenetrable calmness, such dreadful indifference!' 'He would +certainly [says Mrs. Dashwood] have done more justice to simple and +elegant prose. I thought so, at the time, but you _would_ give him +Cowper.' 'Nay, mamma, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!'--when we +read this, we know pretty well when Miss Austen was born. It is surely +pleasant to be reminded of a time when sentimental girls used Cowper as +a test of a lover's sensibility. One of our modern swains is no more +likely to be condemned as a Philistine for not reading _The Task_ with +unction, than he is to be hung for sheep-stealing, or whipped at the +cart's tail for speaking evil of constituted authorities; but the +position probably still has its perils, and the Marianne Dashwoods of +the hour are quite capable of putting their admirers on to _Rose Mary_, +or _The Blessed Damosel_, and then flouting their insensibility. The +fact, of course, is, that each generation has a way of its own, and +poets are interesting because they are the mirrors in which their +generation saw its own face; and what is more, they are magic mirrors, +since they retain the power of reflecting the image long after what was +pleased to call itself the substance has disappeared into thin air. + +There is no more interesting poet than Cowper, and hardly one the area +of whose influence was greater. No man, it is unnecessary to say, +courted popularity less, yet he threw a very wide net, and caught a +great shoal of readers. For twenty years after the publication of _The +Task_ in 1785, his general popularity never flagged, and even when in +the eyes of the world it was eclipsed, when Cowper became in the opinion +of fierce Byronians and moss-trooping Northerners, 'a coddled Pope' and +a milksop, our great, sober, Puritan middle-class took him to their warm +firesides for two generations more. Some amongst these were not, it must +be owned, lovers of poetry at all; they liked Cowper because he is full +of a peculiar kind of religious phraseology, just as some of Burns' +countrymen love Burns because he is full of a peculiar kind of strong +drink called whisky. This was bad taste; but it made Cowper all the more +interesting, since he thus became, by a kind of compulsion, the +favourite because the only poet, of all these people's children; and the +children of the righteous do not wither like the green herb, neither do +they beg their bread from door to door, but they live in slated houses +and are known to read at times. No doubt, by the time it came to these +children's children the spell was broken, and Cowper went out of fashion +when Sunday travelling and play-going came in again. But his was a long +run, and under peculiar conditions. Signs and tokens are now abroad, +whereby the judicious are beginning to infer that there is a renewed +disposition to read Cowper, and to love him, not for his faults, but for +his great merits, his observing eye, his playful wit, his personal +charm. + +Hayley's _Life of Cowper_ is now obsolete, though since it is adorned +with vignettes by Blake it is prized by the curious. Hayley was a kind +friend to Cowper, but he possessed, in a highly developed state, that +aversion to the actual facts of a case which is unhappily so +characteristic of the British biographer. Southey's _Life_ is horribly +long-winded and stuffed out; still, like Homer's _Iliad_, it remains +the best. It was long excluded from strict circles because of its +worldly tone, and also because it more than hinted that the Rev. John +Newton was to blame for his mode of treating the poet's delusions. Its +place was filled by the Rev. Mr. Grimshaw's _Life_ of the poet, which is +not a nice book. Mr. Benham's recent _Life_, prefixed to the cheap Globe +edition of _Cowper's Poems_, is marvellously good and compressed. Mr. +Goldwin Smith's account of the poet in Mr. Morley's series could not +fail to be interesting, though it created in the minds of some readers a +curious sensation of immense distance from the object described. Mr. +Smith seemed to discern Cowper clearly enough, but as somebody very far +off. This, however, may be fancy. + +The wise man will not trouble the biographers. He will make for himself +a short list of dates, so that he may know where he is at any particular +time, and then, poking the fire and (his author notwithstanding) +lighting his pipe-- + + 'Oh, pernicious weed, whose scent the fair annoys--' + +he will read Cowper's letters. There are five volumes of them in +Southey's edition. It would be to exaggerate to say you wish there were +fifty, but you are, at all events, well content there should be five. In +the course of them Cowper will tell you the story of his own life, as it +ought to be told, as it alone can be told, in the purest of English and +with the sweetest of smiles. For a combination of delightful qualities, +Cowper's letters have no rivals. They are playful, witty, loving, +sensible, ironical, and, above all, as easy as an old shoe. So easy, +indeed, that after you have read half a volume or so, you begin to think +their merits have been exaggerated, and that anybody could write letters +as good as Cowper's. Even so the man who never played billiards, and who +sees Mr. Roberts play that game, might hastily opine that he, too, could +go and do likewise. + +To form anything like a fair estimate of Cowper, it is wise to ignore as +much as possible his mental disease, and always to bear in mind the +manner of man he naturally was. He belonged essentially to the order of +wags. He was, it is easy to see, a lover of trifling things, elegantly +finished. He hated noise, contention, and the public gaze, but society +he ever insisted upon. + + 'I praise the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd, + How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! + But grant me still a friend in my retreat, + Whom I may whisper--"solitude is sweet."' + +He loved a jest, a barrel of oysters, and a bottle of wine. His +well-known riddle on a kiss is Cowper from top to toe: + + 'I am just two and two; I am warm, I am cold, + And the parent of numbers that cannot be told. + I am lawful, unlawful, a duty, a fault, + I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought, + An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course, + And yielded with pleasure when taken by force.' + +Why, it is a perfect dictionary of kisses in six lines! + +Had Cowper not gone mad in his thirty-second year, and been frightened +out of the world of trifles, we should have had another Prior, a wittier +Gay, an earlier Praed, an English La Fontaine. We do better with _The +Task_ and the _Lines to Mary_, but he had a light touch. + + ''Tis not that I design to rob + Thee of thy birthright, gentle Bob, + For thou art born sole heir and single + Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle. + Not that I mean while thus I knit + My threadbare sentiments together, + To show my genius or my wit, + When God and you know I have neither, + Or such as might be better shown + By letting poetry alone.' + +This lightness of touch, this love of trifling, never deserted Cowper, +not even when the pains of hell got hold of him, and he believed himself +the especially accursed of God. In 1791, when things were very black, we +find him writing to his good Dissenting friend, the Rev. William Bull +('Charissime Taurorum'), as follows: + +'Homer, I say, has all my time, except a little that I give every day to +no very cheering prospects of futurity. I would I were a Hottentot, or +even a Dissenter, so that my views of an hereafter were more +comfortable. But such as I am, Hope, if it please God, may visit even +me. Should we ever meet again, possibly we may part no more. Then, if +Presbyterians ever find their way to heaven, you and I may know each +other in that better world, and rejoice in the recital of the terrible +things that we endured in this. I will wager sixpence with you now, that +when that day comes you shall acknowledge my story a more wonderful one +than yours; only order your executors to put sixpence in your mouth when +they bury you, that you may have wherewithal to pay me.' + +Whilst living in the Temple, which he did for twelve years, chiefly it +would appear on his capital, he associated with a race of men, of whom +report has reached us, called 'wits.' He belonged to the Nonsense Club; +he wrote articles for magazines. He went to balls, to Brighton, to the +play. He went once, at all events, to the gallery of the House of +Commons, where he witnessed an altercation between a placeman and an +alderman--two well-known types still in our midst. The placeman had +misquoted Terence, and the alderman had corrected him; whereupon the +ready placeman thanked the worthy alderman for teaching him Latin, and +volunteered in exchange to teach the alderman English. Cowper must at +this time have been a considerable reader, for all through life he is +to be found quoting his authors, poets, and playwrights, with an easy +appositeness, all the more obviously genuine because he had no books in +the country to refer to. 'I have no English History,' he writes, 'except +Baker's _Chronicle_, and that I borrowed three years ago from Mr. +Throckmorton.' This was wrong, but Baker's _Chronicle_ (Sir Roger de +Coverley's favourite Sunday reading) is not a book to be returned in a +month. + +After this easy fashion Cowper acquired what never left him--the style +and manner of an accomplished worldling. + +The story of the poet's life does not need telling; but as Owen Meredith +says, probably not even for the second time, 'after all, old things are +best.' Cowper was born in the rectory at Great Berkhampstead, in 1735. +His mother dying when he was six years old, he was despatched to a +country academy, where he was horribly bullied by one of the boys, the +reality of whose persecution is proved by one terrible touch in his +victim's account of it: 'I had such a dread of him, that I did not dare +lift my eyes to his face. I knew him best by his shoe-buckle.' The +odious brute! Cowper goes on to say he had forgiven him, which I can +believe, but when he proceeds to ejaculate a wish to meet his persecutor +again in heaven, doubt creeps in. When ten years old he was sent to +Westminster, where there is nothing to show that he was otherwise than +fairly happy; he took to his classics very kindly, and (so he says) +excelled in cricket and football. This is evidence, but as Dr. Johnson +once confessed about the evidence for the immortality of the soul, 'one +would like more.' He was for some time in the class of Vincent Bourne, +who, though born in 1695, and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, +ranks high amongst the Latin poets. Whether Cowper was bullied at +Westminster is a matter of controversy. Bourne was bullied. About that +there can be no doubt. Cowper loved him, and relates with delight how on +one occasion the Duke of Richmond (Burke's Duke, I suppose) set fire to +the greasy locks of this latter-day Catullus, and then, alarmed at the +spread of the conflagration, boxed his master's ears to put it out. At +eighteen Cowper left Westminster, and after doing nothing (at which he +greatly excelled) for nine months in the country, returned to town, and +was articled to an attorney in Ely Place, Holborn, for three years. At +the same time, being intended for the Bar, he was entered at the Middle, +though he subsequently migrated to the Inner Temple. These three years +in Ely Place Cowper fribbled away agreeably enough. He had as his +desk-companion Edward Thurlow, the most tremendous of men. Hard by Ely +Place is Southampton Row, and in Southampton Row lived Ashley Cowper, +the poet's uncle, with a trio of affable daughters, Theodora Jane, +Harriet, afterwards Lady Hesketh, and a third, who became the wife of +Sir Archer Croft. According to Cowper, a great deal of giggling went on +in Southampton Row. He fell in love with Theodora, and Theodora fell in +love with him. He wrote her verses enough to fill a volume. She was +called Delia in his lays. In 1752, his articles having expired, he took +chambers in the Temple, and in 1754 was called to the Bar. + +Ashley Cowper, a very little man, who used to wear a white hat lined +with yellow silk, and was on that account likened by his nephew to a +mushroom, would not hear of his daughter marrying her cousin; and being +a determined little man, he had his own way, and the lovers were parted +and saw one another no more. Theodora Cowper wore the willow all the +rest of her long life. Her interest in her cousin never abated. Through +her sister, Lady Hesketh, she contributed in later years generously to +his support. He took the money and knew where it came from, but they +never wrote to one another, nor does her name ever appear in Cowper's +correspondence. She became, so it is said, morbid on the subject during +her latter days, and dying twenty-four years after her lover, she +bequeathed to a nephew a mysterious packet she was known to cherish. It +was found to contain Cowper's love-verses. + +In 1756 Cowper's father died, and the poet's patrimony proved to be a +very small one. He was made a Commissioner of Bankrupts. The salary was +£60 a year. He knew one solicitor, but whether he ever had a brief is +not known. He lived alone in his chambers till 1763, when, under +well-known circumstances, he went raving mad, and attempted to hang +himself in his bedroom, and very nearly succeeded. He was removed to Dr. +Cotton's asylum, where he remained a year. This madness, which in its +origin had no more to do with religion than it had with the Binomial +Theorem, ultimately took the turn of believing that it was the will of +God that he should kill himself, and that as he had failed to do so he +was damned everlastingly. In this faith, diversified by doubt, Cowper +must be said henceforth to have lived and died. + +On leaving St. Albans, the poet, in order to be near his only brother, +the Rev. John Cowper, Fellow of Corpus, Cambridge, and a most delightful +man, had lodgings in Huntingdon; and there, one eventful Tuesday in +1765, he made the acquaintance of Mary Unwin. Mrs. Unwin's husband, a +most scandalously non-resident clergyman--whom, however, Cowper +composedly calls a veritable Parson Adams--was living at this time, not +in his Norfolk rectory of Grimston, but contentedly enough in +Huntingdon, where he took pupils. Cowper became a lodger in the family, +which consisted of the rector and his wife, a son at Cambridge, and a +daughter, also one or two pupils. In 1767 Mr. Unwin was thrown from his +horse and fractured his skull. Church-reformers pointed out, at the +time, that had the Rector of Grimston been resident, this accident could +not have occurred in Huntingdon. They then went on to say, but less +convincingly, that Mr. Unwin's death was the judgment of Heaven upon +him. Mr. Unwin dead, the poet and the widow moved to Olney, where they +lived together for nineteen years in a tumble-down house, and on very +slender means. Their attraction to Olney was in the fact that John +Newton was curate-in-charge. Olney was not an ideal place by any means. +Cowper and Mrs. Unwin lived in no fools' paradise, for they visited the +poor and knew the manner of their lives. The inhabitants were mostly +engaged in lace-making and straw-plaiting; they were miserably poor, +immoral, and drunken. There is no idyllic nonsense in Cowper's poetry. + +In 1773 he had another most violent attack of suicidal mania, and +attempted his life more than once. Writing in 1786 to Lady Hesketh, +Cowper gives her an account of his illness, of which at the time she +knew nothing, as her acquaintance with her cousin was not renewed till +1785: + +'Know then, that in the year '73, the same scene that was acted at St. +Albans opened upon me again at Olney, only covered with a still deeper +shade of melancholy, and ordained to be of much longer duration. I +believed that everybody hated me, and that Mrs. Unwin hated me most of +all; was convinced that all my food was poisoned, together with ten +thousand megrims of the same stamp. Dr. Cotton was consulted. He replied +that he could do no more for me than might be done at Olney, but +recommended particular vigilance, lest I should attempt my life; a +caution for which there was the greatest occasion. At the same time that +I was convinced of Mrs. Unwin's aversion to me, I could endure no other +companion. The whole management of me consequently devolved upon her, +and a terrible task she had; she performed it, however, with a +cheerfulness hardly ever equalled on such an occasion, and I have often +heard her say that if ever she praised God in her life, it was when she +found she was to have all the labour. She performed it accordingly, but +as I hinted once before, very much to the hurt of her own constitution.' + +Just before this outbreak, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin had agreed to marry, +but after it they felt the subject was not to be approached, and so the +poor things spoke of it no more. Still, it was well they had spoken out. +'Love me, and tell me so,' is a wise maxim of behaviour. + +Stupid people, themselves leading, one is glad to believe, far duller +lives than Cowper and Mary Unwin, have been known to make dull, +ponderous jokes about this _ménage_ at Olney--its country walks, its +hymn tunes, its religious exercises. But it is pleasant to note how +quick Sainte Beuve, whose three papers on Cowper are amongst the glories +of the _Causeries du Lundi_, is to recognise how much happiness and +pleasantness was to be got out of this semi-monastic life and close +social relation. + +Cowper was indeed the very man for it. One can apply to him his own +well-known lines about the winter season, and crown him + + 'The King of intimate delights, + Fireside enjoyments, and homeborn happiness.' + +No doubt he went mad at times. It was a terrible affliction. But how +many men have complaints of the liver, and are as cheerful to live with +as the Black Death, or Young's _Night Thoughts_. Cowper had a famous +constitution. Not even Dr. James's powder, or the murderous practices of +the faculty, could undermine it. Sadness is not dulness. + + 'Dear saints, it is not sorrow, as I hear, + Nor suffering that shuts up eye and ear + To all which has delighted them before, + And lets us be what we were once no more! + No! we may suffer deeply, yet retain + Power to be moved and soothed, for all our pain, + By what of old pleased us, and will again. + No! 'tis the gradual furnace of the world, + In whose hot air our spirits are upcurled + Until they crumble, or else grow like steel, + Which kills in us the bloom, the youth, the spring, + Which leaves the fierce necessity to feel, + But takes away the power--this can avail + By drying up our joy in everything, + To make our former pleasures all seem stale.' + +I can think of no one to whom these beautiful lines of Mr. Arnold's are +so exquisitely appropriate as to Cowper. Nothing could knock the +humanity out of him. Solitude, sorrow, madness, found him out, threw him +down and tore him, as did the devils their victims in the days of old; +but when they left him for a season, he rose from his misery as sweet +and as human, as interested and as interesting as ever. His descriptions +of natural scenery and country-side doings are amongst his best things. +He moralises enough, heaven knows! but he keeps his morality out of his +descriptions. This is rather a relief after overdoses of Wordsworth's +pantheism and Keats's paganism. Cowper's Nature is plain county Bucks. + + 'The sheepfold here + Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe. + At first progressive as a stream, they seek + The middle field; but scattered by degrees, + Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.' + +The man who wrote that had his eye on the object; but lest the quotation +be thought too woolly by a generation which has a passion for fine +things, I will allow myself another: + + 'Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds, + Exhilarate the spirit and restore + The tone of languid nature, mighty winds + That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood + Of ancient growth, make music not unlike + The dash of ocean on his winding shore + . . . . . . . . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . . . of rills that slip + Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall + Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length + In matted grass, that with a livelier green + Betrays the secret of their silent course.' + +In 1781 began the episode of Lady Austen. That lady was doing some small +shopping in Olney, in company with her sister, the wife of a +neighbouring clergyman, when our poet first beheld her. She pleased his +eye. Whether in the words of one of his early poems he made free to +comment on her shape I cannot say; but he hurried home and made Mrs. +Unwin ask her to tea. She came. Cowper was seized with a fit of shyness, +and very nearly would not go into the room. He conquered the fit, went +in and swore eternal friendship. To the very end of her days Mrs. Unwin +addressed the poet, her true lover though he was, as 'Mr. Cowper.' In a +week, Lady Austen and he were 'Sister Ann' and 'William' one to another. +Sister Ann had a furnished house in London. She gave it up. She came to +live in Olney, next door. She was pretty, she was witty, she played, she +sang. She told Cowper the story of John Gilpin, she inspired his _Wreck +of the Royal George_. _The Task_ was written at her bidding. Day in and +day out, Cowper and Lady Austen and Mrs. Unwin were together. One turns +instinctively to see what Sainte Beuve has to say about Lady Austen. +'C'était Lady Austen, veuve d'un baronet. Cette rare personne était +douée des plus heureux dons; elle n'était plus très-jeune ni dans la +fleur de beauté; elle avait ce qui est mieux, une puissance d'attraction +et d'enchantement qui tenait à la transparence de l'âme, une faculté de +reconnaissance, de sensibilité émue jusqu'aux larmes pour toute marque +de bienveillance dont elle était l'objet. Tout en elle exprimait une +vivacité pure, innocente et tendre. C'était une créature _sympathique_, +et elle devait tout-à-fait justifier dans le cas présent ce mot de +Bernardin de Saint-Pierre: "Il y a dans la femme une gaieté légère qui +dissipe la tristesse de l'homme."' + +That odd personage, Alexander Knox, who had what used to be called a +'primitive,' that is, a fourth-century mind, and on whom the Tractarian +movement has been plausibly grandfathered, and who was (incongruously) +employed by Lord Castlereagh to help through the Act of Union with +Ireland, of which we have lately heard, but who remained all the time +primitively unaware that any corruption was going on around him--this +odd person, I say, was exercised in his mind about Lady Austen, of whom +he had been reading in Hayley's _Life_. In October, 1806, he writes to +Bishop Jebb in a solemn strain: 'I have rather a severer idea of Lady A. +than I should wish to put into writing for publication. I almost suspect +she was a very artful woman. But I need not enlarge.' He puts it rather +differently from Sainte Beuve, but I dare say they both meant much the +same thing. If Knox meant more it would be necessary to get angry with +him. That Lady Austen fell in love with Cowper and would have liked to +marry him, but found Mrs. Unwin in the way, is probable enough; but +where was the artfulness? Poor Cowper was no catch. The grandfather of +Tractarianism would have been better employed in unmasking the +corruption amongst which he had lived, than in darkly suspecting a +lively lady of designs upon a penniless poet, living in the utmost +obscurity, on the charity of his relatives. + +But this state of things at Olney did not last very long. 'Of course +not,' cackle a chorus of cynics. 'It could not!' The Historical Muse, +ever averse to theory, is content to say, 'It did not,' but as she +writes the words she smiles. The episode began in 1781, it ended in +1784. It became necessary to part. Cowper may have had his qualms, but +he concealed them manfully and remained faithful to Mrs. Unwin-- + + 'The patient flower + Who possessed his darker hour.' + +Lady Austen flew away, and afterwards, as if to prove her levity +incurable, married a Frenchman. She died in 1802. English literature +owes her a debt of gratitude. Her name is writ large over much that is +best in Cowper's poetry. Not indeed over the very best; _that_ bears the +inscription _To Mary_. And it was right that it should be so, for Mrs. +Unwin had to put up with a good deal. + +_The Task_ and _John Gilpin_ were published together in 1785, and some +of Cowper's old friends (notably Lady Hesketh) rallied round the now +known poet once more. Lady Hesketh soon begins to fill the chair vacated +by Lady Austen, and Cowper's letters to her are amongst his most +delightful. Her visits to Olney were eagerly expected, and it was she +who persuaded the pair to leave the place for good and all, and move to +Weston, which they did in 1786. The following year Cowper went mad +again, and made another most desperate attempt upon his life. Again Mary +Unwin stood by the poor maniac's side, and again she stood alone. He got +better, and worked away at his translation of Homer as hard and wrote +letters as charming as ever. But Mrs. Unwin was pretty well done for. +Cowper published his Homer by subscription, and must be pronounced a +dab hand in the somewhat ignoble art of collecting subscribers. I am not +sure that he could not have given Pope points. Pope had a great +acquaintance, but he had barely six hundred subscribers. Cowper scraped +together upwards of five hundred. As a beggar he was unabashed. He +quotes in one of his letters, and applies to himself patly enough, +Ranger's observation in the _Suspicious Husband_, 'There is a degree of +assurance in you modest men, that we impudent fellows can never arrive +at!' The University of Oxford was, however, too much for him. He beat +her portals in vain. She had but one answer, 'We subscribe to nothing.' +Cowper was very angry, and called her 'a rich old vixen.' She did not +mind. The book appeared in 1791. It has many merits, and remains unread. + +The clouds now gathered heavily over the biography of Cowper. Mrs. Unwin +had two paralytic strokes, the old friends began to torture one another. +She was silent save when she was irritable, indifferent except when +exacting. At last, not a day too soon, Lady Hesketh came to Weston. +They were moved into Norfolk--but why prolong the tale? Mrs. Unwin died +at East Dereham on the 17th of December, 1796. Thirty-one years had gone +since the poet and she first met by chance in Huntingdon. Cowper himself +died in April, 1800. His last days were made physically comfortable by +the kindness of some Norfolk cousins, and the devotion of a Miss +Perowne. But he died in wretchedness and gloom. + +The _Castaway_ was his last original poem: + + 'I therefore purpose not or dream + Descanting on his fate, + To give the melancholy theme + A more enduring date; + But misery still delights to trace + Its semblance in another's case.' + +Everybody interested in Cowper has of course to make out, as best he +may, a picture of the poet for his own use. It is curious how sometimes +little scraps of things serve to do this better than deliberate efforts. +In 1800, the year of Cowper's death, his relative, a Dr. Johnson, wrote +a letter to John Newton, sending good wishes to the old gentleman, and +to his niece, Miss Catlett; and added: 'Poor dear Mr. Cowper, oh that he +were as tolerable as he was, even in those days when, dining at his +house in Buckinghamshire with you and that lady, I could not help +smiling to see his pleasant face when he said, "Miss Catlett, shall I +give you a piece of cutlet?"' It was a very small joke indeed, and it is +a very humble little quotation, but for me it has long served, in the +mind's eye, for a vignette of the poet, doomed yet _debonnaire_. +Romney's picture, with that frightful nightcap and eyes gleaming with +madness, is a pestilent thing one would forget if one could. Cowper's +pleasant face when he said, 'Miss Catlett, shall I give you a piece of +cutlet?' is a much more agreeable picture to find a small corner for in +one's memory. + + + + + GEORGE BORROW + + +Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, in his delightful _Memories and Portraits_, +takes occasion to tell us, amongst a good many other things of the sort, +that he has a great fancy for _The Bible in Spain_, by Mr. George +Borrow. He has not, indeed, read it quite so often as he has Mr. George +Meredith's _Egoist_, but still he is very fond of it. It is interesting +to know this, interesting, that is, to the great Clan Stevenson who owe +suit and service to their liege lord; but so far as Borrow is concerned, +it does not matter, to speak frankly, two straws. The author of +_Lavengro_, _The Romany Rye_, _The Bible in Spain_, and _Wild Wales_ is +one of those kings of literature who never need to number their tribe. +His personality will always secure him an attendant company, who, when +he pipes, must dance. A queer company it is too, even as was the +company he kept himself, composed as it is of saints and sinners, gentle +and simple, master and man, mistresses and maids; of those who, learned +in the tongues, have read everything else, and of those who have read +nothing else and do not want to. People there are for whom Borrow's +books play the same part as did horses and dogs for the gentleman in the +tall white hat, whom David Copperfield met on the top of the Canterbury +coach. ''Orses and dorgs,' said that gentleman, 'is some men's fancy. +They are wittles and drink to me, lodging, wife and children, reading, +writing, and 'rithmetic, snuff, tobacker, and sleep.' + +Nothing, indeed, is more disagreeable, even offensive, than to have +anybody else's favourite author thrust down your throat. 'Love me, love +my dog,' is a maxim of behaviour which deserves all the odium Charles +Lamb has heaped upon it. Still, it would be hard to go through life +arm-in-arm with anyone who had stuck in the middle of _Guy Mannering_, +or had bidden a final farewell to Jeannie Deans in the barn with the +robbers near Gunnerly Hill in Lincolnshire. But, oddly enough, Borrow +excites no such feelings. It is quite possible to live amicably in the +same house with a person who has stuck hopelessly in the middle of _Wild +Wales_, and who braves it out (what impudence!) by the assertion that +the book is full of things like this: 'Nothing worthy of commemoration +took place during the two following days, save that myself and family +took an evening walk on the Wednesday up the side of the Berwyn, for the +purpose of botanising, in which we were attended by John Jones. There, +amongst other plants, we found a curious moss which our good friend said +was called in Welsh Corn Carw, or deer's horn, and which he said the +deer were very fond of. On the Thursday he and I started on an +expedition on foot to Ruthyn, distant about fourteen miles, proposing to +return in the evening.' + +The book _is_ full of things like this, and must be pronounced as arrant +a bit of book-making as ever was. But judgment is not always followed by +execution, and a more mirth-provoking error can hardly be imagined than +for anyone to suppose that the admission of the fact--sometimes +doubtless a damaging fact--namely, book-making, will for one moment +shake the faithful in their certitude that _Wild Wales_ is a delightful +book; not so delightful, indeed, as _Lavengro_, _The Romany_, or _The +Bible in Spain_, but still delightful because issuing from the same mint +as they, stamped with the same physiognomy, and bearing the same +bewitching inscription. + +It is a mercy the people we love do not know how much we must forgive +them. Oh the liberties they would take, the things they would do, were +it to be revealed to them that their roots have gone far too deep into +our soil for us to disturb them under any provocation whatsoever! + +George Borrow has to be forgiven a great deal. The Appendix to _The +Romany Rye_ contains an assault upon the memory of Sir Walter Scott, of +which every word is a blow. It is savage, cruel, unjustifiable. There is +just enough of what base men call truth in it, to make it one of the +most powerful bits of devil's advocacy ever penned. Had another than +Borrow written thus of the good Sir Walter, some men would travel far +to spit upon his tomb. Quick and easy would have been his descent to the +Avernus of oblivion. His books, torn from the shelf, should have long +stood neglected in the shop of the second-hand, till the hour came for +them to seek the stall, where, exposed to wind and weather, they should +dolefully await the sack of the paper-merchant, whose holy office it +should be to mash them into eternal pulp. But what rhodomontade is this! +No books are more, in the vile phrase of the craft, 'esteemed' than +Borrow's. The prices demanded for the early editions already impinge +upon the absurd, and are steadily rising. The fact is, there is no use +blinking it, mankind cannot afford to quarrel with George Borrow, and +will not do so. It is bad enough what he did, but when we remember that +whatever he had done, we must have forgiven him all the same, it is just +possible to thank Heaven (feebly) that it was no worse. He might have +robbed a church! + +Borrow is indeed one of those lucky men who, in Bagehot's happy phrase, +'keep their own atmosphere,' and as a consequence, when in the destined +hour the born Borrovian--for men are born Borrovians, not made--takes up +a volume of him, in ten minutes (unless it be _Wild Wales_, and then +twenty must be allowed) the victory is won; down tumbles the standard of +Respectability which through a virtuous and perhaps long life has braved +the battle and the breeze; up flutters the lawless pennon of the Romany +Chal, and away skims the reader's craft over seas, hitherto untravelled, +in search of adventures, manifold and marvellous, nor in vain. + +If one was in search of a single epithet most properly descriptive of +Borrow's effect upon his reader, perhaps it would best be found in the +word 'contagious.' He is one of the most 'catching' of our authors. The +most inconsistent of men, he compels those who are born subject to his +charm to share his inconsistencies. He was an agent of the Bible +Society, and his extraordinary adventures in Spain were encountered, so +at least his title-page would have us believe, in an attempt to +circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula. He was a sound Churchman, and +would have nothing to do with Dissent, even in Wild Wales, but he had +also a passion for the ring. Mark his devastations. It is as bad as the +pestilence. A gentle lady, bred amongst the Quakers, a hater of physical +force, with eyes brimful of mercy, was lately heard to say, in +heightened tones, at a dinner-table, where the subject of momentary +conversation was a late prize-fight: 'Oh! pity was it that ever +corruption should have crept in amongst them.' 'Amongst whom?' inquired +her immediate neighbour. 'Amongst the bruisers of England,' was the +terrific rejoinder. Deep were her blushes--and yet how easy to forgive +her! The gentle lady spoke as one does in dreams; for, you must know, +she was born a Borrovian, and only that afternoon had read for the first +time the famous twenty-fifth chapter of _Lavengro_: + +'But what a bold and vigorous aspect pugilism wore at that time! And the +great battle was just then coming off; the day had been decided upon, +and the spot--a convenient distance from the old town (Norwich); and to +the old town were now flocking the bruisers of England, men of +tremendous renown. Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England; what +were the gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its +palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers? Pity that ever corruption +should have crept in amongst them--but of that I wish not to talk. There +they come, the bruisers from far London, or from wherever else they +might chance to be at the time, to the great rendezvous in the old city; +some came one way, some another: some of tip-top reputation came with +peers in their chariots, for glory and fame are such fair things that +even peers are proud to have those invested therewith by their sides; +others came in their own gigs, driving their own bits of blood; and I +heard one say: "I have driven through at a heat the whole hundred and +eleven miles, and only stopped to bait twice!" Oh! the blood horses of +old England! but they too have had their day--for everything beneath the +sun there is a season and a time.... So the bruisers of England are come +to be present at the grand fight speedily coming off; there they are +met in the precincts of the old town, near the field of the chapel, +planted with tender saplings at the restoration of sporting Charles, +which are now become venerable elms, as high as many a steeple; there +they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where a retired coachman with one +leg keeps an hotel and a bowling-green. I think I now see them upon the +bowling-green, the men of renown, amidst hundreds of people with no +renown at all, who gaze upon them with timid wonder. Fame, after all, is +a glorious thing, though it lasts only for a day. There's Cribb, the +champion of England, and perhaps the best man in England--there he is, +with his huge, massive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a lion. +There is Belcher the younger--not the mighty one, who is gone to his +place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific pugilist that ever +entered a ring, only wanting strength to be--I won't say what.... But +how shall I name them all? They were there by dozens, and all tremendous +in their way. There was Bulldog Hudson and fearless Scroggins, who beat +the conqueror of Sam the Jew. There was Black Richmond--no, he was not +there, but I knew him well. He was the most dangerous of blacks, even +with a broken thigh. There was Purcell, who could never conquer till all +seemed over with him. There was--what! shall I name thee last? Ay, why +not? I believe that thou art the last of all that strong family still +above the sod, where may'st thou long continue--true piece of English +stuff, Tom of Bedford, sharp as Winter, kind as Spring!' + +No wonder the gentle lady was undone. It is as good as Homer. + +Diderot, it will be remembered, once wrote a celebrated eulogium on +Richardson, which some have thought exaggerated, because he says in it +that, on the happening of certain events, in themselves improbable, he +would keep _Clarissa_ and _Sir Charles_ on the same shelf with the +writings of Moses, Homer, Euripides, and Sophocles. Why a literary man +should not be allowed to arrange his library as he chooses, without +being exposed to so awful a charge as that of exaggeration, it is hard +to say. But no doubt the whole eulogium is pitched in too high a key for +modern ears; still, it contains sensible remarks, amongst them this one: +that he had observed that in a company where the writings of Richardson +were being read, either privately or aloud, the conversation became at +once interesting and animated. Books cannot be subjected to a truer +test. Will they bear talking about? A parcel of friends can talk about +Borrow's books for ever. The death of his father, as told in the last +chapter of _Lavengro_. Is there anything of the kind more affecting in +the library? Somebody is almost sure to say, 'Yes, the death of Le Fevre +in _Tristram Shandy_.' A third, who always (provoking creature) likes +best what she read last, will wax eloquent over the death of the little +princess in Tolstoi's great book. The character-sketch of Borrow's elder +brother, the self-abnegating artist who declined to paint the portrait +of the Mayor of Norwich because he thought a friend of his could do it +better, suggests De Quincey's marvellous sketch of his elder brother. +And then, what about Benedict Moll, Joey the dog-fancier of Westminster, +and that odious wretch the London publisher? You had need to be a deaf +mute to avoid taking part in a conversation like this. Who was Mary +Fulcher? All the clocks in the parish will have struck midnight before +that question has been answered. It is not to take a gloomy view of the +world to say that there are few pleasanter things in it than a good talk +about George Borrow. + +For invalids and delicate persons leading retired lives, there are no +books like Borrow's. Lassitude and Languor, horrid hags, simply pick up +their trailing skirts and scuttle out of any room into which he enters. +They cannot abide him. A single chapter of Borrow is air and exercise; +and, indeed, the exercise is not always gentle. 'I feel,' said an +invalid, laying down _The Bible in Spain_, as she spoke, upon the +counterpane, 'as if I had been gesticulating violently for the space of +two hours.' She then sank into deep sleep, and is now hale and hearty. +Miss Martineau, in her _Life in the Sick Room_, invokes a blessing upon +the head of Christopher North. But there were always those who refused +to believe in Miss Martineau's illness, and certainly her avowed +preference for the man whom Macaulay in his wrath, writing to Napier in +Edinburgh, called 'your grog-drinking, cock-fighting, cudgel-playing +Professor of Moral Philosophy,' is calculated to give countenance to +this unworthy suspicion. It was an odd taste for an invalid who, whilst +craving for vigour, must necessarily hate noise. Borrow is a vigorous +writer, Wilson a noisy one. It was, however, his _Recreations_ and not +the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_, that Miss Martineau affected. Still the +_Recreations_ are noisy too, and Miss Martineau must find her best +excuse, and I am determined to find an excuse for her--for did she not +write the _Feats on the Fiord_?--in the fact, that when she wrote her +_Life in the Sick Room_ (a dear little book to read when in rude +health), Borrow had published nothing of note. Had he done so, she would +have been of my way of thinking. + +How much of Borrow is true and how much is false, is one of those +questions which might easily set all mankind by the ears, but for the +pleasing circumstance that it does not matter a dump. Few things are +more comical than to hear some douce body, unread in Borrow, gravely +inquiring how far his word may be relied upon. The sole possible +response takes the exceptionable shape of loud peals of laughter. And +yet, surely, it is a most reasonable question, or query, as the Scotch +say. So it is; but after you have read your author you won't ask it--you +won't want to. The reader can believe what he likes, and as much as he +likes. In the old woman on London Bridge and her convict son, in the man +in black (how unlike Goldsmith's!), in the _Flaming Tinman_, in Ursula, +the wife of Sylvester. There is but one person in whom you must believe, +every hour of the day and of the night, else are you indeed +unworthy--you must believe in Isopel Berners. A stranger and more +pathetic figure than she is not to be seen flitting about in the great +shadow-dance men call their life. Born and bred though she was in a +workhouse, where she learnt to read and sew, fear God, and take her own +part, a nobler, more lovable woman never crossed man's path. Her +introduction to her historian was quaint. 'Before I could put myself on +my guard, she struck me a blow on the face, which had nearly brought me +to the ground.' Alas, poor Isopel! Borrow returned the blow, a deadlier, +fiercer blow, aimed not at the face but at the heart. Of their life in +the Dingle let no man speak; it must be read in the last chapters of +_Lavengro_, and the early ones of _The Romany Rye_. Borrow was certainly +irritating. One longs to shake him. He was what children call 'a tease.' +He teased poor Isopel with his confounded philology. Whether he simply +made a mistake, or whether the girl was right in her final surmise, that +he was 'at the root mad,' who can say? He offered her his hand, but at +too late a stage in the proceedings. Isopel Berners left the Dingle to +go to America, and we hear of her no more. That she lived to become a +happy 'housemother,' and to start a line of brave men and chaste women, +must be the prayer of all who know what it is to love a woman they have +never seen. Of the strange love-making that went on in the Dingle no +idea can or ought to be given save from the original. + +'Thereupon I descended into the Dingle. Belle was sitting before the +fire, at which the kettle was boiling. "Were you waiting for me?" I +inquired. "Yes," said Belle, "I thought you would come, and I waited for +you." "That was very kind," said I. "Not half so kind," said she, "as it +was of you to get everything ready for me in the dead of last night, +when there was scarcely a chance of my coming." The tea-things were +brought forward, and we sat down. "Have you been far?" said Belle. +"Merely to that public-house," said I, "to which you directed me on the +second day of our acquaintance." "Young men should not make a habit of +visiting public-houses," said Belle; "they are bad places." "They may be +so to some people," said I, "but I do not think the worst public-house +in England could do me any harm." "Perhaps you are so bad already," said +Belle with a smile, "that it would be impossible to spoil you." "How +dare you catch at my words?" said I; "come, I will make you pay for +doing so--you shall have this evening the longest lesson in Armenian +which I have yet inflicted upon you." "You may well say inflicted," said +Belle, "but pray spare me. I do not wish to hear anything about Armenian, +especially this evening." "Why this evening?" said I. Belle made no +answer. "I will not spare you," said I; "this evening I intend to make +you conjugate an Armenian verb." "Well, be it so," said Belle, "for this +evening you shall command." "To command is hramahyel," said I. "Ram her +ill indeed," said Belle, "I do not wish to begin with that." "No," said +I, "as we have come to the verbs we will begin regularly: hramahyel is a +verb of the second conjugation. We will begin with the first." "First of +all, tell me," said Belle, "what a verb is?" "A part of speech," said I, +"which, according to the dictionary, signifies some action or passion; +for example, 'I command you, or I hate you.'" "I have given you no +cause to hate me," said Belle, looking me sorrowfully in the face. + +'"I was merely giving two examples," said I, "and neither was directed +at you. In those examples, to command and hate are verbs. Belle, in +Armenian there are four conjugations of verbs; the first ends in al, the +second in yel, the third in oul, and the fourth in il. Now, have you +understood me?" + +'"I am afraid, indeed, it will all end ill," said Belle. "Hold your +tongue!" said I, "or you will make me lose my patience." "You have +already made me nearly lose mine," said Belle. "Let us have no +unprofitable interruptions," said I. "The conjugations of the Armenian +verbs are neither so numerous nor so difficult as the declensions of the +nouns. Hear that and rejoice. Come, we will begin with the verb hntal, a +verb of the first conjugation, which signifies to rejoice. Come along: +hntam, I rejoice; hyntas, thou rejoicest. Why don't you follow, Belle?" + +'"I am sure I don't rejoice, whatever you may do," said Belle. "The +chief difficulty, Belle," said I, "that I find in teaching you the +Armenian grammar proceeds from your applying to yourself and me every +example I give. Rejoice, in this instance, is merely an example of an +Armenian verb of the first conjugation, and has no more to do with your +rejoicing than lal, which is also a verb of the first conjugation, and +which signifies to weep, would have to do with your weeping, provided I +made you conjugate it. Come along: hntam, I rejoice; hntas, thou +rejoicest; hnta, he rejoices; hntamk, we rejoice. Now repeat those +words." "I can't bear this much longer," said Belle. "Keep yourself +quiet," said I. "I wish to be gentle with you, and to convince you, we +will skip hntal, and also, for the present, verbs of the first +conjugation, and proceed to the second. Belle, I will now select for you +to conjugate the prettiest verb in Armenian, not only of the second, but +also of all the four conjugations. That verb is siriel. Here is the +present tense: siriem, siries, sire, siriemk, sirèk, sirien. Come on, +Belle, and say siriem." Belle hesitated. "Pray oblige me, Belle, by +saying siriem." Belle still appeared to hesitate. "You must admit, Belle, +that it is softer than hntam." "It is so," said Belle, "and to oblige +you I will say siriem." "Very well indeed, Belle," said I, "and now to +show you how verbs act upon pronouns in Armenian, I will say siriem +zkiez. Please to repeat siriem zkiez." "Siriem zkiez," said Belle; "that +last word is very hard to say." "Sorry that you think so, Belle," said +I. "Now, please to say siriá zis." Belle did so. "Exceedingly well," +said I. "Now say girani thè sireir zis." "Girane thè sireir zis," said +Belle. "Capital!" said I. "You have now said I love you--love me. Ah! +would that you would love me!" + +'"And I have said all these things?" said Belle. "Yes," said I. "You have +said them in Armenian." "I would have said them in no language that I +understood," said Belle. "And it was very wrong of you to take advantage +of my ignorance, and make me say such things!" "Why so?" said I. "If +you said them, I said them too."' + + 'Was ever woman in this humour wooed?' + +It is, I believe, the opinion of the best critics that _The Bible in +Spain_ is Borrow's masterpiece. It very likely is so. At the present +moment I feel myself even more than usually disqualified for so grave a +consideration by my over-powering delight in its dear, deluding title. A +quarter of a century ago, in all decent homes, a boy's reading was, by +the stern decree of his elders, divided rigorously, though at the same +time it must be admitted crudely, into Sunday books and week-day books. +'What have you got there?' has before now been an inquiry addressed on a +Sunday afternoon to some youngster, suspiciously engrossed in a book. +'Oh, _The Bible in Spain_,' would be the reply. 'It is written by a Mr. +Borrow, you know, and it is all about'--(then the title-page would serve +its turn) 'his attempts "to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula!"' +'Indeed! Sounds most suitable,' answers the gulled authority, some +foolish sisters' governess or the like illiterate, and moves off. And +then the happy boy would wriggle in his chair, and, as if thirsting to +taste the first fruits of his wile, hastily seek out a streaky page, and +there read, for perhaps the hundredth time, the memorable words: + +'"Good are the horses of the Moslems," said my old friend; "where will +you find such? They will descend rocky mountains at full speed, and +neither trip nor fall; but you must be cautious with the horses of the +Moslems, and treat them with kindness, for the horses of the Moslems are +proud, and they like not being slaves. When they are young and first +mounted, jerk not their mouths with your bit, for be sure if you do, +they will kill you; sooner or later, you will perish beneath their feet. +Good are our horses, and good our riders. Yea, very good are the Moslems +at mounting the horse; who are like them? I once saw a Frank rider +compete with a Moslem on this beach, and at first the Frank rider had it +all his own way and he passed the Moslem, but the course was long, very +long, and the horse of the Frank rider, which was a Frank horse also, +panted; but the horse of the Moslem panted not, for he was a Moslem +also, and the Moslem rider at last gave a cry, and the horse sprang +forward and he overtook the Frank horse, and then the Moslem rider stood +up in his saddle. How did he stand? Truly he stood on his head, and +these eyes saw him; he stood on his head in the saddle as he passed the +Frank rider; and he cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank rider; and the +Moslem horse cried ha! ha! as he passed the Frank breed, and the Frank +lost by a far distance. Good are the Franks, good their horses; but +better are the Moslems, and better the horses of the Moslems."' + +That boy, as he lay curled up in his chair, doting over the enchanted +page, knew full well, else had he been no Christian boy, that it was not +a Sunday book which was making his eyes start out of his head; yet, +reckless, he cried, 'ha! ha!' and read on, and as he read he blessed the +madcap Borrow for having called his romance by the sober-sounding, +propitiatory title of _The Bible in Spain_! + + 'Creeds pass, rites change, no altar standeth whole.' + +In a world of dust and ashes it is a foolish thing to prophesy +immortality, or even a long term of years, for any fellow-mortal. Good +luck does not usually pursue such predictions. England can boast few +keener, better-qualified critics than that admirable woman, Mrs. +Barbauld, or, not to dock her of her accustomed sizings, Mrs. Anna +Lætitia Barbauld. And yet what do we find her saying? 'The young may +melt into tears at _Julia Mandeville_, and _The Man of Feeling_, the +romantic will shudder at _Udolpho_, but those of mature age who know +what human nature is, will take up again and again Dr. Moore's +_Zeluco_.' One hates to contradict a lady like Mrs. Barbauld, or to +speak in terms of depreciation of any work of Mrs. Radcliffe's, whose +name is still as a pleasant savour in the nostrils; therefore I will let +_Udolpho_ alone. As for Henry Mackenzie's _Man of Feeling_, what was +good enough for Sir Walter Scott ought surely to be good enough for us, +most days. I am no longer young, and cannot therefore be expected to +melt into tears at _Julia Mandeville_, but here my toleration is +exhausted. Dr. Moore's _Zeluco_ is too much; maturity has many ills to +bear, but repeated perusals of this work cannot fairly be included +amongst them. + +Still, though prediction is to be avoided, it is impossible to feel +otherwise than very cheerful about George Borrow. His is a good life. +Anyhow, he will outlive most people, and that at all events is a +comfort. + + + + + CARDINAL NEWMAN + + I + + +There are some men whose names are inseparably and exclusively +associated with movements; there are others who are for ever united in +human memories with places; it is the happy fortune of the distinguished +man whose name is at the top of this page to be able to make good both +titles to an estate in our minds and hearts; for whilst his fierce +intellectual energy made him the leader of a great movement, his rare +and exquisite tenderness has married his name to a lovely place. +Whenever men's thoughts dwell upon the revival of Church authority in +England and America during this century, they will recall the Vicar of +St. Mary's, Oxford, who lived to become a Cardinal of Rome, and whenever +the lover of all things that are quiet, and gentle, and true in life, +and literature, visits Oxford he will find himself wondering whether +snap-dragon still grows outside the windows of the rooms in Trinity, +where once lived the author of the _Apologia_. + +The Rev. John Wesley was a distinguished man, if ever there was one, and +his name is associated with a movement certainly as remarkable as, and a +great deal more useful than, the one connected with the name of Newman. +Wesley's great missionary tours in Devon and Cornwall, and the wild, +remote parts of Lancashire, lack no single element of sublimity. To this +day the memories of those apostolic journeys are green and precious, and +a source of strength and joy: the portrait of the eager preacher hangs +up in almost every miner's cottage, whilst his name is pronounced with +reverence by a hundred thousand lips. 'You seem a very temperate people +here,' once observed a thirsty pedestrian (who was, indeed, none other +than the present writer) to a Cornish miner, 'how did it happen?' He +replied solemnly, raising his cap, 'There came a man amongst us once, +and his name was John Wesley.' Wesley was an Oxford man, but he is not +much in men's thoughts as they visit that city of enchantment. Why is +this? It is because, great as Wesley was, he lacked charm. As we read +his diaries and letters, we are interested, we are moved, but we are not +pleased. Now, Oxford pleases and charms. Therefore it is, that when we +allow ourselves a day in her quadrangles we find ourselves thinking of +Dr. Newman, and his Trinity snap-dragon, and how the Rev. William James, +'some time in the year 1823,' taught him the doctrine of Apostolic +Succession in the course of a walk round Christchurch Meadow, rather +than of Wesley and his prayer-meetings at Lincoln, which were proclaimed +by the authorities as savouring of sedition. + +A strong personal attachment of the kind which springs up from reading +an author, which is distilled through his pages, and turns his foibles, +even his follies, into pleasant things we would not for the world have +altered, is apt to cause the reader, who is thus affected, to exaggerate +the importance of any intellectual movement with which the author +happened to be associated. There are, I know, people who think this is +notably so in Dr. Newman's case. Crusty men are to be met with, who +rudely say they have heard enough of the Oxford movement, and that the +time is over for penning ecstatic paragraphs about Dr. Newman's personal +appearance in the pulpit at St. Mary's. I think these crusty people are +wrong. The movement was no doubt an odd one in some of its aspects--it +wore a very academic air indeed; and to be academic is to be ridiculous, +in the opinion of many. Our great Northern towns lived their grimy lives +amidst the whirl of their machinery, quite indifferent to the movement. +Our huge Nonconformist bodies knew no more of the University of Oxford +in those days, than they did of the University of Tübingen. This +movement sent no missionaries to the miners, and its tracts were not of +the kind that are served suddenly upon you in the streets like legal +process, but were, in fact, bulky treatises stuffed full of the dead +languages. London, of course, heard about the movement, and, so far as +she was not tickled by the comicality of the notion of anything really +important happening outside her cab-radius, was irritated by it. Mr. +Henry Rogers poked heavy fun at it in the _Edinburgh Review_. Mr. Isaac +Taylor wrote two volumes to prove that ancient Christianity was a +drivelling and childish superstition, and in the opinion of some pious +Churchmen succeeded in doing so. But for the most part people left the +movement alone, unless they happened to be Bishops or very clerically +connected. 'The bishops,' says Dr. Newman, 'began charging against us.' +But bishops' charges are amongst the many seemingly important things +that do not count in England. It is said to be the duty of an archdeacon +to read his bishop's charge, but it is undoubted law that a mandamus +will not be granted to compel him to do so. + +But notwithstanding this aspect of the case, it was a genuine +thought-movement in propagating which these long-coated parsons, with +their dry jokes, strange smiles, and queer notions were engaged. They +used to drive about the country in gigs, from one parsonage to another, +and leave their tracts behind them. They were not concerned with the +flocks--their message was to the shepherds. As for the Dissenters, they +had nothing to say to them, except that their very presence in a parish +was a plenary argument for the necessity of the movement. + +The Tractarians met with the usual fortune of those who peddle new +ideas. Some rectors did not want to be primitive--more did not know what +it meant; but enough were found pathetically anxious to read a meaning +into their services and offices, to make it plain that the Tracts really +were 'for' and not 'against' the times. + +The great plot, plan, or purpose, call it what you will, of the +Tractarian movement was to make Churchmen believe with a personal +conviction that the Church of England was not a mere National +Institution, like the House of Commons or the game of cricket, but a +living branch of that Catholic Church which God had from the beginning, +endowed with sacramental gifts and graces, with a Priesthood +apostolically descended, with a Creed, precise and specific, which it +was the Church's duty to teach, and man's to believe, and with a ritual +and discipline to be practised and maintained, with daily piety and +entire submission. + +These were new ideas in 1833. When Dr. Newman was ordained in 1824, he +has told us, he did not look on ordination as a sacramental rite, nor +did he ascribe to baptism any supernatural virtue. + +It cannot be denied that the Tractarians had their work before them. But +they had forces on their side. + +It is always pleasant to rediscover the meaning of words and forms which +have been dulled by long usage. This is why etymology is so fascinating. +By the natural bent of our minds we are lovers of whatever things are +true and real. We hanker after facts. To get a grip of reality is a +pleasure so keen--most of our faith is so desperate a 'make-believe,' +that it is not to be wondered at that pious folk should have been found +who rejoiced to be told that what they had been saying and doing all the +years of their lives really had a meaning and a history of its own. One +would have to be very unsympathetic not to perceive that the time we are +speaking of must have been a very happy one for many a devout soul. The +dry bones lived--formal devotions were turned into joyous acts of faith +and piety. The Church became a Living Witness to the Truth. She could be +interrogated--she could answer. The old calendar was revived, and +Saint's Day followed Saint's Day, and season season, in the sweet +procession of the Christian Year. Pretty girls got up early, made the +sign of the Cross, and, unscared by devils, tripped across the dewy +meadows to Communion. Grave men read the Fathers, and found themselves +at home in the Fourth Century. + +A great writer had, so it appears, all unconsciously prepared the way +for this Neo-Catholicism. Dr. Newman has never forgotten to pay tribute +to Sir Walter Scott. + +Sir Walter's work has proved to be of so permanent a character, his +insight into all things Scotch so deep and true, and his human worth and +excellence so rare and noble, that it has hardly been worth while to +remember the froth and effervescence he at first occasioned; but that he +did create a movement in the Oxford direction is certain. He made the +old Catholic times interesting. He was not indeed, like the Tractarians, +a man of 'primitive' mind; but he was romantic, and it all told. For +this we have the evidence not only of Dr. Newman (a very nice +observer), but also of the delightful, the bewitching, the never +sufficiently-to-be-praised George Borrow--Borrow, the Friend of Man, at +whose bidding lassitude and languor strike their tents and flee; and +health and spirits, adventure and human comradeship, take up the reins +of life, whistle to the horses, and away you go! + +Borrow has indeed, in the Appendix to the _Romany Rye_, written of Sir +Walter after a fashion for which I hope he has been forgiven. A piece of +invective more terrible, more ungenerous, more savagely and exultingly +cruel, is nowhere to be found. I shudder when I think of it. Had another +written it, nothing he ever wrote should be in the same room with the +_Heart of Midlothian_, _Redgauntlet_, and _The Antiquary_. I am not +going to get angry with George Borrow. I say at once--I cannot afford +it. But neither am I going to quote from the Appendix. God forbid! I can +find elsewhere what will suit my purpose just as well. Readers of +_Lavengro_ will remember the Man in Black. It is hard to forget him, the +scandalous creature, or his story of the ironmonger's daughter at +Birmingham 'who screeches to the piano the Lady of the Lake's hymn to +the Virgin Mary, always weeps when Mary Queen of Scots is mentioned, and +fasts on the anniversary of the death of that very wise martyr, Charles +I. Why, said the Man in Black, I would engage to convert such an idiot +to popery in a week, were it worth my trouble. O Cavaliere Gualtereo, +avete fatto molto in favore della Santa Sede.' + +Another precursor was Coleridge, who (amongst other things) called +attention to the writings of the earlier Anglican divines--some of whom +were men of primitive tempers and Catholic aspirations. Andrews and +Laud, Jackson, Bull, Hammond and Thorndyke--sound divines to a +man--found the dust brushed off them. The second-hand booksellers, a +wily and observant race, became alive to the fact that though Paley and +Warburton, Horsley and Hoadley, were not worth the brown paper they came +wrapped up in, seventeenth-century theology would bear being marked +high. + +Thus was the long Polar Winter that had befallen Anglican theology +broken up, and the icebergs began moving about after a haphazard and +even dangerous fashion--but motion is always something. + +What has come to the Movement? It is hard to say. Its great leader has +written a book of fascinating interest to prove that it was not a +genuine Anglican movement at all; that it was foreign to the National +Church, and that neither was its life derived from, nor was its course +in the direction of, the National Church. But this was after he himself +had joined the Church of Rome. Nobody, however, ventured to contradict +him, nor is this surprising when we remember the profusion of argument +and imagery with which he supported his case. + +A point was reached, and then things were allowed to drop. The Church of +Rome received some distinguished converts with her usual well-bred +composure, and gave them little things to do in their new places. The +Tracts for the Times, neatly bound, repose on many shelves. Tract No. +90, that fierce bomb-shell which once scattered confusion through +clerical circles, is perhaps the only bit of Dr. Newman's writing one +does not, on thinking of, wish to sit down at once to re-read. The fact +is that the movement, as a movement with a terminus _ad quem_, was +fairly beaten by a power fit to be matched with Rome herself--John +Bullism. John Bull could not be got to assume a Catholic demeanour. When +his judges denied that the grace of Baptism was a dogma of his faith, +Bull, instead of behaving as did the people of Milan when Ambrose was +persecuted by an Arian Government, was hugely pleased, clapped his +thigh, and exclaimed, through the mouth of Lord John Russell, that the +ruling was 'sure to give general satisfaction,' as indeed it did. + +The work of the movement can still be seen in the new spirit that has +descended upon the Church of England and in the general heightening of +Church principles; but the movement itself is no longer to be seen, or +much of the temper or modes of thought of the Tractarians. The High +Church clergyman of to-day is no Theologian--he is an Opportunist. The +Tractarian took his stand upon Antiquity--he laboured his points, he was +always ready to prove his Rule of Faith and to define his position. His +successor, though he has appropriated the results of the struggle, does +not trouble to go on waging it. He is as a rule no great reader--you may +often search his scanty library in vain for the works of Bishop Jackson. +Were you to ask for them, it is quite possible he would not know to what +bishop of that name you were referring. He is as hazy about the +Hypostatic Union as are many laymen about the Pragmatic Sanction. He is +all for the People and for filling his Church. The devouring claims of +the Church of Rome do not disturb his peace of mind. He thinks it very +rude of her to dispute the validity of his orders--but, then, foreigners +are rude! And so he goes on his hard-working way, with his high +doctrines and his early services, and has neither time nor inclination +for those studies that lend support to his priestly pretensions. + +This temper of mind has given us peace in our time, and has undoubtedly +promoted the cause of Temperance and other good works; but some day or +another the old questions will have to be gone into again, and the +Anglican claim to be a Church, Visible, Continuous, Catholic, and +Gifted, investigated--probably for the last time. + +Cynics may declare that it will be but a storm in a teacup--a dispute in +which none but 'women, priests, and peers' will be called upon to take +part--but it is not an obviously wise policy to be totally indifferent +to what other people are thinking about--simply because your own +thoughts are running in other directions. + +But all this is really no concern of mine. My object is to call +attention to Dr. Newman's writings from a purely literary point of view. + +The charm of Dr. Newman's style necessarily baffles description: as well +might one seek to analyse the fragrance of a flower, or to expound in +words the jumping of one's heart when a beloved friend unexpectedly +enters the room. It is hard to describe charm. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who +is a poet, gets near it: + + 'And what but gentleness untired, + And what but noble feeling warm, + Wherever seen, howe'er inspired, + Is grace, is charm?' + +One can of course heap on words. Dr. Newman's style is pellucid, it is +animated, it is varied; at times icy cold, it oftener glows with a +fervent heat; it employs as its obedient and well-trained servant, a +vast vocabulary, and it does so always with the ease of the educated +gentleman, who by a sure instinct ever avoids alike the ugly pedantry of +the book-worm, the forbidding accents of the lawyer, and the stiff +conceit of the man of scientific theory. Dr. Newman's sentences +sometimes fall upon the ear like well-considered and final judgments, +each word being weighed and counted out with dignity and precision; but +at other times the demeanour and language of the judge are hastily +abandoned, and, substituted for them, we encounter the impetuous +torrent--the captivating rhetoric, the brilliant imagery, the frequent +examples, the repetition of the same idea in different words, of the +eager and accomplished advocate addressing men of like passions with +himself. + +Dr. Newman always aims at effect, and never misses it. He writes as an +orator speaks, straight at you. His object is to convince, and to +convince by engaging your attention, exciting your interest, enlivening +your fancy. It is not his general practice to address the pure reason. +He knows (he well may) how little reason has to do with men's +convictions. 'I do not want,' he says, 'to be converted by a smart +syllogism.' In another place he observes: 'The heart is commonly reached +not through the reason--but through the imagination by means of direct +impressions, by the testimony of facts and events, by history and by +description. Persons influence us, voices melt us, books subdue us, +deeds inflame us.' I have elsewhere ventured upon a comparison between +Burke and Newman. Both men, despite their subtlety and learning and +super-refinement, their love of fine points and their splendid capacity +for stating them in language so apt as to make one's admiration +breathless, took very broad, common-sense, matter-of-fact views of +humanity, and ever had the ordinary man and woman in mind as they spoke +and wrote. Politics and Religion existed in their opinion, for the +benefit of plain folk, for Richard and for Jane, or, in other words, for +living bundles of hopes and fears, doubts and certainties, prejudices +and passions. Anarchy and Atheism are in their opinion the two great +enemies of the Human Race. How are they to be frustrated and confounded, +men and women being what they are? Dr. Newman, recluse though he is, has +always got the world stretched out before him; its unceasing roar sounds +in his ear as does the murmur of ocean in the far inland shell. In one +of his Catholic Sermons, the sixth of his Discourses to Mixed +Congregations, there is a gorgeous piece of rhetoric in which he +describes the people looking in at the shop-windows and reading +advertisements in the newspapers. Many of his pages positively glow with +light and heat and colour. One is at times reminded of Fielding. And all +this comparing, and distinguishing, and illustrating, and appealing, and +describing, is done with the practised hand of a consummate writer and +orator. He is as subtle as Gladstone, and as moving as Erskine; but +whereas Gladstone is occasionally clumsy and Erskine is frequently +crude, Newman is never clumsy, Newman is never crude, but always +graceful, always mellowed. + +Humour he possesses in a marked degree. A quiet humour, of course, as +befits his sober profession and the gravity of the subjects on which he +loves to discourse. It is not the humour that is founded on a lively +sense of the incongruous. This kind, though the most delightful of all, +is apt, save in the hands of the great masters, the men whom you can +count upon your fingers, to wear a slightly professional aspect. It +happens unexpectedly, but all the same we expect it to happen, and we +have got our laughter ready. Newman's quiet humour always takes us +unawares, and is accepted gratefully, partly on account of its intrinsic +excellence, and partly because we are glad to find that the + + 'Pilgrim pale with Paul's sad girdle bound' + +has room for mirth in his heart. + +In sarcasm Dr. Newman is pre-eminent. Here his extraordinary powers of +compression, which are little short of marvellous in one who has also +such a talent for expansion, come to his aid and enable him to squeeze +into a couple of sentences, pleadings, argument, judgment, and +execution. Had he led the secular life, and adopted a Parliamentary +career, he would have been simply terrific, for his weapons of offence +are both numerous and deadly. His sentences stab--his invective +destroys. The pompous high-placed imbecile mouthing his platitudes, the +wordy sophister with his oven full of half-baked thoughts, the ill-bred +rhetorician with his tawdry aphorisms, the heartless hate-producing +satirist, would have gone down before his sword and spear. But God was +merciful to these sinners: Newman became a Priest and they Privy +Councillors. + +And lastly, all these striking qualities and gifts float about in a +pleasant atmosphere. As there are some days even in England when merely +to go out and breathe the common air is joy, and when, in consequence, +that grim tyrant, our bosom's lord + + 'Sits lightly in his throne,' + +so, to take up almost any one of Dr. Newman's books, and they are +happily numerous--between twenty and thirty volumes--is to be led away +from 'evil tongues,' and the 'sneers of selfish men,' from the mud and +the mire, the shoving and pushing that gather and grow round the +pig-troughs of life, into a diviner ether, a purer air, and is to spend +your time in the company of one who, though he may sometimes astonish, +yet never fails to make you feel (to use Carlyle's words about a very +different author), 'that you have passed your evening well and nobly, as +in a temple of wisdom, not ill and disgracefully as in brawling tavern +supper-rooms with fools and noisy persons.' + +The tendency to be egotistical noticeable in some persons who are free +from the faintest taint of egotism is a tendency hard to account +for--but delightful to watch. + +'Anything,' says glorious John Dryden, 'though ever so little, which a +man speaks of himself--in my opinion, is still too much.' A sound +opinion most surely, and yet how interesting are the personal touches we +find scattered up and down Dryden's noble prefaces. So with Newman--his +dignity, his self-restraint, his taste, are all the greatest stickler +for a stiff upper lip and the consumption of your own smoke could +desire, and yet the personal note is frequently sounded. He is never +afraid to strike it when the perfect harmony that exists between his +character and his style demands its sound, and so it has come about that +we love what he has written because he wrote it, and we love him who +wrote it because of what he has written. + +I now approach by far the pleasantest part of my task, namely, the +selection of two or three passages from Dr. Newman's books by way of +illustrating what I have taken the liberty to say are notable +characteristics of his style. + +Let me begin with a chance specimen of the precision of his language. +The passage is from the prefatory notice the Cardinal prefixed to the +Rev. William Palmer's _Notes of a Visit to the Russian Church in the +Years 1840, 1841_. It is dated 1882, and is consequently the writing of +a man over eighty years of age: 'William Palmer was one of those +earnest-minded and devout men, forty years since, who, deeply convinced +of the great truth that our Lord had instituted, and still acknowledges +and protects, a Visible Church--one, individual, and integral; Catholic, +as spread over the earth, Apostolic, as coeval with the Apostles of +Christ, and Holy, as being the dispenser of His Word and +Sacraments--considered it at present to exist in three main branches, or +rather in a triple presence, the Latin, the Greek, and the Anglican, +these three being one and the same Church distinguishable from each +other by secondary, fortuitous, and local, though important +characteristics. And whereas the whole Church in its fulness was, as +they believed, at once and severally Anglican, Greek, and Latin, so in +turn each one of those three was the whole Church; whence it followed +that, whenever any one of the three was present, the other two, by the +nature of the case, was absent, and therefore the three could not have +direct relations with each other, as if they were three substantive +bodies, there being no real difference between them except the external +accident of place. Moreover, since, as has been said, on a given +territory there could not be more than one of the three, it followed +that Christians generally, wherever they were, were bound to recognise, +and had a claim to be recognised by that one; ceasing to belong to the +Anglican Church, as Anglican, when they were at Rome, and ignoring Rome, +as Rome, when they found themselves at Moscow. Lastly, not to +acknowledge this inevitable outcome of the initial idea of the Church, +viz., that it was both everywhere and one, was bad logic, and to act in +opposition to it was nothing short of setting up altar against altar, +that is, the hideous sin of schism, and a sacrilege. This I conceive to +be the formal teaching of Anglicanism.' + +The most carefully considered judgments of Lord Westbury or Lord Cairns +may be searched in vain for finer examples of stern accuracy and +beautiful aptness of language. + +For examples of what may be called Newman's oratorical rush, one has not +far to look--though when torn from their context and deprived of their +conclusion they are robbed of three-fourths of their power. Here is a +passage from his second lecture addressed to the Anglican Party of 1833. +It is on the Life of the National Church of England. + +'Doubtless the National religion is alive. It is a great power in the +midst of us, it wields an enormous influence; it represses a hundred +foes; it conducts a hundred undertakings; it attracts men to it, uses +them, rewards them; it has thousands of beautiful homes up and down the +country where quiet men may do its work and benefit its people; it +collects vast sums in the shape of voluntary offerings, and with them it +builds Churches, prints and distributes innumerable Bibles, books, and +tracts, and sustains missionaries in all parts of the earth. In all +parts of the earth it opposes the Catholic Church, denounces her as +anti-christian, bribes the world against her, obstructs her influence, +apes her authority, and confuses her evidence. In all parts of the world +it is the religion of gentlemen, of scholars, of men of substance, and +men of no personal faith at all. If this be life, if it be life to +impart a tone to the Court and Houses of Parliament, to Ministers of +State, to law and literature, to universities and schools, and to +society, if it be life to be a principle of order in the population, and +an organ of benevolence and almsgiving towards the poor, if it be life +to make men decent, respectable, and sensible, to embellish and reform +the family circle, to deprive vice of its grossness and to shed a glow +over avarice and ambition; if, indeed, it is the life of religion to be +the first jewel in the Queen's crown, and the highest step of her +throne, then doubtless the National Church is replete, it overflows with +life; but the question has still to be answered: life of what kind?' + +For a delightful example of Dr. Newman's humour, which is largely, if +not entirely, a playful humour, I will remind the reader of the +celebrated imaginary speech against the British Constitution attributed +to 'a member of the junior branch of the Potemkin family,' and supposed +to have been delivered at Moscow in the year 1850. It is too long for +quotation, but will be found in the first of the _Lectures on the +Present Position of Catholics in England_. The whole book is one of the +best humoured books in the English language. + +Of his sarcasm, the following example, well-known as it is, must be +given. It occurs in the _Essay on the Prospects of the Anglican Church_, +which is reprinted from the _British Critic_ in the first volume of the +_Essays Critical and Historical_. + +'In the present day mistiness is the mother of wisdom. A man who can set +down half a dozen general propositions, which escape from destroying one +another only by being diluted into truisms, who can hold the balance +between opposites so skilfully as to do without fulcrum or beam, who +never enunciates a truth without guarding himself from being supposed to +exclude the contradictory, who holds that Scripture is the only +authority--yet that the Church is to be deferred to, that faith only +justifies, yet that it does not justify without works, that grace does +not depend on the sacraments, yet is not given without them, that +bishops are a divine ordinance--yet those who have them not are in the +same religious condition as those who have--this is your safe man and +the hope of the Church; this is what the Church is said to want, not +party men, but sensible, temperate, sober, well-judging persons to guide +it through the channel of No-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis +of Aye and No. But, alas! reading sets men thinking. They will not keep +standing in that very attitude, which you please to call sound +Church-of-Englandism or orthodox Protestantism. It tires them, it is so +very awkward, and for the life of them--they cannot continue in it long +together, where there is neither article nor canon to lean against--they +cannot go on for ever standing on one leg, or sitting without a chair, +or walking with their legs tied, or grazing like Tityrus's stags on the +air. Promises imply conclusions--germs lead to developments; principles +have issues; doctrines lead to action.' + +Of the personal note to which I have made reference--no examples need +or should be given. Such things must not be transplanted from their own +homes. + + 'The delicate shells lay on the shore; + The bubbles of the latest wave + Fresh pearl to their enamel gave; + And the bellowing of the savage sea + Greeted their safe escape to me. + I wiped away the weeds and foam + And brought my sea-born treasures home: + But the poor, unsightly noisome things + Had left their beauty on the shore, + With the sun and the sand and the wild uproar.' + +If I may suppose this paper read by someone who is not yet acquainted +with Newman's writings I would advise him, unless he is bent on +theology, to begin not with the _Sermons_, not even with the _Apologia_, +but with the _Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England_. +Then let him take up the _Lectures on the Idea of an University_, and on +_University Subjects_. These may be followed by _Discussions and +Arguments_, after which he will be well disposed to read the _Lectures +on the Difficulties felt by Anglicans_. If after he has despatched these +volumes he is not infected with what one of those charging Bishops +called 'Newmania,' he is possessed of a devil of obtuseness no wit of +man can expel. + +Of the strength of Dr. Newman's philosophical position, which he has +explained in his _Grammar of Assent_, it would ill become me to speak. +He there strikes the shield of John Locke. _Non nostrum est tantas +componere lites._ But it is difficult for the most ignorant of us not to +have shy notions and lurking suspicions even about such big subjects and +great men. Locke maintained that a man's belief in a proposition really +depended upon and bore a relation to the weight of evidence forthcoming +in its favour. Dr. Newman asserts that certainty is a quality of +propositions, and he has discovered in man 'an illative sense' whereby +conclusions are converted into dogmas and a measured concurrence into an +unlimited and absolute assurance. This illative sense is hardly a thing +(if I may use an expression for ever associated with Lord Macaulay) to +be cocksure about. Wedges, said the mediæval mechanic to his pupils, +split wood by virtue of a wood-splitting quality in wedges--but now we +are indisposed to endow wedges with qualities, and if not wedges, why +propositions? But the _Grammar of Assent_ is a beautiful book, and with +a quotation from it I will close my quotations: 'Thus it is that +Christianity is the fulfilment of the promise made to Abraham and of the +Mosaic revelations; this is how it has been able from the first to +occupy the world, and gain a hold on every class of human society to +which its preachers reached; this is why the Roman power and the +multitude of religions which it embraced could not stand against it; +this is the secret of its sustained energy, and its never-flagging +martyrdoms; this is how at present it is so mysteriously potent, in +spite of the new and fearful adversaries which beset its path. It has +with it that gift of stanching and healing the one deep wound of human +nature, which avails more for its success than a full encyclopædia of +scientific knowledge and a whole library of controversy, and therefore +it must last while human nature lasts.' + +It is fitting that our last quotation should be one which leaves the +Cardinal face to face with his faith. + +Dr. Newman's poetry cannot be passed over without a word, though I am +ill-fitted to do it justice. _Lead, Kindly Light_ has forced its way +into every hymn-book and heart. Those who go, and those who do not go to +church, the fervent believer and the tired-out sceptic here meet on +common ground. The language of the verses in their intense sincerity +seems to reduce all human feelings, whether fed on dogmas and holy rites +or on man's own sad heart, to a common denominator. + + 'The night is dark, and I am far from home, + Lead Thou me on.' + +The believer can often say no more. The unbeliever will never willingly +say less. + +Amongst Dr. Newman's _Verses on Various Occasions_--though in some cases +the earlier versions to be met with in the _Lyra Apostolica_ are to be +preferred to the later--poems will be found by those who seek, conveying +sure and certain evidence of the possession by the poet of the true +lyrical gift--though almost cruelly controlled by the course of the +poet's thoughts and the nature of his subjects. One is sometimes +constrained to cry, 'Oh, if he could only get out into the wild blowing +airs, how his pinions would sweep the skies!' but such thoughts are +unlicensed and unseemly. That we have two such religious poets as +Cardinal Newman and Miss Christina Rossetti is or ought to be matter for +sincere rejoicing. + + + II + +To the inveterate truth-hunter there has been much of melancholy in the +very numerous estimates, hasty estimates no doubt, but all manifestly +sincere, which the death of Cardinal Newman has occasioned. + +The nobility of the pursuit after truth wherever the pursuit may lead +has been abundantly recognised. Nobody has been base enough or cynical +enough to venture upon a sneer. It has been marvellous to notice what a +hold an unpopular thinker, dwelling very far apart from the trodden +paths of English life and thought, had obtained upon men's imaginations. +The 'man in the street' was to be heard declaring that the dead Cardinal +was a fine fellow. The newspaper-makers were astonished at the interest +displayed by their readers. How many of these honest mourners, asked the +_Globe_, have read a page of Newman's writings? It is a vain inquiry. +Newman's books have long had a large and increasing sale. They stand on +all sorts of shelves, and wherever they go a still, small voice +accompanies them. They are speaking books; an air breathes from their +pages. + + 'Again I saw and I confess'd + Thy speech was rare and high, + And yet it vex'd my burden'd breast, + And scared I knew not why.' + +It is a strange criticism that recently declared Newman's style to lack +individuality. Oddity it lacked, and mannerisms, but not, so it seems to +me, individuality. + +But this wide recognition of Newman's charm both of character and style +cannot conceal from the anxious truth-hunter that there has been an +almost equally wide recognition of the futility of Newman's method and +position. + +Method and position? These were sacred words with the Cardinal. But a +few days ago he seemed securely posed before the world. It cannot +surely have been his unrivalled dialectics only that made men keep civil +tongues in their heads or hesitate to try conclusions with him. It was +rather, we presume, that there was no especial occasion to speak of him +otherwise than with the respect and affection due to honoured age. But +when he is dead--it is different. It is necessary then to gauge his +method and to estimate his influence, not as a living man, but as a dead +one. + +And what has that estimate been? The saintly life, the mysterious +presence, are admitted, and well-nigh nothing else. All sorts of reasons +are named, some plausible, all cunningly contrived, to account for +Newman's quarrel with the Church of his baptism. A writer in the +_Guardian_ suggests one, a writer in the _Times_ another, a writer in +the _Saturday Review_ a third, and so on. + +However much these reasons may differ one from another, they all agree +in this, that of necessity they have ceased to operate. They were +personal reasons, and perished with the man whose faith and actions they +controlled. Nobody else, it has been throughout assumed, will become a +Romanist for the same reasons as John Henry Newman. If he had not been +brought up an Evangelical, if he had learnt German, if he had married, +if he had been made an archdeacon, all would have been different. + +There is something positively terrible in this natural history of +opinion. All the passion and the pleading of a life, the thought, and +the labour, the sustained argument, the library of books, reduced to +what?--a series of accidents! + +Newman himself well knew this aspect of affairs. No one's plummet since +Pascal's had taken deeper soundings of the infirmity--the oceanic +infirmity--of the intellect. What actuary, he asks contemptuously, can +appraise the value of a man's opinions? In how many a superb passage +does he exhibit the absurd, the haphazard fashion in which men and women +collect the odds and ends, the bits and scraps they are pleased to place +in the museum of their minds, and label, in all good faith, their +convictions! Newman almost revels in such subjects. The solemn pomposity +which so frequently dignifies with the name of research or inquiry +feeble scratchings amongst heaps of verbosity had no more determined foe +than the Cardinal. + +But now the same measure is being meted out to him, and we are told of a +thinker's life--it is nought. + +He thought he had constructed a way of escape from the City of +Destruction for himself and his followers across the bridge of that +illative sense which turns conclusions into assents, and opinions into +faiths--but the bridge seems no longer standing. + +The writer in the _Guardian_, who attributes Newman's restlessness in +the English Church to the smug and comfortable life of many of its +clergy rather than to any especial craving after authority, no doubt +wrote with knowledge. + +A married clergy seemed always to annoy Newman. Readers of _Loss and +Gain_ are not likely to forget the famous 'pork chop' passage, which +describes a young parson and his bride bustling into a stationer's shop +to buy hymnals and tracts. What was once only annoyance at some of the +ways of John Bull on his knees, soon ripened into something not very +unlike hatred. Never was any invention less _ben trovato_ than that +which used to describe Newman as pining after the 'incomparable liturgy' +or the 'cultured society' of the Church of England. He hated _ex animo_ +all those aspects of Anglicanism which best recommend it to Erastian +minds. A church of which sanctity is _not_ a note is sure to have many +friends. + +The _Saturday Review_ struck up a fine national tune: + +'An intense but narrow conception of personal holiness, and personal +satisfaction with dogma, ate him (Newman) up--the natural legacy of the +Evangelical school in which he had been nursed, the great tradition of +Tory churchmanship, _of pride in the Church of England, as such_, of +determination to stand shoulder to shoulder in resisting the foreigner, +whether he came from Rome or from Geneva, from Tübingen, or from Saint +Sulpice, of the union of all social and intellectual culture with +theological learning--the idea which, alone of all such ideas, has made +education patriotic, and orthodoxy generous, made insufficient appeal to +him, and for want of it he himself made shipwreck.' + +Here is John Bullism, bold and erect. If the Ark of Peter won't hoist +the Union Jack, John Bull must have an Ark of his own, with patriotic +clergy of his own manufacture tugging at the oar, and with nothing +foreign in the hold save some sound old port. 'It will always be +remembered to Newman's credit,' says this same reviewer, 'that he knew +good wine if he did not drink much.' Mark the 'If'; there is much virtue +in it. + +We are now provided with two causes of Newman's discomfort in the Church +of England--its too comfortable clergy, and its too frequent +introduction of the lion and the unicorn amongst the symbols of +religion--both effective causes, as may be proved by many passages; but +to say that either or both availed to drive him out, and compelled him +to seek shelter at the hands of one whom he had long regarded as a foe, +is to go very far indeed. + +It should not be overlooked that these minimisers of Newman's influence +are all firmly attached for different reasons to the institution Newman +left. Their judgments therefore cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged. +What Disraeli meant when he said that Newman's secession had dealt the +Church of England a blow under which it still reeled, was that by this +act Newman expressed before the whole world his profound conviction that +our so-called National Church was not a branch of the Church Catholic. +And this really is the point of weakness upon which Newman hurled +himself. This is the damage he did to the Church of this island. +Throughout all his writings, in a hundred places, in jests and sarcasms +as well as in papers and arguments, there crops up this settled +conviction that England is not a Catholic country, and that John Bull is +not a member of the Catholic Church. + +This may not matter much to the British electorate; but to those who +care about such things, who rely upon the validity of orders and the +efficacy of sacraments, who need a pedigree for their faith, who do not +agree with Emerson that if a man would be great he must be a +Nonconformist--over these people it would be rash to assume that +Newman's influence is spent. The general effect of his writings, the +demands they awaken, the spirit they breathe, are all hostile to +Anglicanism. They create a profound dissatisfaction with, a distaste +for, the Church of England as by law established. Those who are affected +by this spirit will no longer be able comfortably to enjoy the maimed +rites and practices of their Church. They will feel their place is +elsewhere, and sooner or later they will pack up and go. It is far too +early in the day to leave Newman out of sight. + +But to end where we began. There has been scant recognition in the +Cardinal's case of the usefulness of devoting life to anxious inquiries +after truth. It is very noble to do so, and when you come to die, the +newspapers, from the _Times_ to the _Sporting Life_, will first point +out, after their superior fashion, how much better was this pure-minded +and unworldly thinker than the soiled politician, full of opportunism +and inconsistency, trying hard to drown the echoes of his past with his +loud vociferations, and then proceed in a few short sentences to +establish how out of date is this Thinker's thought, how false his +reasoning, how impossible his conclusions, and lastly, how dead his +influence. + +It is very puzzling and difficult, and drives some men to collect +butterflies and beetles. Thinkers are not, however, to be disposed of by +scratches of the pen. A Cardinal of the Roman Church is not, to say the +least of it, more obviously a shipwreck than a dean or even a bishop of +the English establishment. Character, too, counts for something. Of +Newman it may be said: + + 'Fate gave what chance shall not control, + His sad lucidity of soul.' + +But the truth-hunter is still unsatisfied. + + + + + MATTHEW ARNOLD + + I + + +The news of Mr. Arnold's sudden death at Liverpool struck a chill into +many hearts, for although a somewhat constrained writer (despite his +playfulness) and certainly the least boisterous of men, he was yet most +distinctly on the side of human enjoyment. He conspired and contrived to +make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was a man of this life +and this world. A severe critic of the world he indeed was, but finding +himself in it and not precisely knowing what is beyond it, like a brave +and true-hearted man he set himself to make the best of it. Its sight +and sounds were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling fern,' the eternal +moon-lit snow, 'Sweet William with its homely cottage-smell,' 'the red +grouse springing at our sound,' the tinkling bells of the +'high-pasturing kine,' the vagaries of men, women, and dogs, their odd +ways and tricks, whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, +tickled him. Human loves, joys, sorrows, human relationships, ordinary +ties interested him: + + 'The help in strife, + The thousand sweet still joys of such + As hand in hand face earthly life.' + +In a sense of the words which is noble and blessed, he was of the Earth +Earthy. + +In his earlier days Mr. Arnold was much misunderstood. That rowdy +Philistine the _Daily Telegraph_ called him 'a prophet of the kid-glove +persuasion,' and his own too frequent iteration of the somewhat +dandiacal phrase 'sweetness and light' helped to promote the notion that +he was a fanciful, finikin Oxonian, + + 'A fine puss gentleman that's all perfume,' + +quite unfit for the most ordinary wear and tear of life. He was in +reality nothing of the kind, though his literary style was a little in +keeping with this false conception. His mind was based on the plainest +possible things. What he hated most was the fantastic--the far-fetched, +all elaborated fancies, and strained interpretations. He stuck to the +beaten track of human experience, and the broader the better. He was a +plain-sailing man. This is his true note. In his much criticised, but as +I think admirable introduction to the selection he made from +Wordsworth's poems, he admits that the famous _Ode on Intimations of +Immortality from Recollections in Early Childhood_ is not one of his +prime favourites, and in that connection he quotes from Thucydides the +following judgment on the early exploits of the Greek Race and applies +it to these intimations of immortality in babies. 'It is impossible to +speak with certainty of what is so remote, but from all that we can +really investigate I should say that they were no very great things.' + +This quotation is in Mr. Arnold's own vein. His readers will have no +difficulty in calling to mind numerous instances in which his dislike of +everything not broadly based on the generally admitted facts of sane +experience manifests itself. Though fond--perhaps exceptionally +fond--of pretty things and sayings, he had a severe taste, and hated +whatever struck him as being in the least degree sickly, or silly, or +over-heated. No doubt he may often have considered that to be sickly or +silly which in the opinion of others was pious and becoming. It may be +that he was over-impatient of men's flirtations with futurity. As his +paper on Professor Dowden's Life of Shelley shows, he disapproved of +'irregular relations.' He considered we were all married to plain Fact, +and objected to our carrying on a flirtation with mystic maybe's and +calling it Religion. Had it been a man's duty to believe in a specific +revelation it would have been God's duty to make that revelation +credible. Such, at all events, would appear to have been the opinion of +this remarkable man, who though he had even more than his share of an +Oxonian's reverence for the great Bishop of Durham, was unable to admit +the force of the main argument of _The Analogy_. Mr. Arnold was indeed +too fond of parading his inability for hard reasoning. I am not, he +keeps saying, like the Archbishop of York, or the Bishop of Gloucester +and Bristol. There was affectation about this, for his professed +inferiority did not prevent him from making it almost excruciatingly +clear that in his opinion those gifted prelates were, whilst exercising +their extraordinary powers, only beating the air, or in plainer words +busily engaged in talking nonsense. But I must not wander from my point, +which simply is that Arnold's dislike of anything recondite or remote +was intense, genuine, and characteristic. + +He always asserted himself to be a good Liberal. So in truth he was. A +better Liberal than many a one whose claim to that title it would be +thought absurd to dispute. He did not indeed care very much about some +of the articles of the Liberal creed as now professed. He had taken a +great dislike to the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. He wished the Church +and the State to continue to recognise each other. He had not that +jealousy of State interference in England which used to be (it is so no +longer) a note of political Liberalism. He sympathised with Italian +national aspirations because he thought it wrong to expect a country +with such a past as Italy to cast in her lot with Austria. He did not +sympathise with Irish national aspirations because he thought Ireland +ought to be willing to admit that she was relatively to England an +inferior and less interesting country, and therefore one which had no +moral claim for national institutions. He may have been right or wrong +on these points without affecting his claim to be considered a Liberal. +Liberalism is not a creed, but a frame of mind. Mr. Arnold's frame of +mind was Liberal. No living man is more deeply permeated with the grand +doctrine of Equality than was he. He wished to see his countrymen and +countrywomen all equal: Jack as good as his master, and Jack's master as +good as Jack; and neither taking claptrap. He had a hearty un-English +dislike of anomalies and absurdities. He fully appreciated the French +Revolution and was consequently a Democrat. He was not a democrat from +irresistible impulse, or from love of mischief, or from hatred of +priests, or like the average British workman from a not unnatural +desire to get something on account of his share of the family +inheritance--but all roads lead to Rome, and Mr. Arnold was a democrat +from a sober and partly sorrowful conviction that no other form of +government was possible. He was an Educationalist, and Education is the +true Leveller. His almost passionate cry for better middle-class +education arose from his annoyance at the exclusion of large numbers of +this great class from the best education the country afforded. It was a +ticklish job telling this great, wealthy, middle class--which according +to the newspapers had made England what she is and what everybody else +wishes to be--that it was, from an educational point of view, beneath +contempt. 'I hear with surprise,' said Sir Thomas Bazley at Manchester, +'that the education of our great middle class requires improvement.' But +Mr. Arnold had courage. Indeed he carried one kind of courage to an +heroic pitch. I mean the courage of repeating yourself over and over +again. It is a sound forensic maxim: Tell a judge twice whatever you +want him to hear. Tell a special jury thrice, and a common jury +half-a-dozen times the view of a case you wish them to entertain. Mr. +Arnold treated the middle class as a common jury and hammered away at +them remorselessly and with the most unblushing iteration. They groaned +under him, they snorted, and they sniffed--but they listened, and, what +was more to the purpose, their children listened, and with filial +frankness told their heavy sires that Mr. Arnold was quite right, and +that their lives were dull, and hideous, and arid, even as he described +them as being. Mr. Arnold's work as a School Inspector gave him great +opportunities of going about amongst all classes of the people. Though +not exactly apostolic in manner or method, he had something to say both +to and of everybody. The aristocracy were polite and had ways he +admired, but they were impotent of ideas and had a dangerous tendency to +become studiously frivolous. Consequently the Future did not belong to +them. Get ideas and study gravity, was the substance of his discourse to +the Barbarians, as, with that trick of his of miscalling God's +creatures, he had the effrontery to dub our adorable nobility. But it +was the middle class upon whom fell the full weight of his discourse. +His sermons to them would fill a volume. Their great need was culture, +which he declared to be _a study of perfection_, the sentiment for +beauty and sweetness, the sentiment against hideousness and rawness. The +middle class, he protested, needed to know all the best things that have +been said and done in the world since it began, and to be thereby lifted +out of their holes and corners, private academies and chapels in side +streets, above their tenth-rate books and miserable preferences, into +the main stream of national existence. The lower orders he judged to be +a mere rabble, and thought it was as yet impossible to predict whether +or not they would hereafter display any aptitude for Ideas, or passion +for Perfection. But in the meantime he bade them learn to cohere, and to +read and write, and above all he conjured them not to imitate the middle +classes. + +It is not easy to know everything about everybody, and it may be doubted +whether Mr. Arnold did not over-rate the degree of acquaintance with +his countrymen his peregrinations among them had conferred upon him. In +certain circles he was supposed to have made the completest possible +diagnosis of dissent, and was credited with being able, after five +minutes' conversation with any individual Nonconformist, unerringly to +assign him to his particular chapel, Independent, Baptist, Primitive +Methodist, Unitarian, or whatever else it might be, and this though they +had only been talking about the weather. To people who know nothing +about dissenters, Mr. Arnold might well seem to know everything. +However, he did know a great deal, and used his knowledge with great +cunning and effect, and a fine instinctive sense of the whereabouts of +the weakest points. Mr. Arnold's sense for equality and solidarity was +not impeded by any exclusive tastes or hobbies. Your collector, even +though it be but of butterflies, is rarely a democrat. One of Arnold's +favourite lines in Wordsworth was-- + + 'Joy that is in widest commonalty spread.' + +The collector's joys are not of that kind. Mr. Arnold was not, I +believe, a collector of anything. He certainly was not of books. I once +told him I had been reading a pamphlet, written by him in 1859, on the +Italian Question. He inquired how I came across it. I said I had picked +it up in a shop. 'Oh, yes,' said he, 'some old curiosity shop, I +suppose.' Nor was he joking. He seemed quite to suppose that old books, +and old clothes, and old chairs were huddled together for sale in the +same resort of the curious. He did not care about such things. The +prices given for the early editions of his own poems seemed to tease +him. His literary taste was broadly democratic. He had no mind for +fished-up authors, nor did he ever indulge in swaggering rhapsodies over +second-rate poets. The best was good enough for him. 'The best poetry' +was what he wanted, 'a clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and +of the strength and joy to be drawn from it.' So he wrote in his general +introduction to Mr. Ward's _Selections from the English Poets_. The best +of everything for everybody. This was his gospel and his prayer. + +Approaching Mr. Arnold's writings more nearly, it seems inevitable to +divide them into three classes. His poems, his theological excursions, +and his criticism, using the last word in a wide sense as including a +criticism of life and of politics as well as of books and style. + +Of Mr. Arnold's poetry it is hard for anyone who has felt it to the full +during the most impressionable period of life to speak without emotion +overcoming reason. + + 'Hardly shall I tell my joys and sorrows, + Hopes and fears, belief and unbelieving.' + +It is easy to admit, in general terms, its limitations. Mr. Arnold is +the last man in the world anybody would wish to shove out of his place. +A poet at all points, armed cap-a-pie against criticism, like Lord +Tennyson, he certainly was not. Nor had his verse any share of the +boundless vitality, the fierce pulsation so nobly characteristic of Mr. +Browning. But these admissions made, we decline to parley any further +with the enemy. We cast him behind us. Mr. Arnold, to those who cared +for him at all, was the most _useful_ poet of his day. He lived much +nearer us than poets of his distinction usually do. He was neither a +prophet nor a recluse. He lived neither above us, nor away from us. +There are two ways of being a recluse--a poet may live remote from men, +or he may live in a crowded street but remote from their thoughts. Mr. +Arnold did neither, and consequently his verse tells and tingles. None +of it is thrown away. His readers feel that he bore the same yoke as +themselves. Theirs is a common bondage with his. Beautiful, surpassingly +beautiful some of Mr. Arnold's poetry is, but we seize upon the +_thought_ first and delight in the _form_ afterwards. No doubt the form +is an extraordinary comfort, for the thoughts are often, as thoughts so +widely spread could not fail to be, the very thoughts that are too +frequently expressed rudely, crudely, indelicately. To open Mr. Arnold's +poems is to escape from a heated atmosphere and a company not wholly +free from offence even though composed of those who share our +opinions--from loud-mouthed random talking men into a well-shaded +retreat which seems able to impart, even to our feverish persuasions +and crude conclusions, something of the coolness of falling water, +something of the music of rustling trees. This union of thought, +substantive thought, with beauty of form--of strength with elegance, is +rare. I doubt very much whether Mr. Arnold ever realised the devotedness +his verse inspired in the minds of thousands of his countrymen and +countrywomen, both in the old world and the new. He is not a bulky poet. +Three volumes contain him. But hardly a page can be opened without the +eye lighting on verse which at one time or another has been, either to +you or to someone dear to you, strength or joy. _The Buried Life_, _A +Southern Night_, _Dover Beach_, _A Wanderer is Man from his Birth_, +_Rugby Chapel_, _Resignation_. How easy to prolong the list, and what a +list it is! Their very names are dear to us even as are the names of +Mother Churches and Holy Places to the Votaries of the old Religion. I +read the other day in the _Spectator_ newspaper, an assertion that Mr. +Arnold's poetry had never consoled anybody. A falser statement was never +made innocently. It may never have consoled the writer in the +_Spectator_, but because the stomach of a dram-drinker rejects cold +water is no kind of reason for a sober man abandoning his morning +tumbler of the pure element. Mr. Arnold's poetry has been found full of +consolation. It would be strange if it had not been. It is + + 'No stretched metre of an antique song,' + +but quick and to the point. There are finer sonnets in the English +language than the two following, but there are no better sermons. And if +it be said that sermons may be found in stones, but ought not to be in +sonnets, I fall back upon the fact which Mr. Arnold himself so +cheerfully admitted, that the middle classes, who in England, at all +events, are Mr. Arnold's chief readers, are serious, and love sermons. +Some day perhaps they will be content with metrical exercises, ballades, +and roundels. + + 'EAST LONDON + + ''Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead + Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, + And the pale weaver, through his windows seen + In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited. + + 'I met a preacher there I knew, and said: + "Ill and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene?" + "Bravely!" said he; "for I of late have been + Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, _the living bread_." + + 'O human soul! as long as thou canst so + Set up a mark of everlasting light, + Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, + To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam-- + Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night! + Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home.' + + 'THE BETTER PART + + 'Long fed on boundless hopes, O race of man, + How angrily thou spurn'st all simpler fare! + "Christ," some one says, "was human as we are; + No judge eyes us from Heaven, our sin to scan; + + '"We live no more, when we have done our span."-- + "Well, then, for Christ," thou answerest, "who can care? + From Sin, which Heaven records not, why forbear? + Live we like brutes our life without a plan!" + + 'So answerest thou; but why not rather say: + "Hath man no second life?--_Pitch this one high!_ + Sits there no judge in Heaven, our sin to see? + + '"_More strictly, then, the inward judge obey!_ + Was Christ a man like us?--_Ah! let us try + If we then, too, can be such men as he!_"' + +Mr. Arnold's love of nature, and poetic treatment of nature, was to many +a vexed soul a great joy and an intense relief. Mr. Arnold was a +genuine Wordsworthian--being able to read everything Wordsworth ever +wrote except _Vaudracour and Julia_. The influence of Wordsworth upon +him was immense, but he was enabled, by the order of his mind, to reject +with the heartiest goodwill the cloudy pantheism which robs so much of +Wordsworth's best verse of the heightened charm of reality, for, after +all, poetry, like religion, must be true, or it is nothing. This strong +aversion to the unreal also prevented Mr. Arnold, despite his love of +the classical forms, from a nonsensical neo-paganism. His was a manlier +attitude. He had no desire to keep tugging at the dry breasts of an +outworn creed, nor any disposition to go down on his knees, or _hunkers_ +as the Scotch more humorously call them, before plaster casts of Venus, +or even of 'Proteus rising from the sea.' There was something very +refreshing about this. In the long run even a gloomy truth is better +company than a cheerful falsehood. The perpetual strain of living down +to a lie, the depressing atmosphere of a circumscribed intelligence +tell upon the system, and the cheerful falsehood soon begins to look +puffy and dissipated. + + 'THE YOUTH OF NATURE. + + 'For, oh! is it you, is it you, + Moonlight, and shadow, and lake, + And mountains, that fill us with joy, + Or the poet who sings you so well? + . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . + More than the singer are these + . . . . . . . + . . . . . . . + Yourselves and your fellows ye know not; and me, + The mateless, the one, will ye know? + Will ye scan me, and read me, and tell + Of the thoughts that ferment in my breast, + My longing, my sadness, my joy? + Will ye claim for your great ones the gift + To have rendered the gleam of my skies, + To have echoed the moan of my seas, + Uttered the voice of my hills? + When your great ones depart, will ye say: + _All things have suffered a loss, + Nature is hid in their grave?_ + + Race after race, man after man, + Have thought that my secret was theirs, + Have dream'd that I lived but for them, + That they were my glory and joy. + They are dust, they are changed, they are gone! + I remain.' + +When a poet is dead we turn to his verse with quickened feelings. He +rests from his labours. We still + + 'Stem across the sea of life by night,' + +and the voice, once the voice of the living, of one who stood by our +side, has for a while an unfamiliar accent, coming to us as it does no +longer from our friendly earth but from the strange cold caverns of +death. + + 'Joy comes and goes, hope ebbs and flows + Like the wave, + Change doth unknit the tranquil strength of men. + Love lends life a little grace, + A few sad smiles; and then, + Both are laid in one cold place, + In the grave. + + 'Dreams dawn and fly, friends smile and die + Like spring flowers; + Our vaunted life is one long funeral. + Men dig graves with bitter tears + For their dead hopes; and all, + Mazed with doubts and sick with fears, + Count the hours. + + 'We count the hours! These dreams of ours, + False and hollow, + Do we go hence and find they are not dead? + Joys we dimly apprehend, + Faces that smiled and fled, + Hopes born here, and born to end, + Shall we follow?' + +In a poem like this Mr. Arnold is seen at his best; he fairly forces +himself into the very front ranks. In form almost equal to Shelley, or +at any rate not so very far behind him, whilst of course in reality, in +wholesome thought, in the pleasures that are afforded by thinking, it is +of incomparable excellence. + +We die as we do, not as we would. Yet on reading again Mr. Arnold's +_Wish_, we feel that the manner of his death was much to his mind. + + 'A WISH. + + 'I ask not that my bed of death + From bands of greedy heirs be free: + For these besiege the latest breath + Of fortune's favoured sons, not me. + + 'I ask not each kind soul to keep + Tearless, when of my death he hears. + Let those who will, if any--weep! + There are worse plagues on earth than tears. + + 'I ask but that my death may find + The freedom to my life denied; + Ask but the folly of mankind + Then--then at last to quit my side. + + 'Spare me the whispering, crowded room, + The friends who come, and gape, and go; + The ceremonious air of gloom-- + All, which makes death a hideous show! + + 'Nor bring to see me cease to live + Some doctor full of phrase and fame + To shake his sapient head and give + The ill he cannot cure a name. + + 'Nor fetch to take the accustom'd toll + Of the poor sinner bound for death + His brother-doctor of the soul + To canvass with official breath + + 'The future and its viewless things-- + That undiscover'd mystery + Which one who feels death's winnowing wings + Must needs read clearer, sure, than he! + + 'Bring none of these; but let me be + While all around in silence lies, + Moved to the window near, and see + Once more before my dying eyes, + + 'Bathed in the sacred dews of morn + The wide aerial landscape spread-- + The world which was ere I was born, + The world which lasts when I am dead. + + 'Which never was the friend of _one_, + Nor promised love it could not give, + But lit for all its generous sun + And lived itself and made us live. + + 'Then let me gaze--till I become + In soul, with what I gaze on, wed! + To feel the universe my home; + To have before my mind--instead + + 'Of the sick room, the mortal strife, + The turmoil for a little breath-- + The pure eternal course of life, + Not human combatings with death! + + 'Thus feeling, gazing, let me grow + Composed, refresh'd, ennobled, clear-- + Then willing let my spirit go + To work or wait, elsewhere or here!' + +To turn from Arnold's poetry to his theological writings--if so grim a +name can be given to these productions--from _Rugby Chapel_ to +_Literature and Dogma_, from _Obermann_ to _God and the Bible_, from +_Empedocles on Etna_ to _St. Paul and Protestantism_, is to descend from +the lofty table-lands, + + 'From the dragon-warder'd fountains + Where the springs of knowledge are, + From the watchers on the mountains + And the bright and morning star,' + +to the dusty highroad. It cannot, I think, be asserted that either the +plan or the style of these books was in keeping with their subjects. It +was characteristic of Mr. Arnold, and like his practical turn of mind, +to begin _Literature and Dogma_ in the _Cornhill Magazine_. A book +rarely shakes off the first draft--_Literature and Dogma_ never did. It +is full of repetitions and wearisome recapitulations, well enough in a +magazine where each issue is sure to be read by many who will never see +another number, but which disfigure a book. The style is likewise too +jaunty. Bantering the Trinity is not yet a recognised English pastime. +Bishop-baiting is, but this notwithstanding, most readers of _Literature +and Dogma_ grew tired of the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol and of his +alleged desire to do something for the honour of the Godhead, long +before Mr. Arnold showed any signs of weariness. But making all these +abatements, and fully admitting that _Literature and Dogma_ is not +likely to prove permanently interesting to the English reader, it must +be pronounced a most valuable and useful book, and one to which the +professional critics and philosophers never did justice. The object of +_Literature and Dogma_ was no less than the restoration of the use of +the Bible to the sceptical laity. It was a noble object, and it was in a +great measure, as thousands of quiet people could testify, attained. It +was not a philosophical treatise. In its own way it was the same kind of +thing as many of Cardinal Newman's writings. It started with an +assumption, namely, that it is impossible to believe in the miracles +recorded in the Old and New Testaments. There is no laborious attempt to +distinguish between one miracle and another, or to lighten the burden of +faith in any particular. Nor is any serious attempt made to disprove +miracles. Mr. Arnold did not write for those who find no difficulty in +believing in the first chapter of St. Luke's gospel, or the sixteenth +chapter of St. Mark's, but for those who simply cannot believe a word of +either the one chapter or the other. Mr. Arnold knew well that this +inability to believe is apt to generate in the mind of the unbeliever an +almost physical repulsion to open books which are full of supernatural +events. Mr. Arnold knew this and lamented it. His own love of the Bible +was genuine and intense. He could read even Jeremiah and Habakkuk. As he +loved Homer with one side of him, so he loved the Bible with the other. +He saw how men were crippled and maimed through growing up in ignorance +of it, and living all the days of their lives outside its influence. He +longed to restore it to them, to satisfy them that its place in the +mind of man--that its educational and moral power was not due to the +miracles it records nor to the dogmas that Catholics have developed or +Calvanists extracted from its pages, but to its literary excellence and +to the glow and enthusiasm it has shed over conduct, self-sacrifice, +humanity, and holy living. It was at all events a worthy object and a +most courageous task. It exposed him to a heavy cross-fire. The Orthodox +fell upon his book and abused it, unrestrainedly abused it for its +familiar handling of their sacred books. They almost grudged Mr. Arnold +his great acquaintance with the Bible, just as an Englishman might be +annoyed at finding Moltke acquainted with all the roads from Dover to +London. This feeling was natural, and on the whole I think it creditable +to the orthodox party that a book so needlessly pain-giving as +_Literature and Dogma_ did not goad them into any personal abuse of its +author. But they could not away with the book. Nor did the philosophical +sceptic like it much better. The philosophical sceptic is too apt to +hate the Bible, even as the devil was reported to hate holy water. Its +spirit condemns him. Its devout, heart-stirring, noble language creates +an atmosphere which is deadly for pragmatic egotism. To make men once +more careful students of the Bible was to deal a blow at materialism, +and consequently was not easily forgiven. 'Why can't you leave the Bible +alone?' they grumbled--'What have we to do with it?' But Pharisees and +Sadducees do not exhaust mankind, and Mr. Arnold's contributions to the +religious controversies of his time were very far from the barren things +that are most contributions, and indeed most controversies on such +subjects. I believe I am right when I say that he induced a very large +number of persons to take up again and make a daily study of the books +both of the Old and the New Testament. + +As a literary critic Mr. Arnold had at one time a great vogue. His +_Essays in Criticism_, first published in 1865, made him known to a +larger public than his poems or his delightful lectures on translating +Homer had succeeded in doing. He had the happy knack of starting +interesting subjects and saying all sorts of interesting things by the +way. There was the French Academy. Would it be a good thing to have an +English Academy? He started the question himself and answered it in the +negative. The public took it out of his mouth and proceeded to discuss +it for itself, always on the assumption that he had answered it in the +affirmative. But that is the way with the public. No sensible man minds +it. To set something going is the most anybody can hope to do in this +world. Where it will go to, and what sort of moss it will gather as it +goes, for despite the proverb there is nothing incompatible between moss +and motion, no one can say. In this volume, too, he struck the note, so +frequently and usefully repeated, of self-dissatisfaction. To make us +dissatisfied with ourselves, alive to our own inferiority, not absolute +but in important respects, to check the chorus, then so loud, of +self-approval of our majestic selves--to make us understand why nobody +who is not an Englishman wants to be one, this was another of the tasks +of this militant man. We all remember how _Wragg[6] is in custody_. The +papers on Heine and Spinoza and Marcus Aurelius were read with +eagerness, with an enjoyment, with a sense of widening horizons too rare +to be easily forgotten. They were light and graceful, but it would I +think be unjust to call them slender. They were not written for +specialists or even for students, but for ordinary men and women, +particularly for young men and women, who carried away with them from +the reading of _Essays in Criticism_ something they could not have found +anywhere else and which remained with them for the rest of their days, +namely, a way of looking at things. A perfectly safe critic Mr. Arnold +hardly was. Even in this volume he fusses too much about the De Guérins. +To some later judgments of his it would be unkind to refer. It was said +of the late Lord Justice Mellish by Lord Cairns that he went right +instinctively. That is, he did not flounder into truth. Mr. Arnold never +floundered, but he sometimes fell. A more delightful critic of +literature we have not had for long. What pleasant reading are his +_Lectures on Translating Homer_, which ought to be at once reprinted. +How full of good things! Not perhaps fit to be torn from their contexts, +or paraded in a commonplace book, but of the kind which give a reader +joy--which make literature tempting--which revive, even in dull +middle-age, something of the enthusiasm of the love-stricken boy. Then, +too, his _Study of Celtic Literature_. It does not matter much whether +you can bring yourself to believe in the _Eisteddfod_ or not. In fact +Mr. Arnold did not believe in it. He knew perfectly well that better +poetry is to be found every week in the poet's corner of every county +newspaper in England than is produced annually at the _Eisteddfod_. You +need not even share Mr. Arnold's opinion as to the inherent value of +Celtic Literature, though this is of course a grave question, worthy of +all consideration--but his _Study_ is good enough to be read for love. +It is full of charming criticism. Most critics are such savages--or if +they are not savages, they are full of fantasies, and are capable at any +moment of calling _Tom Jones_ dull, or Sydney Smith a bore. Mr. Arnold +was not a savage, and could no more have called _Tom Jones_ dull or +Sydney Smith a bore, than Homer heavy or Milton vulgar. He was no gloomy +specialist. He knew it took all sorts to make a world. He was alive to +life. Its great movement fascinated him, even as it had done Burke, even +as it did Cardinal Newman. He watched the rushing stream, the 'stir of +existence,' the good and the bad, the false and the true, with an +interest that never flagged. In his last words on translating Homer he +says: 'And thus false tendency as well as true, vain effort as well as +fruitful, go together to produce that great movement of life, to present +that immense and magic spectacle of human affairs, which from boyhood to +old age fascinates the gaze of every man of imagination, and which would +be his terror if it were not at the same time his delight.' + +Mr. Arnold never succeeded in getting his countrymen to take him +seriously as a practical politician. He was regarded as an unauthorised +practitioner whose prescriptions no respectable chemist would consent to +make up. He had not the diploma of Parliament, nor was he able, like +the Secretary of an Early Closing Association, to assure any political +aspirant that he commanded enough votes to turn an election. When Mr. +John Morley took occasion after Mr. Arnold's death to refer to him in +Parliament, the name was received respectfully but coldly. And yet he +was eager about politics, and had much to say about political questions. +His work in these respects was far from futile. What he said was never +inept. It coloured men's thoughts, and contributed to the formation of +their opinions far more than even public meetings. His introduction to +his _Report on Popular Education in France_, published in 1861, is as +instructive a piece of writing as is to be found in any historical +disquisition of the last three decades. The paper on 'My Countrymen' in +that most amusing book _Friendship's Garland_ (which ought also to be at +once reprinted) is full of point. + + * * * * * + +But it is time to stop. It is only possible to stop where we began. +Matthew Arnold is dead. He would have been the last man to expect anyone +to grow hysterical over the circumstance, and the first to denounce any +strained emotion. _Il n'y a pas d'homme nécessaire._ No one ever grasped +this great, this comforting, this cooling, this self-destroying truth +more cordially than he did. As I write the words, I remember how he +employed them in his preface to the second edition of _Essays in +Criticism_, where he records a conversation, I doubt not an imaginary +one, between himself and a portly jeweller from Cheapside--his +fellow-traveller on the Woodford branch of the Great Eastern line. The +traveller was greatly perturbed in his mind by the murder then lately +perpetrated in a railway carriage by the notorious Müller. Mr. Arnold +plied him with consolation. 'Suppose the worst to happen,' I said, +'suppose even yourself to be the victim--_il n'y a pas d'homme +nécessaire_--we should miss you for a day or two on the Woodford Branch, +but the great mundane movement would still go on, the gravel walks of +your villa would still be rolled, dividends would still be paid at the +bank, omnibuses would still run, there would still be the old crush at +the corner of Fenchurch Street.' + +And so it proves for all--for portly jewellers and lovely poets. + + 'The Pillar still broods o'er the fields + Which border Ennerdale Lake, + And Egremont sleeps by the sea-- + Nature is fresh as of old, + Is lovely; a mortal is dead.' + + + II + +Lord Byron's antipathies were, as a rule, founded on some sound human +basis, and it may well be that he was quite right for hating an author +who was all author and nothing else. He could not have hated Matthew +Arnold on that score, at all events, though perhaps he might have found +some other ground for gratifying a feeling very dear to his heart. Mr. +Arnold was many other things as well as a poet, so many other things +that we need sometimes to be reminded that he was a poet. He allowed +himself to be distracted in a variety of ways, he poured himself out in +many strifes; though not exactly eager, he was certainly active. He +discoursed on numberless themes, and was interested in many things of +the kind usually called 'topics.' + +Personally, we cannot force ourselves to bewail his agility, this +leaping from bough to bough of the tree of talk and discussion. It +argues an interest in things, a wide-eyed curiosity. If you find +yourself in a village fair you do well to examine the booths, and when +you bring your purchases home, the domestic authority will be wise not +to scan too severely the trivial wares never meant to please a critical +taste or to last a lifetime. Mr. Arnold certainly brought home some very +queer things from his village fair, and was perhaps too fond of taking +them for the texts of his occasional discourses. But others must find +fault, we cannot. There is a pleasant ripple of life through Mr. +Arnold's prose writings. His judgments are human judgments. He did not +care for strange, out-of-the-way things; he had no odd tastes. He drank +wine, so he once said, because he liked it--good wine, that is. And it +was the same with poetry and books. He liked to understand what he +admired, and the longer it took him to understand anything the less +disposed he was to like it. Plain things suited him best. What he hated +most was the far-fetched. He had the greatest respect for Mr. Browning, +and was a sincere admirer of much of his poetry, but he never made the +faintest attempt to read any of the poet's later volumes. The reason +probably was that he could not be bothered. Hazlitt, in a fine passage +descriptive of the character of a scholar, says: 'Such a one lives all +his life in a dream of learning, and has never once had his sleep broken +by a real sense of things.' Mr. Arnold had a real sense of things. The +writings of such a man could hardly fail to be interesting, whatever +they might be about, even the burial of Dissenters or the cock of a +nobleman's hat. + +But for all that we are of those who, when we name the name of Arnold, +mean neither the head-master of Rugby nor the author of _Culture and +Anarchy_ and _Literature and Dogma_, but the poet who sang, not, indeed, +with Wordsworth, 'The wonder and bloom of the world,' but a severer, +still more truthful strain, a life whose secret is not joy, but peace. + +Standing on this high breezy ground, we are not disposed to concede +anything to the enemy, unless, indeed, it be one somewhat ill-defended +outpost connected with metre. The poet's ear might have been a little +nicer. Had it been so, he would have spared his readers an occasional +jar and a panegyric on Lord Byron's poetry. There are, we know, those +who regard this outpost we have so lightly abandoned as the citadel. +These rhyming gentry scout what Arnold called the terrible sentence +passed on a French poet--_il dit tout ce qu'il veut_, _mais +malheureusement il n'a rien à dire_. They see nothing terrible in a +sentence which does but condemn them to nakedness. Thought is +cumbersome. You skip best with nothing on. But the sober-minded English +people are not the countrymen of Milton and Cowper, of Crabbe and +Wordsworth, for nothing. They like poetry to be serious. We are fond of +sermons. We may quarrel with the vicar's five-and-twenty minutes, but we +let Carlyle go on for twice as many years, and until he had filled +thirty-four octavo volumes. + +The fact is that, though Arnold was fond of girding at the Hebrew in us, +and used to quote his own Christian name with humorous resignation as +only an instance of the sort of thing he had to put up with, he was a +Puritan at heart, and would have been as ill at ease at a Greek festival +as Newman at a Spanish _auto da fé_. + +What gives Arnold's verse its especial charm is his grave and manly +sincerity. He is a poet without artifice or sham. He does not pretend to +find all sorts of meanings in all sorts of things. He does not +manipulate the universe and present his readers with any bottled elixir. +This has been cast up against him as a reproach. His poetry, so we have +been told, has no consolation in it. Here is a doctor, it is said, who +makes up no drugs, a poet who does not proclaim that he sees God in the +avalanche or hears Him in the thunder. The world will not, so we are +assured, hang upon the lips of one who bids them not to be too sure that +the winds are wailing man's secret to the complaining sea, or that +nature is nothing but a theme for poets. These people may be right. In +any event it is unwise to prophesy. What will be, will be. Nobody can +wish to be proved wrong. It is best to be on the side of truth, whatever +the truth may be. The real atheism is to say, as men are found to do, +that they would sooner be convicted of error they think pleasing, than +have recognised an unwelcome truth a moment earlier than its final +demonstration, if, indeed, such a moment should ever arrive for souls so +craven. In the meantime, this much is plain, that there is no +consolation in non-coincidence with fact, and no sweetness which does +not chime with experience. Therefore, those who have derived consolation +from Mr. Arnold's noble verse may take comfort. Religion, after all, +observes Bishop Butler in his tremendous way, is nothing if it is not +true. The same may be said of the poetry of consolation. + +The pleasure it is lawful to take in the truthfulness of Mr. Arnold's +poetry should not be allowed to lead his lovers into the pleasant paths +of exaggeration. The Muses dealt him out their gifts with a somewhat +niggardly hand. He had to cultivate his Sparta. No one of his admirers +can assert that in Arnold + + 'The force of energy is found, + And the sense rises on the wings of sound.' + +He is no builder of the lofty rhyme. This he was well aware of. But +neither had he any ample measure of those 'winged fancies' which wander +at will through the pages of Apollo's favourite children. His strange +indifference to Shelley, his severity towards Keats, his lively sense of +the wantonness of Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, incline us to the +belief that he was not quite sensible of the advantages of a fruitful as +compared with a barren soil. His own crop took a good deal of raising, +and he was perhaps somewhat disposed to regard luxuriant growths with +disfavour. + +But though severe and restricted, and without either grandeur or fancy, +Arnold's poetry is most companionable. It never teases you--there he has +the better of Shelley--or surfeits you--there he prevails over Keats. As +a poet, we would never dare or wish to class him with either Shelley or +Keats, but as a companion to slip in your pocket before starting to +spend the day amid + + 'The cheerful silence of the fells,' + +you may search far before you find anything better than either of the +two volumes of Mr. Arnold's poems. + +His own enjoyment of the open air is made plain in his poetry. It is no +borrowed rapture, no mere bookish man's clumsy joy in escaping from his +library, but an enjoyment as hearty and honest as Izaak Walton's. He has +a quick eye for things, and rests upon them with a quiet satisfaction. +No need to give instances; they will occur to all. Sights and sounds +alike pleased him well. So obviously genuine, so real, though so quiet, +was his pleasure in our English lanes and dells, that it is still +difficult to realise that his feet can no longer stir the cowslips or +his ear hear the cuckoo's parting cry. + +Amidst the melancholy of his verse, we detect deep human enjoyment and +an honest human endeavour to do the best he could whilst here below. The +best he could do was, in our opinion, his verse, and it is a comfort, +amidst the wreckage of life, to believe he made the most of his gift, +cultivating it wisely and well, and enriching man's life with some +sober, serious, and beautiful poetry. We are, indeed, glad to notice +that there is to be a new edition of Mr. Arnold's poems in one volume. +It will, we are afraid, be too stout for the pocket, but most of its +contents will be well worth lodgment in the head. This new edition will, +we have no doubt whatever, immensely increase the number of men and +women who own the charm of Arnold. The times are ripening for his +poetry, which is full of foretastes of the morrow. As we read we are not +carried back by the reflection, 'so men once thought,' but rather +forward along the paths, dim and perilous it may be, but still the paths +mankind is destined to tread. Truthful, sober, severe, with a capacity +for deep, if placid, enjoyment of the pageant of the world, and a quick +eye for its varied sights and an eager ear for its delightful sounds, +Matthew Arnold is a poet whose limitations we may admit without denying +his right. Our passion for him is a loyal passion for a most temperate +king. There is an effort on his brow, we must admit it. It would never +do to mistake his poetry for what he called the best, and which he was +ever urging upon a sluggish populace. It intellectualises far too much; +its method is a known method, not a magical one. But though effort may +be on his brow, it is a noble effort and has had a noble result. + + 'For most men in a brazen prison live, + Where in the sun's hot eye, + With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly + Their lives to some unmeaning task-work give, + Dreaming of nought beyond their prison wall. + And as, year after year, + Fresh products of their barren labour fall + From their tired hands, and rest + Never yet comes more near, + Gloom settles slowly down over their breast; + And while they try to stem + The waves of mournful thought by which they are prest, + Death in their prison reaches them + Unfreed, having seen nothing, still unblest.' + +Or if not a slave he is a madman, sailing where he will on the wild +ocean of life. + + 'And then the tempest strikes him, and between + The lightning bursts is seen + Only a driving wreck. + And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck, + With anguished face and flying hair, + Grasping the rudder hard, + Still bent to make some port he knows not where, + Still standing for some false impossible shore; + + And sterner comes the roar + Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom + Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loom, + And he too disappears and comes no more.' + +To be neither a rebel nor a slave is the burden of much of Mr. Arnold's +verse--his song we cannot call it. It will be long before men cease to +read their Arnold; even the rebel or the slave will occasionally find a +moment for so doing, and when he does it may be written of him: + + 'And then arrives a lull in the hot race + Wherein he doth for ever chase + That flying and illusive shadow Rest. + An air of coolness plays upon his face, + And an unwonted calm pervades his breast, + And then he thinks he knows + The hills where his life rose + And the sea where it goes.' + + + + + WILLIAM HAZLITT + + +For an author to fare better dead than alive is good proof of his +literary vivacity and charm. The rare merit of Hazlitt's writing was +recognised in his lifetime by good judges, but his fame was obscured by +the unpopularity of many of his opinions, and the venom he was too apt +to instil into his personal reminiscences. He was not a safe man to +confide in. He had a forked crest which he sometimes lifted. Because +they both wrote essays and were fond of the Elizabethans, it became the +fashion to link Hazlitt's name with Lamb's. To be compared with the +incomparable is hard fortune. Hazlitt suffered by the comparison, and +consequently his admirers, usually in those early days men of keen wits +and sharp tongues, grew angry, and infused into their just eulogiums too +much of Hazlitt's personal bitterness, and too little of his wide +literary sympathies. + +But this period of obscurity is now over. No really good thing once come +into existence and remaining so is ever lost to the world. This is most +comfortable doctrine, and true, besides. In the long run the world's +taste is infallible. All it requires is time. How easy it is to give it +that! Is substantial injustice at this moment done to a single English +writer of prose or verse who died prior to the 1st of January, 1801? Is +there a single bad author of this same class who is now read? Both +questions may be truthfully answered by a joyful shout of, No! This fact +ought to make the most unpopular of living authors the sweetest-tempered +of men. The sight of your rival clinging to the cob he has purchased and +maintains out of the profits of the trashiest of novels should be +pleasant owing to the reflection that both rival and cob are trotting to +the same pit of oblivion. + +But humorous as is the prospect of the coming occultation of personally +disagreeable authors, the final establishment of the fame of a dead one +is a nobler spectacle. + +William Hazlitt had to take a thrashing from life. He took it standing +up like a man, not lying down like a cur; but take it he had to do. He +died on September 18, 1830, tired out, discomfited, defeated. Nobody +reviewing the facts of his life can say that it was well spent. There is +nothing in it of encouragement. He reaped what he sowed, and it proved a +sorry harvest. When he lay dying he wanted his mother brought to his +side, but she was at a great distance, and eighty-four years of age, and +could not come. Carlyle in his old age, grim, worn, and scornful, said +once, sorrowfully enough, 'What I want is a mother.' It is indeed an +excellent relationship. + +But though Hazlitt got the worst of it in his personal encounter with +the universe, he nevertheless managed to fling down before he died what +will suffice to keep his name alive. You cannot kill merit. We are all +too busily engaged struggling with dulness, our own and other people's, +and with ennui; we are far too much surrounded by would-be wits and +abortive thinkers, ever to forget what a weapon against weariness lies +to our hand in the works of Hazlitt, who is as refreshing as cold +water, as grateful as shade. + +His great charm consists in his hearty reality. Life may be a game, and +all its enjoyments counters, but Hazlitt, as we find him in his +writings--and there is now no need to look for him anywhere else--played +the game and dealt out the counters like a man bent on winning. He cared +greatly about many things. His admiration was not extravagant, but his +force is great; in fact, one may say of him as he said of John Cavanagh, +the famous fives player, 'His service was tremendous.' Indeed, Hazlitt's +whole description of Cavanagh's play reminds one of his own literary +method: + +'His style of play was as remarkable as his power of execution. He had +no affectation, no trifling. He did not throw away the game to show off +an attitude or try an experiment. He was a fine, sensible, manly player, +who did what he could, but that was more than anyone else could even +affect to do. His blows were not undecided and ineffectual, lumbering +like Mr. Wordsworth's epic poetry, nor wavering like Mr. Coleridge's +lyric prose, nor short of the mark like Mr. Brougham's speeches, nor +wide of it like Mr. Canning's wit, nor foul like the _Quarterly_, nor +_let_ balls like the _Edinburgh Review_.' + +Wordsworth, Coleridge, Brougham, Canning! was ever a fives player so +described before? What splendid reading it makes! but we quote it for +the purpose of applying its sense to Hazlitt himself. As Cavanagh +played, so Hazlitt wrote. + +He is always interesting, and always writes about really interesting +things. His talk is of poets and players, of Shakespeare and Kean, of +Fielding and Scott, of Burke and Cobbett, of prize fights and Indian +jugglers. When he condescends to the abstract, his subjects bring an +appetite with them. The Shyness of Scholars, the Fear of Death, the +Identity of an Author with his Books, Effeminacy of Character, the +Conversation of Lords, On Reading New Books: the very titles make you +lick your lips. + +Hazlitt may have been an unhappy man, but he was above the vile +affectation of pretending to see nothing in life. Had he not seen Mrs. +Siddons, had he not read Rousseau, had he not worshipped Titian in the +Louvre? + +No English writer better pays the debt of gratitude always owing to +great poets, painters, and authors than Hazlitt; but his is a manly, not +a maudlin, gratitude. No other writer has such gusto as he. The glowing +passage in which he describes Titian's St. Peter Martyr almost recalls +the canvas uninjured from the flames which have since destroyed it. We +seem to see the landscape background, 'with that cold convent spire +rising in the distance amidst the blue sapphire mountains and the golden +sky.' His essay on Sir Walter Scott and the _Waverley Novels_ is the +very best that has ever been written on that magnificent subject. + +As a companion at the Feast of Wits commend us to Hazlitt, and as a +companion for a fortnight's holiday commend us to the admirable +selection recently made from his works, which are numerous--some twenty +volumes--by Mr. Ireland, and published at a cheap price by Messrs. F. +Warne and Co. The task of selection is usually a thankless one. It +involves of necessity omission and frequently curtailment. It is +annoying to look in vain for some favourite passage, and your annoyance +prompts the criticism that a really sound judgment would have made room +for what you miss. We lodge no complaint against Mr. Ireland. Like a +wise man, he has allowed to himself ample space, and he has compiled a +volume of 510 closely though well-printed pages, which has only to be +read in order to make the reader well acquainted with an author whom not +to know is a severe mental deprivation. + +Mr. Ireland's book is a library in itself, and a marvellous tribute to +the genius of his author. It seems almost incredible that one man should +have said so many good things. It is true he does not go very deep as a +critic, he does not see into the soul of the matter as Lamb and +Coleridge occasionally do--but he holds you very tight--he grasps the +subject, he enjoys it himself and makes you do so. Perhaps he does say +too many good things. His sparkling sentences follow so quickly one upon +another that the reader's appreciation soon becomes a breathless +appreciation. There is something almost uncanny in such sustained +cleverness. This impression, however, must not be allowed to remain as a +final impression. In Hazlitt the reader will find trains of sober +thought pursued with deep feeling and melancholy. Turn to the essays, +_On Living to One's Self_, _On Going a Journey_, _On the Feeling of +Immortality in Youth_, and read them over again. When you have done so +you will be indisposed to consider their author as a mere sayer of good +things. He was much more than that. One smiles when, on reading the +first Lord Lytton's _Thoughts on the Genius of Hazlitt_, the author of +_Eugene Aram_, is found declaring that Hazlitt 'had a keen sense of the +Beautiful and the Subtle; and what is more, he was deeply imbued with +sympathies for the Humane'; but when Lord Lytton proceeds, 'Posterity +will do him justice,' we cease to smile, and handling Mr. Ireland's +book, observe with deep satisfaction, 'It has.' + + + + + THE LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB[7] + + +Four hundred and seventeen letters of Charles Lamb's, some of them never +before published, in two well-printed but handy volumes, edited, with +notes illustrative, explanatory, and biographical, by Canon Ainger, and +supplied with an admirable index, are surely things to be thankful for +and to be desired. No doubt the price is prohibitory. They will cost you +in cash, these two volumes, full as they are from title-page to colophon +with the sweetness and nobility, the mirth and the melancholy of their +author's life, touched as every page of them is with traces of a hard +fate bravely borne, seven shillings and sixpence. None but American +millionaires and foolish book-collectors can bear such a strain upon +their purses. It is the cab-fare to and from a couple of dull +dinner-parties. But Mudie is in our midst, ever ready to supply our very +modest intellectual wants at so much a quarter, and ward off the +catastrophe so dreaded by all dust-hating housewives, the accumulation +of those 'nasty books,' for which indeed but slender accommodation is +provided in our upholstered homes. Yet these volumes, however acquired, +whether by purchase, and therefore destined to remain by your side ready +to be handled whenever the mood seizes you, or borrowed from a library +to be returned at the week's end along with the last new novel people +are painfully talking about, cannot fail to excite the interest and stir +the emotions of all lovers of sound literature and true men. + +But first of all, Canon Ainger is to be congratulated on the completion +of his task. He told us he was going to edit _Lamb's Works and Letters_, +and naturally one believed him; but in this world there is nothing so +satisfactory as performance. To see a good work well planned, well +executed, and entirely finished by the same hand that penned, and the +same mind that conceived the original scheme, has something about it +which is surprisingly gratifying to the soul of man, accustomed as he is +to the wreckage of projects and the failure of hopes. + +Canon Ainger's edition of _Lamb's Works and Letters_ stands complete in +six volumes. Were one in search of sentiment, one might perhaps find it +in the intimate association existing between the editor and the old +church by the side of which Lamb was born, and which he ever loved and +accounted peculiarly his own. Elia was born a Templar. + +'I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the Temple. +Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I had +almost said--for in those young years, what was this king of rivers to +me but a stream that watered our pleasant places?--these are my oldest +recollections.' + +Thus begins the celebrated essay on 'The Old Benchers of the Inner +Temple.' As a humble member of that honourable Society, I rejoice that +its Reader should be the man who has, as a labour of love and by virtue +of qualifications which cannot be questioned, placed upon the library +shelf so complete and choice an edition of the works of one whose memory +is perhaps the pleasantest thing about the whole place. + +So far as these two volumes of letters are concerned the course adopted +by the editor has been, if I may make bold to say so, the right one. He +has simply edited them carefully and added notes and an index. He has +not attempted to tell Lamb's life between times. He has already told the +story of that life in a separate volume. I wish the practice could be +revived of giving us a man's correspondence all by itself in consecutive +volumes, as we have the letters of Horace Walpole, of Burke, of +Richardson, of Cowper, and many others. It is astonishing what +interesting and varied reading such volumes make. They never tire you. +You do not stop to be tired. Something of interest is always occurring. +Some reference to a place you have visited; to a house you have stayed +at; to a book you have read; to a man or woman you wish to hear about. +As compared with the measured malice of a set biography, where you feel +yourself in the iron grasp, not of the man whose life is being +professedly written, but of the man (whom naturally you dislike) who has +taken upon himself to write the life, these volumes of correspondence +have all the ease and grace and truthfulness of nature. There is about +as much resemblance between reading them and your ordinary biography, as +between a turn on the treadmill and a saunter into Hertfordshire in +search of Mackery End. I hope when we get hold of the biographies of +Lord Beaconsfield, and Dean Stanley, we shall not find ourselves +defrauded of our dues. But it is of the essence of letters that we +should have the whole of each. I think it wrong to omit even the merely +formal parts. They all hang together. The method employed in the +biography of George Eliot was, in my opinion--I can but state it--a +vicious method. To serve up letters in solid slabs cut out of longer +letters is distressing. Every letter a man writes is an incriminating +document. It tells a tale about him. Let the whole be read or none. + +Canon Ainger has adopted the right course. He has indeed omitted a few +oaths--on the principle that 'damns have had their day.' For my part, I +think I should have been disposed to leave them alone. + + 'The rough bur-thistle spreading wide + Amang the bearded bear, + I turn'd my weeding-clips aside + And spared the symbol dear.' + +But this is not a question to discuss with a dignitary of the Church. +Leaving out the oaths and, it may perhaps be, here and there a passage +where the reckless humour of the writer led him to transcend the limits +of becoming mirth, and mere notelets, we have in these two volumes +Lamb's letters just as they were written, save in an instance or two +where the originals have been partially destroyed. The first is to +Coleridge, and is dated May 27, 1796; the last is to Mrs. Dyer, and was +written on December 22, 1834. Who, I wonder, ever managed to squeeze +into a correspondence of forty years truer humour, madder nonsense, +sounder sense, or more tender sympathy! They do not indeed (these +letters) prate about first principles, but they contain many things +conducive to a good life here below. + +The earlier letters strike the more solemn notes. As a young man Lamb +was deeply religious, and for a time the appalling tragedy of his life, +the death of his mother by his sister's hand, deepened these feelings. +His letters to Coleridge in September and October, 1769, might very well +appear in the early chapters of a saint's life. They exhibit the rare +union of a colossal strength, entire truthfulness, (no single emotion +being ever exaggerated,) with the tenderest and most refined feelings. +Some of his sentences remind one of Johnson, others of Rousseau. How +people reading these letters can ever have the impudence to introduce +into the tones of their voices when they are referring to Lamb the +faintest suspicion of condescension, as if they were speaking of one +weaker than themselves, must always remain an unsolved problem of human +conceit. + +These elevated feelings passed away. He refers to this in a letter +written in 1801 to Walter Wilson. + +'I have had a time of seriousness, and I have known the importance and +reality of a religious belief. Latterly, I acknowledge, much of my +seriousness has gone off, whether from new company or some other new +associations, but I still retain at bottom a conviction of the truth and +a certainty of the usefulness of religion.' + +The fact, I suspect, was that the strain of religious thoughts was +proving too great for a brain which had once succumbed to madness. +Religion sits very lightly on some minds. She could not have done so on +Lamb's. He took refuge in trivialities seriously, and played the fool in +order to remain sane. + +These letters are of the same material as the _Essays of Elia_. The +germs, nay, the very phrases, of the latter are frequently to be found +in the former. This does not offend in Lamb's case, though as a rule a +good letter ought not forcibly to remind us of a good essay by the same +hand. Admirable as are Thackeray's lately published letters, the parts I +like best are those which remind me least of a _Roundabout Paper_. The +author is always apt to steal in, and the author is the very last person +you wish to see in a letter. But as you read Lamb's letters you never +think of the author: his personality carries you over everything. He +manages--I will not say skilfully, for it was the natural result of his +delightful character, always to address his letter to his +correspondent--to make it a thing which, apart from the correspondent, +his habits and idiosyncrasies, could not possibly have existed in the +shape it does. One sometimes comes across things called letters, which +might have been addressed to anybody. But these things are not letters: +they are extracts from journals or circulars, and are usually either +offensive or dull. + +Lamb's letters are not indeed model letters like Cowper's. Though +natural to Lamb, they cannot be called easy. 'Divine chit-chat' is not +the epithet to describe them. His notes are all high. He is sublime, +heartrending, excruciatingly funny, outrageously ridiculous, sometimes +possibly an inch or two overdrawn. He carries the charm of incongruity +and total unexpectedness to the highest pitch imaginable. John Sterling +used to chuckle over the sudden way in which you turn up Adam in the +following passage from a letter to Bernard Barton: + +'DEAR B. B.--You may know my letters by the paper and the folding. For +the former I live on scraps obtained in charity from an old friend, +whose stationery is a permanent perquisite; for folding I shall do it +neatly when I learn to tie my neckcloths. I surprise most of my friends +by writing to them on ruled paper, as if I had not got past pot-hooks +and hangers. Sealing-wax I have none in my establishment; wafers of the +coarsest bran supply its place. When my epistles come to be weighed with +Pliny's, however superior to them in Roman delicate irony, judicious +reflections, etc., his gilt post will bribe over the judges to him. All +the time I was at the E. I. H. I never mended a pen. I now cut 'em to +the stumps, marring rather than mending the primitive goose-quill. I +cannot bear to pay for articles I used to get for nothing. When Adam +laid out his first penny upon nonpareils at some stall in Mesopotamos, I +think it went hard with him, reflecting upon his old goodly orchard +where he had so many for nothing.' + +There are not many better pastimes for a middle-aged man who does not +care for first principles or modern novels than to hunt George Dyer +up-and-down Charles Lamb. Lamb created Dyer as surely as did Cervantes +Don Quixote, Sterne Toby Shandy, or Charles Dickens Sam Weller. Outside +Lamb George Dyer is the deadest of dead authors. Inside Lamb he is one +of the quaintest, queerest, most humorously felicitous of living +characters. Pursue this sport through Canon Ainger's first volume and +you will have added to your gallery of whimsicalities the picture of +George Dyer by a master-hand. + +Lamb's relations towards Coleridge and Wordsworth are exceedingly +interesting. He loved them both as only Lamb could love his friends. He +admired them both immensely as poets. He recognised what he considered +their great intellectual superiority over himself. He considered their +friendship the crowning glory of his life. For Coleridge his affection +reached devotion. The news of his death was a shock he never got over. +He would keep repeating to himself, 'Coleridge is dead!' But with what a +noble, independent, manly mind did he love his friends! How deep, how +shrewd was his insight into their manifold infirmities! His masculine +nature and absolute freedom from that curse of literature, coterieship, +stand revealed on every page of the history of Lamb's friendships. + +On page 327 of Canon Ainger's first volume there is a letter of Lamb's, +never before printed, addressed to his friend Manning, which is +delightful reading. The editor did not get it in time to put it in the +text, so the careless reader might overlook it, lurking as it does +amongst the notes. It is too long for quotation, but a morsel must be +allowed me: + +'I lately received from Wordsworth a copy of the second volume, +accompanied by an acknowledgment of having received from me many months +since a copy of a certain tragedy with excuses for not having made any +acknowledgment sooner, it being owing to an almost insurmountable +aversion from letter-writing. This letter I answered in due form and +time, and enumerated several of the passages which had most affected me, +adding, unfortunately, that no single piece had moved me so forcibly as +the _Ancient Mariner_, _The Mad Mother_, or the _Lines at Tintern +Abbey_. The Post did not sleep a moment. I received almost +instantaneously a long letter of four sweating pages from my Reluctant +Letter-Writer, the purport of which was, he was sorry his second volume +had not given me more pleasure (Devil a hint did I give that it had not +pleased me), and was compelled to wish that my range of sensibility was +more extended, being obliged to believe that I should receive large +influxes of happiness and happy thoughts (I suppose from the _Lyrical +Ballads_). With a deal of stuff about a certain union of Tenderness and +Imagination, which in the sense he used Imagination was not the +characteristic of Shakespeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree +far exceeding other Poets, which union, as the highest species of Poetry +and chiefly deserving that name "he was most proud to aspire to"; then +illustrating the said union by two quotations from his own second volume +which I had been so unfortunate as to miss.' + +But my quotation must stop. It has been long enough to prove what I was +saying about the independence of Lamb's judgment even of his best +friends. No wonder such a man did not like being called 'gentle-hearted' +even by S. T. C, to whom he writes: + +'In the next edition of the _Anthology_ (which Phœbus avert, those nine +other wandering maids also!) please to blot out "gentle-hearted," and +substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stuttering, +or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman +in question.' + +Of downright fun and fooling of the highest intellectual calibre fine +examples abound on all sides. The 'Dick Hopkins' letter ranks very +high. Manning had sent Lamb from Cambridge a piece of brawn, and Lamb +takes into his head, so teeming with whimsical fancies, to pretend that +it had been sent him by an imaginary Dick Hopkins, 'the swearing +scullion of Caius,' who 'by industry and agility has thrust himself into +the important situation (no sinecure, believe me) of cook to Trinity +Hall'; and accordingly he writes the real donor a long letter, singing +the praises of this figment of his fancy, and concludes: + +'Do me the favour to leave off the business which you may be at present +upon, and go immediately to the kitchens of Trinity and Caius and make +my most respectful compliments to Mr. Richard Hopkins and assure him +that his brawn is most excellent: and that I am moreover obliged to him +for his innuendo about salt water and bran, which I shall not fail to +improve. I leave it to you whether you shall choose to pay him the +civility of asking him to dinner while you stay in Cambridge, or in +whatever other way you may best like to show your gratitude to _my +friend_. Richard Hopkins considered in many points of view is a very +extraordinary character. Adieu. I hope to see you to supper in London +soon, where we will taste Richard's brawn, and drink his health in a +cheerful but moderate cup. We have not many such men in any rank of life +as Mr. R. Hopkins. Crisp, the barber of St. Mary's, was just such +another. I wonder _he_ never sent me any little token, some chestnuts or +a puff, or two pound of hair; just to remember him by.' + +We have little such elaborate jesting nowadays. I suppose we think it is +not worth the trouble. The Tartary letter to Manning and the rheumatism +letters to Crabb Robinson are almost distractingly provocative of deep +internal laughter. The letter to Cary apologising for the writer's +getting drunk in the British Museum has its sad side; but if one may +parody the remark, made by 'the young lady of quality,' to Dr. Johnson, +which he was so fond of getting Boswell to repeat, though it was to the +effect that had he (our great moralist) been born out of wedlock his +genius would have been his mother's excuse, it may be said that such a +letter as Lamb's was ample atonement for his single frailty. + +Lamb does not greatly indulge in sarcasm, though nobody could say more +thoroughly ill-natured things than he if he chose to do so. George Dawe, +the Royal Academician, is roughly used by him. The account he gives of +Miss Berger--Benjay he calls her--is not lacking in spleen. But as a +rule if Lamb disliked a person he damned him and passed on. He did not +stop to elaborate his dislikes, or to toss his hatreds up and down, as +he does his loves and humorous fancies. He hated the second Mrs. Godwin +with an entire hatred. In a letter written to Manning when in China he +says: + +'Mrs. Godwin grows every day in disfavour with me. I will be buried with +this inscription over me: "Here lies C. L., the woman hater": I mean +that hated one woman; for the rest God bless them! How do you like the +Mandarinesses? Are you on some little footing with any of them?' + +Scattered up and down these letters are to be found golden sentences, +criticisms both of life and of books, to rival which one would have far +to go. He has not the glitter of Hazlitt--a writer whom it is a shame to +depreciate; nor does he ever make the least pretence of aspiring to the +chair of Coleridge. He lived all his life through conscious of a great +weakness, and therein indeed lay the foundation of the tower of his +strength. 'You do not know,' he writes to Godwin, 'how sore and weak a +brain I have, or you would allow for many things in me which you set +down for whims.' Lamb apologising for himself to Godwin is indeed a +thing at which the imagination boggles. But his humility must not blind +us to the fact that there are few men from whom we can learn more. + +The most striking note of Lamb's literary criticism is its veracity. He +is perhaps never mistaken. His judgments are apt to be somewhat too much +coloured with his own idiosyncrasy to be what the judicious persons of +the period call final and classical, but when did he ever go utterly +wrong either in praise or in dispraise? When did he like a book which +was not a good book? When did either the glamour of antiquity or the +glare of novelty lead him astray? How free he was from that silly +chatter about books now so abundant! When did he ever pronounce +wire-drawn twaddle or sickly fancies, simply reeking of their impending +dissolution, to be enduring and noble workmanship? + +But it must be owned Lamb was not a great reader of new books. That task +devolved upon his sister. He preferred Burnet's _History of his Own +Times_, to any novel, even to a 'Waverley.' + +'Did you ever read,' he wrote to Manning, 'that garrulous, pleasant +history? He tells his story like an old man past political service, +bragging to his sons on winter evenings of the part he took in public +transactions, when his "old cap was new." Full of scandal, which all +true history is. No palliatives; but all the stark wickedness, that +actually gives the _momentum_ to national actors. Quite the prattle of +age and outlived importance. Truth and sincerity staring out upon you in +_alto relievo_. Himself a party man, he makes you a party man. None of +the cursed, philosophical, Humeian indifference, so cold and unnatural +and inhuman. None of the cursed Gibbonian fine writing so fine, and +composite! None of Dr. Robertson's periods with three members. None of +Mr. Roscoe's sage remarks, all so apposite and coming in so clever, lest +the reader should have had the trouble of drawing an inference.' + +On the subject of children's books Lamb held strong opinions, as indeed +he was entitled to do. What married pair with their quiver full ever +wrote such tales for children as did this old bachelor and his maiden +sister? + +'I am glad the snuff and Pipos books please. _Goody Two Shoes_ is almost +out of print. Mrs. Barbauld's stuff has banished all the old classics of +the nursery, and the shop-man at Newberry's hardly deigned to reach them +off an old exploded corner of a shelf when Mary asked for them. Mrs. +Barbauld's and Mrs. Trimmer's nonsense lay in piles about. Knowledge +insignificant and vapid as Mrs. Barbauld's books convey, it seems must +come to a child in the _shape of knowledge_, and his empty noddle must +be turned with conceit of his own powers when he has learnt that a horse +is an animal, and Billy is better than a horse, and such like--instead +of that beautiful interest in wild tales which made the child a man, +while all the time he suspected himself to be no bigger than a child.' + +Canon Ainger's six volumes are not very big. They take up but little +room. They demand no great leisure. But they cannot fail to give immense +pleasure to generations to come, to purify tastes, to soften hearts, to +sweeten discourse. + + + + + AUTHORS IN COURT + + +There is always something a little ludicrous about the spectacle of an +author in pursuit of his legal remedies. It is hard to say why, but like +a sailor on horseback, or a Quaker at the play, it suggests that +incongruity which is the soul of things humorous. The courts are of +course as much open to authors as to the really deserving members of the +community; and, to do the writing fraternity justice, they have seldom +shown any indisposition to enter into them--though if they have done so +joyfully, it must be attributed to their natural temperament, which (so +we read) is easy, rather than to the mirthful character of legal +process. + +To write a history of the litigations in which great authors have been +engaged would indeed be _renovare dolorem_, and is no intention of mine; +though the subject is not destitute of human interest--indeed, quite +the opposite. + +Great books have naturally enough, being longer lived, come into court +even more frequently than great authors. _Paradise Lost_, _The Whole +Duty of Man_, _The Pilgrim's Progress_, _Thomson's Seasons_, _Rasselas_, +all have a legal as well as a literary history. Nay, Holy Writ herself +has raised some nice points. The king's exclusive prerogative to print +the authorised version has been based by some lawyers on the commercial +circumstance that King James paid for it out of his own pocket. Hence, +argued they, cunningly enough, it became his, and is now his +successor's. Others have contended more strikingly that the right of +multiplying copies of the Scriptures necessarily belongs to the king as +head of the Church. A few have been found to question the right +altogether, and to call it a job. As her present gracious Majesty has +been pleased to abandon the prerogative, and has left all her subjects +free (though at their own charges) to publish the version of her learned +predecessor, the Bible does not now come into court on its own account. +But whilst the prerogative was enforced, the king's printers were +frequently to be found seeking injunctions to restrain the vending of +the Word of God by (to use Carlyle's language) 'Mr. Thomas Teggs and +other extraneous persons.' Nor did the judges, on proper proof, hesitate +to grant what was sought. It is perhaps interesting to observe that the +king never claimed more than the text. It was always open to anybody to +publish even King James's version, if he added notes of his own. But how +shamefully was this royal indulgence abused! Knavish booksellers, +anxious to turn a dishonest penny out of the very Bible, were known to +publish Bibles with so-called notes, which upon examination turned out +not to be _bonâ-fide_ notes at all, but sometimes mere indications of +assent with what was stated in the text, and sometimes simple +ejaculations. And as people as a rule preferred to be without notes of +this character they used to be thoughtfully printed at the very edge of +the sheet, so that the scissors of the binder should cut them off and +prevent them annoying the reader. But one can fancy the question, 'What +is a _bonâ-fide_ note?' exercising the legal mind. + +Our great lawyers on the bench have always treated literature in the +abstract with the utmost respect. They have in many cases felt that they +too, but for the grace of God, might have been authors. Like Charles +Lamb's solemn Quaker, 'they had been wits in their youth.' Lord +Mansfield never forgot that, according to Mr. Pope, he was a lost Ovid. +Before ideas in their divine essence the judges have bowed down. 'A +literary composition,' it has been said by them, 'so long as it lies +dormant in the author's mind, is absolutely in his own possession.' Even +Mr. Horatio Sparkins, of whose brilliant table-talk this observation +reminds us, could not more willingly have recognised an obvious truth. + +But they have gone much further than this. Not only is the repose of the +dormant idea left undisturbed, but the manuscript to which it, on +ceasing to be dormant, has been communicated, is hedged round with +divinity. It would be most unfair to the delicacy of the legal mind to +attribute this to the fact, no doubt notorious, that whilst it is easy +(after, say, three years in a pleader's chambers) to draw an indictment +against a man for stealing paper, it is not easy to do so if he has only +stolen the ideas and used his own paper. There are some quibbling +observations in the second book of Justinian's _Institutes_, and a few +remarks of Lord Coke's which might lead the thoughtless to suppose that +in their protection of an author's manuscripts the courts were thinking +more of the paper than of the words put upon it; but that this is not so +clearly appears from our law as it is administered in the Bankruptcy +branch of the High Court. + +Suppose a popular novelist were to become a bankrupt--a supposition +which, owing to the immense sums these gentlemen are now known to make, +is robbed of all painfulness by its impossibility--and his effects were +found to consist of the three following items: first, his wearing +apparel; second, a copy of _Whitaker's Almanack_ for the current year; +and third, the manuscript of a complete and hitherto unpublished novel, +worth in the Row, let us say, one thousand pounds. These are the days +of cash payments, so we must not state the author's debts at more than +fifteen hundred pounds. It would have been difficult for him to owe more +without incurring the charge of imprudence. Now, how will the law deal +with the effects of this bankrupt? Ever averse to exposing anyone to +criminal proceedings, it will return to him his clothing, provided its +cash value does not exceed twenty pounds, which, as authors have left +off wearing bloom-coloured garments even as they have left off writing +_Vicars of Wakefield_, it is not likely to do. This humane rule disposes +of item number one. As to _Whitaker's Almanack_, it would probably be +found necessary to take the opinion of the court; since, if it be a tool +of the author's trade, it will not vest in the official receiver and be +divisible amongst the creditors, but, like the first item, will remain +the property of the bankrupt--but otherwise, if not such a tool. On a +point like this the court would probably wish to hear the evidence of an +expert--of some man like Mr. George Augustus Sala, who knows the +literary life to the backbone. This point disposed of, or standing over +for argument, there remains the manuscript novel, which, as we have +said, would, if sold in the Row, produce a sum not only sufficient to +pay the costs of the argument about the _Almanack_ and of all parties +properly appearing in the bankruptcy, but also, if judiciously handled, +a small dividend to the creditors. But here our law steps in with its +chivalrous, almost religious respect for ideas, and declares that the +manuscript shall not be taken from the bankrupt and published without +his consent. In ordinary cases everything a bankrupt has, save the +clothes for his back and the tools of his trade, is ruthlessly torn from +him. Be it in possession, reversion, or remainder, it all goes. His +incomes for life, his reversionary hopes, are knocked down to the +speculator. In vulgar phrase, he is 'cleaned out.' But the manuscripts +of the bankrupt author, albeit they may be worth thousands, are not +recognised as property; they are not yet dedicated to the public. The +precious papers, despite all their writer's misfortunes, remain his--his +to croon and to dream over, his to alter and re-transcribe, his to +withhold, ay, his to destroy, if he should deem them, either in calm +judgment, or in a despairing hour, unhappy in their expression or +unworthy of his name. + +There is something positively tender in this view. The law may be an +ass, but it is also a gentleman. + +Of course, in my imaginary case, if the bankrupt were to withhold his +consent to publication, his creditors, even though it were held that the +_Almanack_ was theirs, would get nothing. I can imagine them grumbling, +and saying (what will not creditors say?): 'We fed this gentleman whilst +he was writing this precious manuscript. Our joints sustained him, our +bread filled him, our wine made him merry. Without our goods he must +have perished. By all legal analogies we ought to have a lien upon that +manuscript. We are wholly indifferent to the writer's reputation. It may +be blasted for all we care. It was not as an author but as a customer +that we supplied his very regular wants. It is now our turn to have +wants. We want to be paid.' + +These amusing, though familiar, cries of distress need not disturb our +equanimity or interfere with our admiration for the sublime views as to +the sanctity of unpublished ideas entertained by the Court sitting in +Bankruptcy. + +We have thus found, so far as we have gone, the profoundest respect +shown by the law both for the dormant ideas and the manuscripts of the +author. Let us now push boldly on, and inquire what happens when the +author withdraws his interdict, takes the world into his confidence, and +publishes his book. + +Our old Common Law was clear enough. Subject only to laws or customs +about licensing and against profane books and the like, the right of +publishing and selling any book belonged exclusively to the author and +persons claiming through him. Books were as much the subjects of +property-rights as lands in Kent or money in the bank. The term of +enjoyment knew no period. Fine fantastic ideas about genius endowing the +world and transcending the narrow bounds of property were not +countenanced by our Common Law. Bunyan's _Pilgrim's Progress_, in the +year 1680, belonged to Mr. Ponder: _Paradise Lost_, in the year 1739, +was the property of Mr. Jacob Tonson. Mr. Ponder and Mr. Tonson had +acquired these works by purchase. Property-rights of this description +seem strange to us, even absurd. But that is one of the provoking ways +of property-rights. Views vary. Perhaps this time next century it will +seem as absurd that Ben Mac Dhui should ever have been private property +as it now does that in 1739 Mr. Tonson should have been the owner 'of +man's first disobedience and the fruit of that forbidden tree.' This is +not said with any covered meaning, but is thrown out gloomily with the +intention of contributing to the general depreciation of property. + +If it be asked how came it about that authors and booksellers allowed +themselves to be deprived of valuable and well-assured rights--to be in +fact disinherited, without so much as an expostulatory ode or a single +epigram--it must be answered, strange as it may sound, it happened +accidentally and through tampering with the Common Law. + +Authors are indeed a luckless race. To be deprived of your property by +Act of Parliament is a familiar process, calling for no remarks save of +an objurgatory character; but to petition Parliament to take away your +property--to get up an agitation against yourself, to promote the +passage through both Houses of the Act of spoliation, is unusual; so +unusual indeed that I make bold to say that none but authors would do +such things. That they did these very things is certain. It is also +certain that they did not mean to do them. They did not understand the +effect of their own Act of Parliament. In exchange for a term of either +fourteen or twenty-one years, they gave up not only for themselves, but +for all before and after them, the whole of time. Oh! miserable men! No +enemy did this; no hungry mob clamoured for cheap books; no owner of +copyrights so much as weltered in his gore. The rights were +unquestioned: no one found fault with them. The authors accomplished +their own ruin. Never, surely, since the well-nigh incredible folly of +our first parents lost us Eden and put us to the necessity of earning +our living, was so fine a property--perpetual copyright--bartered away +for so paltry an equivalent. + +This is how it happened. Before the Revolution of 1688 printing +operations were looked after, first by the Court of Star Chamber, which +was not always engaged, as the perusal of constitutional history might +lead one to believe, in torturing the unlucky, and afterwards by the +Stationers' Company. Both these jurisdictions revelled in what is called +summary process, which lawyers sometimes describe as _brevi manu_, and +suitors as 'short shrift.' They hailed before them the Mr. Thomas Teggs +of the period, and fined them heavily and confiscated their stolen +editions. Authors and their assignees liked this. But then came Dutch +William and the glorious Revolution. The press was left free; and +authors and their assignees were reduced to the dull level of unlettered +persons; that is to say, if their rights were interfered with, they +were compelled to bring an action, of the kind called 'trespass on the +case,' and to employ astute counsel to draw pleadings with a pitfall in +each paragraph, and also to incur costs; and in most cases, even when +they triumphed over their enemy, it was only to find him a pauper from +whom it was impossible to recover a penny. Nor had the law power to fine +the offender or to confiscate the pirated edition; or if it had this +last power, it was not accustomed to exercise it, deeming it unfamiliar +and savouring of the Inquisition. Grub Street grew excited. A noise went +up 'most musical, most melancholy, + + 'As of cats that wail in chorus.' + +It was the Augustan age of literature. Authors were listened to. They +petitioned Parliament, and their prayer was heard. In the eighth year of +good Queen Anne the first copyright statute was passed which, 'for the +encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books,' +provided that the authors of books already printed who had not +transferred their rights, and the booksellers or other persons who had +purchased the copy of any books in order to print or reprint the same, +should have the sole right of printing them for a term of twenty-one +years from the tenth of April, 1710, and no longer; and that authors of +books not then printed, should have the sole right of printing for +fourteen years, and no longer. Then followed, what the authors really +wanted the Act for, special penalties for infringement. And there was +peace in Grub Street for the space of twenty-one years. But at the +expiration of this period the fateful question was stirred--what had +happened to the old Common Law right in perpetuity? Did it survive this +peddling Act, or had it died, ingloriously smothered by a statute? That +fine old book--once on every settle--_The Whole Duty of Man_, first +raised the point. Its date of publication was 1657, so it had had its +term of twenty-one years. That term having expired, what then? The +proceedings throw no light upon the vexed question of the book's +authorship. Sir Joseph Jekyll was content with the evidence before him +that, in 1735 at all events, _The Whole Duty of Man_ was, or would have +been but for the statute, the property of one Mr. Eyre. He granted an +injunction, thus in effect deciding that the old Common Law had survived +the statute. Nor did the defendant appeal, but sat down under the +affront, and left _The Whole Duty of Man_ alone for the future. + +Four years later there came into Lord Hardwicke's court 'silver-tongued +Murray,' afterwards Lord Mansfield, then Solicitor-General, and on +behalf of Mr. Jacob Tonson moved for an injunction to restrain the +publication of an edition of _Paradise Lost_. Tonson's case was, that +_Paradise Lost_ belonged to him, just as the celebrated ewer by +Benvenuto Cellini once belonged to the late Mr. Beresford Hope. He +proved his title by divers mesne assignments and other acts in the law, +from Mrs. Milton--the poet's third wife, who exhibited such skill in the +art of widowhood, surviving her husband as she did for fifty-three +years. Lord Hardwicke granted the injunction. It looked well for the +Common Law. Thomson's _Seasons_ next took up the wondrous tale. This +delightful author, now perhaps better remembered by his charming habit +of eating peaches off the wall with both hands in his pockets, than by +his great work, had sold the book to Andrew Millar, the bookseller whom +Johnson respected because, said he, 'he has raised the price of +literature.' If so, it must have been but low before, for he only gave +Thomson a hundred guineas for 'Summer,' 'Autumn,' and 'Winter,' and some +other pieces. The 'Spring' he bought separately, along with the +ill-fated tragedy, _Sophonisba_, for one hundred and thirty-seven pounds +ten shillings. A knave called Robert Taylor pirated Millar's Thomson's +_Seasons_; and on the morrow of All Souls in Michaelmas, in the seventh +year of King George the Third, Andrew Millar brought his plea of +trespass on the case against Robert Taylor, and gave pledges of +prosecution, to wit, John Doe and Richard Roe. The case was recognised +to be of great importance, and was argued at becoming length in the +King's Bench. Lord Mansfield and Justices Willes and Aston upheld the +Common Law. It was, they declared, unaffected by the statute. Mr. +Justice Yates dissented, and in the course of a judgment occupying +nearly three hours, gave some of his reasons. It was the first time the +court had ever finally differed since Mansfield presided over it. Men +felt the matter could not rest there. Nor did it. Millar died, and went +to his own place. His executors put up Thomson's _Poems_ for sale by +public auction, and one Beckett bought them for five hundred and five +pounds. When we remember that Millar only gave two hundred and forty-two +pounds ten shillings for them in 1729, and had therefore enjoyed more +than forty years' exclusive monopoly, we realise not only that Millar +had made a good thing out of his brother Scot, but what great interests +were at stake. Thomson's _Seasons_, erst Millar's, now became Beckett's; +and when one Donaldson of Edinburgh brought out an edition of the poems, +it became the duty of Beckett to take proceedings, which he did by +filing a bill in the Court of Chancery.[8] + +These proceedings found their way, as all decent proceedings do, to the +House of Lords--farther than which you cannot go, though ever so minded. +It was now high time to settle this question, and their lordships +accordingly, as was their proud practice in great cases, summoned the +judges of the land before their bar, and put to them five +carefully-worded questions, all going to the points--what was the old +Common Law right, and has it survived the statute? Eleven judges +attended, heard the questions, bowed and retired to consider their +answers. On the fifteenth of February, 1774, they reappeared, and it +being announced that they differed, instead of being locked up without +meat, drink, or firing until they agreed, they were requested to deliver +their opinions with their reasons, which they straightway proceeded to +do. The result may be stated with tolerable accuracy thus: by ten to one +they were of opinion that the old Common Law recognised perpetual +copyright. By six to five they were of opinion that the statute of Queen +Anne had destroyed this right. The House of Lords adopted the opinion of +the majority, reversed the decree of the Court below, and thus Thomson's +_Seasons_ became your _Seasons_, my _Seasons_, anybody's _Seasons_. But +by how slender a majority! To make it even more exciting, it was +notorious that the most eminent judge on the Bench (Lord Mansfield) +agreed with the minority; but owing to the combined circumstances of his +having already, in a case practically between the same parties and +relating to the same matter, expressed his opinion, and of his being not +merely a judge but a peer, he was prevented (by etiquette) from taking +any part, either as a judge or as a peer, in the proceedings. Had he not +been prevented (by etiquette), who can say what the result might have +been? + +Here ends the story of how authors and their assignees were disinherited +by mistake, and forced to content themselves with such beggarly terms +of enjoyment as a hostile legislature doles out to them. + +As the law now stands, they may enjoy their own during the period of the +author's life, _plus_ seven years, or the period of forty-two years, +whichever may chance to prove the longer. + +So strangely and so quickly does the law colour men's notions of what is +inherently decent, that even authors have forgotten how fearfully they +have been abused and how cruelly robbed. Their thoughts are turned in +quite other directions. I do not suppose they will care for these +old-world memories. Their great minds are tossing on the ocean which +pants dumbly-passionate with dreams of royalties. If they could only +shame the English-reading population of the United States to pay for +their literature, all would be well. Whether they ever will, depends +upon themselves. If English authors will publish their books cheap, +Brother Sam may, and probably will, pay them a penny a copy, or some +such sum. If they will not, he will go on stealing. It is wrong, but he +will do it. 'He says,' observes an American writer, 'that he was born +of poor but honest parents, _I_ say, "Bah!"'[9] + + + + + NATIONALITY + + +Nothing can well be more offensive than the abrupt asking of questions, +unless indeed it be the glib assurance which professes to be able to +answer them without a moment's doubt or consideration. It is hard to +forgive Sir Robert Peel for having once asked, 'What is a pound?' +Cobden's celebrated question, 'What next? And next?' was perhaps less +objectionable, being vast and vague, and to employ Sir Thomas Browne's +well-known phrase, capable of a wide solution. + +But in these disagreeable days we must be content to be disagreeable. We +must even accept being so as our province. It seems now recognised that +he is the best Parliamentary debater who is most disagreeable. It is not +so easy as some people imagine to be disagreeable. The gift requires +cultivation. It is easier, no doubt, for some than for others. + +What is a nation--socially and politically, and as a unit to be dealt +with by practical politicians? It is not a great many things. It is not +blood, it is not birth, it is not breeding. A man may have been born at +Surat and educated at Lausanne, one of his four great-grandfathers may +have been a Dutchman, one of his four great-grandmothers a French +refugee, and yet he himself may remain from his cradle in Surat to his +grave at Singapore, a true-born Englishman, with all an Englishman's +fine contempt for mixed races and struggling nationalities. + +Where the English came from is still a matter of controversy, but where +they have gone to is writ large over the earth's surface. Yet their +nationality has suffered no eclipse. Caviare is not so good in London as +in Moscow, but it is caviare all the same. No foreigner needs to ask the +nationality of the man who treads on his corns, smiles at his religion, +and does not want to know anything about his aspirations. + +England has all the notes of a nation. She has a National Church, based +upon a view of history peculiarly her own. She has a National Oath, +which, without any undue pride, may be pronounced adequate for ordinary +occasions. She has a Constitution, the admiration of the world, and of +which a fresh account has to be written every twenty years. She has a +History, glorious in individual feats, and splendid in accomplished +facts; she has a Literature which makes the poorest of her children, if +only he has been taught to read, rich beyond the dreams of avarice. As +for the national character, it may be said of an Englishman, what has +been truly said of the great English poet Wordsworth--take him at his +best and he need own no superior. He cannot always be at his best; and +when he is at his worst the world shudders. + +But what about Scotland and Ireland? Are they nations? If they are not, +it is not because their separate characteristics have been absorbed by +John Bullism. Scotland and Ireland are no more England than Holland or +Belgium. It may be doubted whether, if the three countries had never +been politically united, their existing unlikeness would have been any +greater than it is. It is a most accentuated unlikeness. Scotland has +her own prevailing religion. Mr. Arnold recognised this when he +observed, in that manner of his which did not always give pleasure, that +Dr. Chalmers reminded him of a Scotch thistle valorously trying to look +as much like the rose of Sharon as possible. This distorted view of Mr. +Arnold's at all events recognises a fact. Then there is Scotch law. If +there is one legal proposition which John Bull--poor attorney-ridden +John Bull--has grasped for himself, it is that a promise made without a +monetary or otherwise valuable consideration, is in its legal aspect a +thing of nought, which may be safely disregarded. Bull's views about the +necessity of writing and sixpenny stamps are vague, but he is quite +sound and certain about promises going for nothing unless something +passed between the parties. Thus, if an Englishman, moved, let us say, +by the death of his father, says hastily to a maiden aunt who has made +the last days of his progenitor easy, 'I will give you fifty pounds a +year,' and then repents him of his promise, he is under no legal +obligation to make it good. If he is a gentleman he will send her a +ten-pound note at Christmas and a fat goose at Michaelmas, and the +matter drops as being but the babble of the sick-room. But in Scotland +the maiden aunt, provided she can prove her promise, can secure her +annuity and live merrily in Peebles for the rest of a voluptuous life. +Here is a difference indeed! + +Then, Scotland has a history of her own. The late Dr. Hill Burton wrote +it in nine comfortable volumes. She has a thousand traditions, foreign +connections, feelings to which the English breast must always remain an +absolute stranger. Scottish fields are different from English fields; +her farms, roads, walls, buildings, flowers, are different; her schools, +universities, churches, household ways, songs, foods, drinks, are all as +different as may be. Boswell's Johnson, Lockhart's Scott! What a host of +dissimilarities, what an Iliad of unlikenesses, do the two names of +Johnson and Scott call up from the vasty deep of national differences! + +One great note of a nation is possessed to the full by Scotland. I mean +the power of blending into one state of national feeling all those who +call what is contained within her geographical boundaries by the sacred +name of 'Home.' The Lowlander from Dumfries is more at home at Inverness +than in York. Why is this? Because Scotland is a nation. The great +Smollett, who challenges Dickens for the foremost place amongst British +comic writers, had no Celtic blood in his veins. He was neither a Papist +nor a Jacobite, yet how did his Scottish blood boil whilst listening in +London to the cowardly exultations of the cockneys over the brutalities +that followed the English victory at Colloden! and how bitterly--almost +savagely--did he contrast that cowardly exultation with the depression +and alarm that had prevailed in London when but a little while before +the Scotch had reached Derby. + +What patriotic feeling breathes through Smollett's noble lines, _The +Tears of Caledonia_, and with what delightful enthusiasm, with what +affectionate admiration, does Sir Walter Scott tell us how the last +stanza came to be written! 'He (Smollett) accordingly read them the +first sketch of the _Tears of Scotland_ consisting only of six stanzas, +and on their remarking that the termination of the poem, being too +strongly expressed, might give offence to persons whose political +opinions were different, he sat down without reply, and with an air of +great indignation, subjoined the concluding stanza: + + '"While the warm blood bedews my veins, + And unimpaired remembrance reigns, + Resentment of my country's fate + Within my filial breast shall beat. + Yes, spite of thine insulting foe, + My sympathising verse shall flow, + Mourn, hopeless Caledonia, mourn, + Thy banished peace, thy laurels torn."' + +In the same sense is the story told by Mr. R. L. Stevenson, how, when +the famous Celtic regiment, the Black Watch, which then drew its +recruits from the now unpeopled glens of Ross-shire and Sutherland, +returned to Scotland after years of foreign service, veterans leaped out +of the boats and kissed the shore of Galloway. + +The notes of Irish nationality have been, by conquest and ill-usage, +driven deeper in. Her laws were taken from her, and her religion +brutally proscribed. In the great matter of national education she has +not been allowed her natural and proper development. Her children have +been driven abroad to foreign seminaries to get the religious education +Protestant England denied them at home. Her nationality has thus been +checked and mutilated, but that it exists in spirit and in fact can +hardly be questioned by any impartial traveller. Englishmen have many +gifts, but one gift they have not--that of making Scotsmen and Irishmen +forget their native land. + +The attitude of some Englishmen towards Scotch and Irish national +feelings requires correction. The Scotsman's feelings are laughed at. +The Irishman's insulted. So far as the laughter is concerned, it must be +admitted that it is good-humoured. Burns, Scott, and Carlyle, Scotch +moors and Scotch whisky, the royal game of golf, all have mollified and +beautified English feelings. In candour, too, it must be admitted that +Scotsmen are not conciliatory. They do not meet people half-way. I do +not think the laughter does much harm. Insults are different.... + +Mr. Arnold, in a now scarce pamphlet published in 1859, on the Italian +Question, with the motto prefixed, '_Sed nondum est finis_,' makes the +following interesting observations:-- + +'Let an Englishman or a Frenchman, who respectively represent the two +greatest nationalities of modern Europe, sincerely ask himself what it +is that makes him take pride in his nationality, what it is which would +make it intolerable to his feelings to pass, or to see any part of his +country pass, under foreign dominion. He will find that it is the sense +of self-esteem generated by knowing the figure which his nation makes in +history; by considering the achievements of his nation in war, +government, arts, literature, or industry. It is the sense that his +people, which have done such great things, merits to exist in freedom +and dignity, and to enjoy the luxury of self-respect.' + +This is admirable, but not, nor does it pretend to be, exhaustive. The +love of country is something a little more than mere _amour propre_. You +may love your mother, and wish to make a home for her, even though she +never dwelt in kings' palaces, and is clad in rags. The children of +misery and misfortune are not all illegitimate. Sometimes you may +discern amongst them high hope and pious endeavour. There may be, +indeed, there is, a Niobe amongst the nations, but tears are not always +of despair. + +'The luxury of self-respect.' It is a wise phrase. To make Ireland and +Irishmen self-respectful is the task of statesmen. + + + + + THE REFORMATION + + +Long ago an eminent Professor of International Law, at the University of +Cambridge, lecturing his class, spoke somewhat disparagingly of the +Reformation as compared with the Renaissance, and regretted there was no +adequate history of the glorious events called by the latter name. So +keenly indeed did the Professor feel this gap in his library, that he +proceeded to say that inconvenient as it had been to him to lecture at +Cambridge that afternoon, still if what he had said should induce any +member of the class to write a history of the Renaissance worthy to be +mentioned with the masterpiece of Gibbon, he (the Professor) would never +again think it right to refer to the inconvenience he had personally +been put to in the matter. + +It must be twenty years since these words were uttered. The class to +whom they were addressed is scattered far and wide, even as the +household referred to in the touching poem of Mrs. Hemans. No one of +them has written a history of the Renaissance. It is now well-nigh +certain no one of them ever will. Looking back over those twenty years +it seems a pity it was never attempted. As Owen Meredith sweetly sings-- + + 'And it all seems now in the waste of life + Such a very little thing.' + +But it has remained undone. Regrets are vain. + +For my part, I will make bold to say that the Professor was all wrong. +Professors do not stand where they did. They have been blown upon. The +ugliest gap in an Englishman's library is in the shelf which ought to +contain, but does not, a history of the Reformation of Religion in his +own country. It is a subject made for an Englishman's hand. At present +it is but (to employ some old-fashioned words) a hotch-potch, a +gallimaufry, a confused mingle-mangle of divers things jumbled or put +together. Puritan and Papist, Anglican and Erastian, pull out what they +choose, and drop whatever they do not like with a grimace of humorous +disgust. What faces the early Tractarians used to pull over Bishop +Jewel! How Dr. Maitland delighted in exhibiting the boundless vulgarity +of the Puritan party! Lord Macaulay had only a paragraph or two to spare +for the Reformation; but as we note amongst the contents of his first +chapter the following heads: 'The Reformation and its Effects,' 'Origin +of the Church of England,' 'Her Peculiar Character,' we do not need to +be further reminded of the views of that arch-Erastian. + +It is time someone put a stop to this 'help yourself' procedure. What is +needed to do this is a long, luminous, leisurely history, written by +somebody who, though wholly engrossed by his subject, is yet absolutely +indifferent to it. + +The great want at present is of common knowledge; common, that is, to +all parties. The Catholic tells his story, which is much the most +interesting one, sure of his audience. The Protestant falls back upon +his Fox, and relights the fires of Smithfield with entire +self-satisfaction. The Erastian flourishes his Acts of Parliament in the +face of the Anglican, who burrows like a cony in the rolls of +Convocation. Each is familiar with one set of facts, and shrinks +nervously from the honour of an introduction to a totally new set. We +are not going to change our old '_mumpsimus_' for anybody's new +'_sumpsimus_.' But we must some day, and we shall when this new history +gets itself written. + +The subject cannot be said to lack charm. Border lands, marshes, passes +are always romantic. No bagman can cross the Tweed without emotion. The +wanderer on the Malvern Hills soon learns to turn his eyes from the dull +eastward plain to where they can be feasted on the dim outlines of wild +Wales. Border periods of history have something of the same charm. How +the old thing ceased to be? How the new thing became what it is? How the +old colours faded, and the old learning disappeared, and the Church of +Edward the Confessor, and St. Thomas of Canterbury, and William of +Wykeham, became the Church of George the Third, Archbishop Tait, and +Dean Stanley? There is surely a tale to be told. Something must have +happened at the Reformation. Somebody was dispossessed. The common +people no longer heard 'the blessed mutter of the mass,' nor saw 'God +made and eaten all day long.' Ancient services ceased, old customs were +disregarded, familiar words began to go out of fashion. The Reformation +meant something. On these points the Catholics entertain no kind of +doubt. That they suffered ejectment they tearfully admit. Nor, to do +them justice, have they ever acquiesced in the wrong they allege was +then done them, or exhibited the faintest admiration for the intruder. + + 'Have ye beheld the young God of the Seas, + My dispossessor? Have ye seen his face? + Have ye beheld his chariot foam'd along + By noble wing'd creatures he hath made? + I saw him on the calmed waters scud, + With such a glow of beauty in his eyes + That it enforced me to bid sad farewell + To all my empire.' + +This has never been the attitude or the language of the Roman Church +towards the Anglican. 'Canterbury has gone its way, and York is gone, +and Durham is gone, and Winchester is gone. It was sore to part with +them.' So spoke Dr. Newman on a memorable occasion. His distress would +have been no greater had the venerable buildings to which he alluded +been in the possession of the Baptists. + +But against this view must be set the one represented by the somewhat +boisterous Church of Englandism of Dean Hook, who ever maintained that +all the Church did at the Reformation was to wash her dirty face, and +that consequently she underwent only an external and not a corporate +change during the process. + +There are thousands of pious souls to whom the question, What happened +at the Reformation? is of supreme importance; and yet there is no +history of the period written by a 'kinless loon,' whose own personal +indifference to Church Authority shall be as great as his passion for +facts, his love of adventures and biography, and his taste for theology. + +In the meantime, and pending the production of the immortal work, it is +pleasant to notice that annually the historian's task is being made +easier. Books are being published, and old manuscripts edited and +printed, which will greatly assist the good man, and enable him to write +his book by his own fireside. The Catholics have been very active of +late years. They have shaken off their shyness and reserve, and however +reluctant they still may be to allow their creeds to be overhauled and +their rites curtailed by strangers, they have at least come with their +histories in their hands and invited criticism. The labours of Father +Morris of the Society of Jesus, and of the late Father Knox of the +London Oratory, greatly lighten and adorn the path of the student who +loves to be told what happened long ago, not in order that he may know +how to cast his vote at the next election, but simply because it so +happened, and for no other reason whatsoever. + +Father Knox's name has just been brought before the world, not, it is to +be hoped, for the last time, by the publication of a small book, partly +his, but chiefly the work of the Rev. T. E. Bridgett, entitled _The True +Story of the Catholic Hierarchy deposed by Queen Elizabeth, with +Fuller Memoirs of its Two Last Survivors_ (Burns and Oates). + +The book was much wanted. When Queen Mary died, on the 17th of November, +1558, the dioceses of Oxford, Salisbury, Bangor, Gloucester, and +Hereford were vacant. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Reginald Pole, died +a few hours after his royal relative; and the Bishops of Rochester, +Norwich, Chichester, and Bristol did not long survive her. It thus +happened that at the opening of 1559 there were only sixteen bishops on +the bench. What became of them? The book I have just mentioned answers +this deeply interesting question. + +One of them, Oglethorpe of Carlisle, was induced to crown the Queen, +which service was, however, performed according to the Roman ceremonial, +and included the Unction, the Pontifical Mass, and the Communion; but +when the oath prescribed by the Act of Supremacy was tendered to the +bishops, they all, with one exception, Kitchen of Llandaff, declined to +take it, and their depositions followed in due course, though at +different dates, during the year 1559. They were, in plain English, +turned out, and their places given to others. + +A whole hierarchy turned a-begging like this might have been a very +startling thing--but it does not seem to have been so. There was no +Ambrose amongst the bishops. The mob showed no disposition to rescue +Bonner from the Marshalsea. The Queen called them 'a set of lazy +scamps.' This was hard measure. The reverend authors of the book before +me call them 'confessors,' which they certainly were. But there is +something disappointing and non-apostolic about them. They none of them +came to violent ends. What did happen to them? + +The classical passage recording their fortunes occurs in Lord Burghley's +_Execution of Justice in England_, which appeared in 1583. His lordship +in a good-tempered vein runs through the list of the deposed bishops one +by one, and says in substance, and in a style not unlike Lord Russell's, +that the only hardship put upon them was their removal 'from their +ecclesiastical offices, which they would not exercise according to +law.' For the rest, they were 'for a great time retained in bishops' +houses in very civil and courteous manner, without charge to themselves +or their friends, until the time the Pope began, by his Bulls and +messages, to offer trouble to the realm by stirring of rebellion;' then +Burghley admits, some of them were removed to more quiet places, but +still without being 'called to any capital or bloody question.' + +In this view historians have pretty generally acquiesced. Camden speaks +of Tunstall of Durham dying at Lambeth 'in free custody'--a happy phrase +which may be recommended to those of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland +who find themselves in prison under a statute of Edward III., not for +doing anything, but for refusing to say they will not do it again. Even +that most erudite and delightful of English Catholics, Charles Butler, +who is one of the pleasantest memories of Lincoln's Inn, made but little +of the sufferings of these bishops, whilst some Protestant writers have +thought it quite amazing they were not all burnt as heretics. 'There +were no retaliatory burnings,' says Canon Perry regretfully. But this +surely is carrying Anglican assurance to an extraordinary pitch. What +were they to be burnt for? You are burnt for heresy. That is right +enough. No one would complain of that. But who in the year 1559 would +have been bold enough to declare that the Archbishop of York was a +heretic for refusing an oath prescribed by an Act of the Queen of the +same year? Why, even now, after three centuries and a quarter of +possession, I suppose Lord Selborne would hesitate before burning the +Archbishop of Westminster as a heretic. Hanging is a different matter. +It is very easy to get hung--but to be burnt requires a combination of +circumstances not always forthcoming. Canon Perry should have remembered +this. + +These deposed bishops were neither burnt nor hung. The aged Tunstall of +Durham, who had played a very shabby part in Henry's time, died, where +he was bound to die, in his bed, very shortly after his deposition; so +also did the Bishops of Lichfield and Coventry, St. David's, Carlisle, +and Winchester. Dr. Scott of Chester, after four years in the Fleet +prison, managed to escape to Belgium, where he died in 1565. Dr. Pate of +Worcester, who was a Council of Trent man, spent three years in the +Tower, and then contrived to slip away unobserved. Dr. Poole of +Peterborough was never in prison at all, but was allowed to live in +retirement in the neighbourhood of London till his death in 1568. Bishop +Bonner was kept a close prisoner in the Marshalsea till his death in +1569. He was not popular in London. As he had burnt about one hundred +and twenty persons, this need not surprise us. Bishop Bourne of Bath and +Wells was lodged in the Tower from June, 1560, to the autumn of 1563, +when the plague breaking out, he was quartered on the new Bishop of +Lincoln, who had to provide him with bed and board till May, 1566, after +which date the ex-bishop was allowed to be at large till his death in +1569. The Bishop of Exeter was kept in the Tower for three years. What +subsequently became of him is not known. He is supposed to have lived in +the country. Bishop Thirlby of Ely, after three years in the Tower, +lived for eleven years with Archbishop Parker, uncomfortably enough, +without confession or mass. Then he died. It is not to be supposed that +Parker ever told his prisoner that they both belonged to the same +Church. Dr. Heath, the Archbishop of York, survived his deprivation +twenty years, three only of which were spent in prison. He was a man of +more mark than most of his brethren, and had defended the Papal +supremacy with power and dignity in his place in Parliament. The Queen, +who had a liking for him, was very anxious to secure his presence at +some of the new offices, but he would never go, summing up his +objections thus:--'Whatever is contrary to the Catholic faith is heresy, +whatever is contrary to Unity is schism.' On getting out of the Tower, +Dr. Heath, who had a private estate, lived upon it till his death. Dr. +Watson of Lincoln was the most learned and the worst treated of the +deposed bishops. He was in the Tower and the Marshalsea, with short +intervals, from 1559 to 1577, when he was handed over to the custody of +the Bishop of Winchester, who passed him on, after eighteen months, to +his brother of Rochester, from whose charge he was removed to join other +prisoners in Wisbeach Castle, where very queer things happened. Watson +died at Wisbeach in 1584. There was now but one bishop left, the by no +means heroic Goldwell of St. Asaph's, who in June, 1559, proceeded in +disguise to the sea-coast, and crossed over to the Continent without +being recognised. He continued to live abroad for the rest of his days, +which ended on the 3rd of April, 1585. With him the ancient hierarchy +ceased to exist. That, at least, is the assertion of the reverend +authors of the book referred to. There are those who maintain the +contrary. + + + + + SAINTE-BEUVE + + +The vivacious, the in fact far too vivacious, Abbé Galiani, writing to +Madame d'Épinay, observes with unwonted seriousness: 'Je remarque que le +caractère dominant des Français perce toujours. Ils sont causeurs, +raisonneurs, badins par essence; un mauvais tableau enfante une bonne +brochure; ainsi, vous parlerez mieux des arts que vous n'en ferez +jamais. Il se trouvera, au bout du compte, dans quelques siècles, que +vous aurez le mieux raisonné, le mieux discuté ce que toutes les autres +nations auront fait de mieux.' To affect to foretell the final balance +of an account which is not to be closed for centuries demands either +celestial assurance or Neapolitan impudence; but, regarded as a guess, +the Abbé's was a shrewd one. The _post-mortem_ may prove him wrong, but +can hardly prove him absurdly wrong. + +We owe much to the French--enlightenment, pleasure, variety, surprise; +they have helped us in a great many ways: amongst others, to play an +occasional game of hide-and-seek with Puritanism, a distraction in which +there is no manner of harm; unless, indeed, the demure damsel were to +turn huffy, and after we had hidden ourselves, refuse to find us again. +Then, indeed--to use a colloquial expression--there would be the devil +to pay. + +But nowhere have the French been so helpful, in nothing else has the +change from the native to the foreign article been so delightful, as in +this very matter of criticism upon which the Abbé Galiani had seized +more than a hundred years ago. Mr. David Stott has lately published two +small volumes of translations from the writings of Sainte-Beuve, the +famous critic, who so long has been accepted as the type of all that is +excellent in French criticism. French turned into English is always a +woful spectacle--the pale, smileless corpse of what was once rare and +radiant; but it is a thousand times better to read Sainte-Beuve or any +other good foreign author in English than not to read him at all. +Everybody has not time to emulate the poet Rowe, who learned Spanish in +order to qualify himself, as he fondly thought, for a snug berth at +Madrid, only to be told by his scholarly patron that now he could read +_Don Quixote_ in the original. + +We hope these two volumes may be widely read, as they deserve to be, and +that they may set their readers thinking what it is that makes +Sainte-Beuve so famous a critic and so delightful a writer. His volumes +are very numerous. 'All Balzac's novels occupy a shelf,' says Browning's +Bishop; Sainte-Beuve's criticisms take up quite as much room. The +_Causeries du Lundi_ and the _Nouveaux Lundis_ fill some twenty-eight +tomes. _À priori_, one would be disposed to mutter, 'This is too much.' +Can any man turned fifty truthfully declare that he wishes De Quincey +had left thirty volumes behind him instead of fifteen? Great is De +Quincey, but so elaborate are his movements, so tremendous his literary +contortions, that when you have done with him you feel it would be +cruelty to keep him stretched upon the rack of his own style for a +moment longer. Sainte-Beuve is as easy as may be. Never before or since +has there been an author so well content with his subject, whatever it +might chance to be; so willing to be bound within its confines, and not +to travel beyond it. In this excellent 'stay-at-home' quality, he +reminds the English reader more of Addison than of any of our later +critics and essayists. These latter are too anxious to please, far too +disposed to believe that, apart from themselves and their flashing wits, +their readers can have no possible interest in the subject they have in +hand. They are ever seeking to adorn their theme instead of exploring +it. They are always prancing, seldom willing to take a brisk +constitutional along an honest, turnpike road. Even so admirable, so +sensible a writer as Mr. Lowell is apt to worry us with his Elizabethan +profusion of imagery, epithet, and wit. 'Something too much of this,' we +cry out before we are half-way through. William Hazlitt, again, is +really too witty. It is uncanny. Sainte-Beuve never teases his readers +this way. You often catch yourself wondering, so matter-of-fact is his +narrative, why it is you are interested. The dates of the births and +deaths of his authors, the facts as to their parentage and education, +are placed before you with stern simplicity, and without a single one of +those quips and cranks which Carlyle ('God rest his soul!--he was a +merry man') scattered with full hands over his explosive pages. But yet +if you are interested, as for the most part you are, what a triumph for +sobriety and good sense! A noisy author is as bad as a barrel-organ; a +quiet one is as refreshing as a long pause in a foolish sermon. + +Sainte-Beuve covered an enormous range in his criticism; he took the +Whole Literature as his province. It is an amusing trait of many living +authors whose odd craze it is to take themselves and what they are fond +of calling their 'work'--by which, if you please, they mean their rhymes +and stories--very seriously indeed, to believe that critics exist for +the purpose of calling attention to them--these living solemnities--and +pointing out their varied excellences, or promise of excellence, to an +eager book-buying public. To detect in some infant's squall the rich +futurity of a George Eliot, to predict a glorious career for Gus +Hoskins--this it is to be a true critic. For my part, I think a critic +better occupied, though he be destitute of the genius of Lamb or +Coleridge, in calling attention to the real greatnesses or shortcomings +of dead authors than in dictating to his neighbours what they ought to +think about living ones. If you teach me or help me to think aright +about Milton, you can leave me to deal with _The Light of Asia_ on my +own account. Addison was better employed expounding the beauties of +_Paradise Lost_ to an unappreciative age than when he was puffing +Philips and belittling Pope, or even than he would have been had he +puffed Pope and belittled Philips. + +Sainte-Beuve was certainly happier snuffing the 'parfums du passée' than +when ranging amongst the celebrities of his own day. His admiration for +Victor Hugo, which so notoriously grew cool, is supposed to have been by +no means remotely connected with an admiration for Victor Hugo's wife. +These things cannot be helped, but if you confine yourself to the past +they cannot happen. + +The method pursued by this distinguished critic during the years he was +producing his weekly _Causerie_, was to shut himself up alone with his +selected author--that is, with his author's writings, letters, and +cognate works--for five days in the week. This was his period of +immersion, of saturation. On the sixth day he wrote his criticism. On +the seventh he did no manner of work. The following day the _Causerie_ +appeared, and its author shut himself up again with another set of books +to produce another criticism. This was a workmanlike method. +Sainte-Beuve had a genuine zeal to be a good workman in his own +trade--the true instinct of the craftsman, always honoured in France, +not so honoured as it deserves to be in England. + +Sainte-Beuve's most careless reader cannot fail to observe his +contentment with his subject, his restraint, and his good sense--all +workmanlike qualities: but a more careful study of his writings fully +warrants his title to the possession of other qualities it would be +rash to rank higher, but which, here in England, we are accustomed to +reward with more lavish praise--namely, insight, sympathy, and feeling. + +To begin with, he was endlessly curious about people, without being in +the least bit a gossip or a tattler. His interest never fails him, yet +never leads him astray. His skill in collecting the salient facts and in +emphasising the important ones is marvellous. How unerring was his +instinct in these matters the English reader is best able to judge by +his handling of English authors, so diverse and so difficult as Cowper, +Gibbon, and Chesterfield. He never so much as stumbles. He understands +Olney as well as Lausanne, Lady Austen and Mrs. Unwin as well as Madame +Neckar or the Hampshire Militia. One feels sure that he could have +written a better paper on John Bunyan than Macaulay did, a wiser on John +Wesley than anybody has ever done. + +Next to his curiosity must be ranked his sympathy, a sympathy all the +more contagious because so quietly expressed, and never purporting to +be based on intellectual accord. He handles mankind tenderly though +firmly. His interest in them is not merely scientific--his methods are +scientific, but his heart is human. Read his three papers on Cowper over +again, and you will agree with me. How thoroughly he appreciates the +charm of Cowper's happy hours--his pleasant humour--his scholar-like +fancies--his witty verse! No clumsy jesting about old women and balls of +worsted. It is the mixture of insight with sympathy that is so +peculiarly delightful. + +Sainte-Beuve's feeling is displayed doubtless in many ways, but to me it +is always most apparent when he is upholding modesty and grace and +wisdom against their loud-mouthed opposites. When he is doing this, his +words seem to quiver with emotion--the critic almost becomes the +preacher. I gladly take an example from one of the volumes already +referred to. It occurs at the close of a paper on Camille Desmoulins, of +whom Sainte-Beuve does his best to speak kindly, but the reaction +comes--powerful, overwhelming, sweeping all before it: + +'What a longing we feel after reading these pages, encrusted with mire +and blood--pages which are the living image of the disorder in the souls +and morals of those times! What a need we experience of taking up some +wise book, where common-sense predominates, and in which the good +language is but the reflection of a delicate and honest soul, reared in +habits of honour and virtue! We exclaim: Oh! for the style of honest +men--of men who have revered everything worthy of respect; whose innate +feelings have ever been governed by the principles of good taste! Oh! +for the polished, pure, and moderate writers! Oh! for Nicole's Essays, +for D'Aguesseau writing the Life of his Father. Oh! Vauvenargues! Oh! +Pellisson!' + +I have quoted from one volume; let me now quote from the other. I will +take a passage from the paper on Madame de Souza:-- + +'In stirring times, in moments of incoherent and confused imagination +like the present, it is natural to make for the most important point, to +busy one's self with the general working, and everywhere, even in +literature, to strike boldly, aim high, and shout through trumpets and +speaking-tubes. The modest graces will perhaps come back after a while, +and come with an expression appropriate to their new surroundings. I +would fain believe it; but while hoping for the best, I feel sure that +it will not be to-morrow that their sentiments and their speech will +once more prevail.' + +But I must conclude with a sentence from Sainte-Beuve's own pen. Of +Joubert he says: 'Il a une manière qui fait qu'il ne dit rien, +absolument rien comme un autre. Cela est sensible dans les lettres qu'il +écrit, et ne laisse pas de fatiguer à la longue.' Of such a judgment, +one can only scribble in the margin, 'How true!' Sainte-Beuve was always +willing to write like another man. Joubert was not. And yet, strange +paradox! there will be always more men able to write in the strained +style of Joubert than in the natural style of Sainte-Beuve. It is easier +to be odd, intense, over-wise, enigmatic, than to be sensible, simple, +and to see the plain truth about things. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Last Essays of Elia_, 52. + +[2] Since abandoned, _Laus Deo!_ + +[3] Richardson in a letter says this of her, 'the weak, the insipid, the +runaway, the inn-frequenting Sophia;' and calls her lover 'her +illegitimate Tom.' But nobody else need say this of Sophia, and as for +Tom he was declared to be a foundling from the first. + +[4] Jocelyn, founder of the Roden peerage. + +[5] By which title he refers to Mrs. Cornwallis, a lively lady who used +to get her right reverend lord, himself a capital hand at whist, into +great trouble by persisting in giving routs on Sunday. + +[6] See _Essays in Criticism_, p. 23. + +[7] _Letters of Charles Lamb._ Newly arranged, with additions; and a New +Portrait. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by the Rev. Alfred +Ainger, M.A., Canon of Bristol. 2 vols. London, 1888. + +[8] Donaldson was a well-known man in Edinburgh. He was Boswell's first +publisher, and on one occasion gave that gentleman a dinner consisting +mainly of pig. Johnson's view of his larcenous proceedings is stated in +the Life. Thurlow was his counsel in this litigation. Donaldson's +Hospital in Edinburgh represents the fortune made by this publisher. + +[9] I was wrong, and this very volume is protected by law in the United +States of America--but it still remains pleasingly uncertain whether the +book-buying public across the water who were willing to buy _Obiter +Dicta_ for twelve cents will give a dollar for _Res Judicata_. + + + +_LIST OF VOLUMES OF ESSAYS ON LITERATURE, ART, MUSIC, ETC., PUBLISHED BY +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743-745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK._ + + +HENRY ADAMS. + +HISTORICAL ESSAYS. 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He cherishes a strong fellow-feeling + with the pure and tranquil life in the modest social circles of the + American people, and has thus won his way to the companionship of + many friendly hearts."--_N. Y. Tribune._ + + +WILLIAM RALPH INGE. + +SOCIETY IN ROME UNDER THE CÆSARS. (12mo, $1.25.) + + "Every page is brimful of interest. The pictures of life in Rome + under the Cæsars are graphic and thoroughly + intelligible."--_Chicago Herald._ + + +ANDREW LANG. + +ESSAYS IN LITTLE. (Portrait, 12mo, $1.00.) + +CONTENTS: Alexandra Dumas--Mr. Stevenson's Works--Thomas Haynes +Bayly--Theodore de Banville--Homer and the Study of Greek--The Last +Fashionable Novel--Thackeray--Dickens--Adventures of Buccaneers--The +Sagas--Kingsley--Lever--Poems of Sir Walter Scott--Bunyan--Letter to a +Young Journalist--Kipling's Stories. + + "One of the most entertaining and bracing of books. It ought to win + every vote and please every class of readers."--_Spectator_ + (London). + +LETTERS TO DEAD AUTHORS. (16mo, $1.00.) + +Letters to Thackeray--Dickens--Herodotus--Pope--Rabelais--Jane Austen--Isaak +Walton--Dumas--Theocritus--Poe--Scott--Shelley--Molière--Burns, etc., +etc. + + "The book is one of the luxuries of the literary taste. It is meant + for the exquisite palate, and is prepared by one of the 'knowing' + kind. It is an astonishing little volume."--_N. Y. Evening Post._ + + +SIDNEY LANIER. + +THE ENGLISH NOVEL AND THE PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. (Crown 8vo, +$2.00.) + + "The critical and analytical portions of his work are always in + high key, suggestive, brilliant, rather dogmatic and not free from + caprice ... But when all these abatements are made, the lectures + remain lofty in tone and full of original + inspiration."--_Independent._ + + +[Transcriber's Notes: Typographical errors have been corrected as +follows: + +Page 14 - "series of familiar letter" replaced with "series of familiar +letters" + +Page 24 - Question mark added to "Do you remember Thackeray's +account..." + +Page 95 - "pains of hell gat hold" replaced with "pains of hell got +hold" + +Page 108 - "jusqu aux" replaced with "jusqu'aux" + +Page 127 - "perference" replaced with "preference" + +Page 127 - "inbecile" replaced with "imbecile" + +Page 196 - Correct single-double quotes before "We live no more" and +"More strictly, then" + +Page 224 - "vemon" replaced with "venom" + +Page 253 - "ligitations" replaced with "litigations" + +Page 282 - "his people, which has" replaced with "his people, which +have" + +Page 287 - "marches" replaced with "marshes"] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Res Judicatæ, by Augustine Birrell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RES JUDICATÆ *** + +***** This file should be named 37159-0.txt or 37159-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/7/1/5/37159/ + +Produced by Hunter Monroe, Suzanne Shell and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +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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