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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78449 ***
+
+
+
+
+                             LITERARY STUDIES
+
+                                  VOL. I.
+
+                                PRINTED BY
+                  SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
+                                  LONDON
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: (signed) Yours, Walter Bagehot.
+
+Woodburytype Company.]
+
+
+
+
+                             LITERARY STUDIES
+
+                                BY THE LATE
+                              WALTER BAGEHOT
+               M.A. AND FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON
+
+                         _WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR_
+
+                                 EDITED BY
+                            RICHARD HOLT HUTTON
+
+                              IN TWO VOLUMES
+
+                                  VOL. I.
+
+                             _FOURTH EDITION_
+
+                                  LONDON
+                         LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
+                     AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET
+                                   1891
+
+                           _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT TO THE FOURTH EDITION.
+
+
+The only changes that have been made in this edition are corrections
+of the press, the need of which has been discovered since the third
+edition was issued. For a few of these I have been indebted to the very
+carefully annotated American edition of Mr. Bagehot’s works brought out
+at Hartford, Connecticut, by Mr. Forrest Morgan, of the Travellers’
+Insurance Society. In some cases I think that the American editor has
+missed Mr. Bagehot’s meaning, and have not, therefore, accepted his
+corrections.
+
+                                                                  R. H. H.
+
+_November 1, 1890._
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENT.
+
+
+Several of the following Essays were published by Mr. BAGEHOT himself in
+a volume which appeared in 1858, entitled ‘Estimates of some Englishmen
+and Scotchmen’—a volume which has now long been out of print. A good
+many others are republished, now for the first time, from _The National
+Review_, in which they appeared, while one other,—that on Henry Crabb
+Robinson,—is taken, with the kind permission of the Editor, from
+_The Fortnightly Review_; two short metaphysical papers are from the
+_Contemporary Review_, and three—one biographical and two political—from
+the _Economist_. The Prefatory Memoir is also republished, with the
+Editor’s permission, from _The Fortnightly Review_. In all cases the date
+of the first publication has been appended to each Essay. The Portrait
+was taken in photography by Monsieur Adolphe Beau, in 1864. It has been
+printed by Messrs. Locke & Whitfield by the Woodbury process.
+
+_November 1878._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+                                                              PAGE
+
+          PRELIMINARY MEMOIR                                    ix
+
+   ESSAY
+
+       I. THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS (1855)                   1
+
+      II. HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1852)                              41
+
+     III. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY (1856)                           75
+
+      IV. SHAKESPEARE—THE MAN (1853)                           126
+
+       V. JOHN MILTON (1859)                                   173
+
+      VI. LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1862)                     221
+
+     VII. WILLIAM COWPER (1855)                                255
+
+                            _APPENDIX._
+
+       I. LETTERS ON THE FRENCH COUP D’ÉTAT OF 1851 (1852)     309
+
+      II. CÆSARISM AS IT EXISTED IN 1865                       361
+
+     III. MEMOIR OF THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WILSON (1860)         367
+
+
+
+
+MEMOIR BY THE EDITOR.[1]
+
+
+It is inevitable, I suppose, that the world should judge of a man chiefly
+by what it has gained in him, and lost by his death, even though a
+very little reflection might sometimes show that the special qualities
+which made him so useful to the world implied others of a yet higher
+order, in which, to those who knew him well, these more conspicuous
+characteristics must have been well-nigh merged. And while, of course,
+it has given me great pleasure, as it must have given pleasure to all
+Bagehot’s friends, to hear the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s evidently
+genuine tribute to his financial sagacity in the Budget speech of 1877,
+and Lord Granville’s eloquent acknowledgments of the value of Bagehot’s
+political counsels as Editor of the _Economist_, in the speech delivered
+at the London University on May 9, 1877, I have sometimes felt somewhat
+unreasonably vexed that those who appreciated so well what I may almost
+call the smallest part of him, appeared to know so little of the essence
+of him,—of the high-spirited, buoyant, subtle, speculative nature in
+which the imaginative qualities were even more remarkable than the
+judgment, and were, indeed, at the root of all that was strongest in
+the judgment,—of the gay and dashing humour which was the life of every
+conversation in which he joined,—and of the visionary nature to which the
+commonest things often seemed the most marvellous, and the marvellous
+things the most intrinsically probable. To those who hear of Bagehot
+only as an original political economist and a lucid political thinker,
+a curiously false image of him must be suggested. If they are among the
+multitude misled by Carlyle, who regard all political economists as ‘the
+dreary professors of a dismal science,’ they will probably conjure up
+an arid disquisitionist on value and cost of production; and even if
+assured of Bagehot’s imaginative power, they may perhaps only understand
+by the expression, that capacity for feverish preoccupation which makes
+the mention of ‘Peel’s Act’ summon up to the faces of certain fanatics
+a hectic glow, or the rumour of paper currencies blanch others with the
+pallor of true passion. The truth, however, is that the best qualities
+which Bagehot had, both as economist and as politician, were of a kind
+which the majority of economists and politicians do not specially
+possess. I do not mean that it was in any way an accident that he was
+an original thinker in either sphere; far from it. But I do think that
+what he brought to political and economical science, he brought in some
+sense from _outside_ their normal range,—that the man of business and
+the financier in him fell within such sharp and well-defined limits,
+that he knew better than most of his class where their special weakness
+lay, and where their special functions ended. This, at all events, I
+am quite sure of, that so far as his judgment was sounder than other
+men’s—and on many subjects it was much sounder—it was so not in spite of,
+but in consequence of, the excursive imagination and vivid humour which
+are so often accused of betraying otherwise sober minds into dangerous
+aberrations. In him both lucidity and caution were directly traceable to
+the force of his imagination.
+
+Walter Bagehot was born at Langport on February 3, 1826. Langport is an
+old-fashioned little town in the centre of Somersetshire, which in early
+days returned two members to Parliament, until the burgesses petitioned
+Edward I. to relieve them of the expense of paying their members,—a
+quaint piece of economy of which Bagehot frequently made humorous boast.
+The town is still a close corporation, and calls its mayor by the old
+Saxon name of Portreeve, and Bagehot himself became its Deputy-Recorder,
+as well as a Magistrate for the County. Situated at the point where the
+river Parret ceases to be navigable, Langport has always been a centre
+of trade; and here in the last century Mr. Samuel Stuckey founded the
+Somersetshire Bank, which has since spread over the entire county, and
+is now the largest private bank of issue in England. Bagehot was the
+only surviving child of Mr. Thomas Watson Bagehot, who was for thirty
+years Managing Director and Vice-Chairman of Stuckey’s Banking Company,
+and was, as Bagehot was fond of recalling, before he resigned that
+position, the oldest joint-stock banker in the United Kingdom. Bagehot
+succeeded his father as Vice-Chairman of the Bank, when the latter
+retired in his old age. His mother, a Miss Stuckey, was a niece of Mr.
+Samuel Stuckey, the founder of the Banking Company, and was a very pretty
+and lively woman, who had, by her previous marriage with a son of Dr.
+Estlin of Bristol, been brought at an early age into an intellectual
+atmosphere by which she had greatly profited. There is no doubt that
+Bagehot was greatly indebted to the constant and careful sympathy in
+all his studies that both she and his father gave him, as well as to a
+very studious disposition, for his future success. Dr. Prichard, the
+well-known ethnologist, was her brother-in-law, and her son’s marked
+taste for science was first awakened in Dr. Prichard’s house in Park Row,
+where Bagehot often spent his half-holidays while he was a schoolboy in
+Bristol. To Dr. Prichard’s ‘Races of Man’ may, indeed, be first traced
+that keen interest in the speculative side of ethnological research,
+the results of which are best seen in Bagehot’s book on ‘Physics and
+Politics.’
+
+I first met Bagehot at University College, London, when we were neither
+of us over seventeen. I was struck by the questions put by a lad with
+large dark eyes and florid complexion to the late Professor De Morgan,
+who was lecturing to us, as his custom was, on the great difficulties
+involved in what we thought we all understood perfectly—such, for
+example, as the meaning of 0, of negative quantities, or the grounds of
+probable expectation. Bagehot’s questions showed that he had both read
+and thought more on these subjects than most of us, and I was eager to
+make his acquaintance, which soon ripened into an intimate friendship, in
+which there was never any intermission between that time and his death.
+Some will regret that Bagehot did not go to Oxford; the reason being that
+his father, who was a Unitarian, objected on principle to all doctrinal
+tests, and would never have permitted a son of his to go to either of the
+older Universities while those tests were required of the undergraduates.
+And I am not at all sure that University College, London, was not at that
+time a much more awakening place of education for young men than almost
+any Oxford college. Bagehot himself, I suspect, thought so. Fifteen years
+later he wrote, in his essay on Shelley: ‘A distinguished pupil of the
+University of Oxford once observed to us, “The use of the University
+of Oxford is that no one can over-read himself there. The appetite
+for knowledge is repressed.”’ And whatever may have been defective in
+University College, London—and no doubt much was defective—nothing of
+the kind could have been said of it when we were students there. Indeed,
+in those years London was a place with plenty of intellectual stimulus
+in it for young men, while in University College itself there was quite
+enough vivacious and original teaching to make that stimulus available
+to the full. It is sometimes said that it needs the quiet of a country
+town remote from the capital, to foster the love of genuine study in
+young men. But of this, at least, I am sure, that Gower Street, and
+Oxford Street, and the New Road, and the dreary chain of squares from
+Euston to Bloomsbury, were the scenes of discussions as eager and as
+abstract as ever were the sedate cloisters or the flowery river-meadows
+of Cambridge or Oxford. Once, I remember, in the vehemence of our
+argument as to whether the so-called logical principle of identity (A is
+A) were entitled to rank as ‘a law of thought’ or only as a postulate of
+language, Bagehot and I wandered up and down Regent Street for something
+like two hours in the vain attempt to find Oxford Street:—
+
+    ‘And yet what days were those, Parmenides,
+    When we were young, when we could number friends,
+    In all the Italian cities like ourselves,
+    When with elated hearts we joined your train,
+    Ye sun-born virgins, on the road of truth!
+    Then we could still enjoy, then neither thought
+    Nor outward things were closed and dead to us,
+    But we received the shock of mighty thoughts
+    On single minds with a pure natural joy;
+    And if the sacred load oppressed our brain,
+    We had the power to feel the pressure eased,
+    The brow unbound, the thoughts flow free again
+    In the delightful commerce of the world.’
+
+Bagehot has himself described, evidently from his own experience, the
+kind of life we lived in those days, in an article on Oxford Reform: ‘So,
+too, in youth, the real plastic energy is not in tutors, or lectures, or
+in books “got up,” but in Wordsworth and Shelley, in the books that all
+read because all like; in what all talk of because all are interested;
+in the argumentative walk or disputatious lounge; in the impact of
+young thought upon young thought, of fresh thought on fresh thought, of
+hot thought on hot thought; in mirth and refutation, in ridicule and
+laughter; for these are the free play of the natural mind, and these
+cannot be got without a college.’[2]
+
+The late Professor Sewell, when asked to give his pupils some clear
+conception of the old Greek Sophists, is said to have replied that he
+could not do this better than by referring them to the Professors of
+University College, London. I do not think there was much force in the
+sarcasm, for though Professor T. Hewitt Key, whose restless and ingenious
+mind led him many a wild dance after etymological Will-of-the-wisps—I
+remember, for instance, his cheerfully accepting the suggestion that
+‘better’ and ‘bad’ (_melior_ and _malus_) came from the same root, and
+accounting for it by the probable disposition of hostile tribes to call
+everything bad which their enemies called good, and everything good which
+their enemies called bad—may have had in him much of the brilliance,
+and something also, perhaps, of the flightiness, of the old sophist,
+it would be hard to imagine men more severe in exposing pretentious
+conceits and dispelling dreams of theoretic omniscience, than Professors
+De Morgan, Malden, and Long. De Morgan, who at that time was in the
+midst of his controversy on formal logic with Sir William Hamilton, was,
+indeed, characterised by the great Edinburgh metaphysician as ‘profound
+in mathematics, curious in logic, but wholly deficient in architectonic
+power;’ yet, for all that, his lectures on the Theory of Limits were a
+far better logical discipline for young men than Sir William Hamilton’s
+on the Law of the Unconditioned or the Quantification of the Predicate.
+Professor Malden contrived to imbue us with a love of that fastidious
+taste and that exquisite nicety in treating questions of scholarship,
+which has, perhaps, been more needed and less cultivated in Gower Street
+than any other of the higher elements of a college education; while
+Professor Long’s caustic irony, accurate and almost ostentatiously dry
+learning, and profoundly stoical temperament, were as antithetic to the
+temper of the sophist as human qualities could possibly be.
+
+The time of our college life was pretty nearly contemporaneous with
+the life of the Anti-Corn-Law League and the great agitation in favour
+of Free-trade. To us this was useful rather from the general impulse
+it gave to political discussion, and the literary curiosity it excited
+in us as to the secret of true eloquence, than because it anticipated
+in any considerable degree the later acquired taste for economical
+science. Bagehot and I seldom missed an opportunity of hearing together
+the matchless practical disquisitions of Mr. Cobden—lucid and homely,
+yet glowing with intense conviction,—the profound passion and careless,
+though artistic, scorn of Mr. Bright, and the artificial and elaborately
+ornate periods, and witty, though somewhat _ad captandum_, epigrams of
+Mr. W. J. Fox (afterwards M.P. for Oldham). Indeed, we scoured London
+together to hear any kind of oratory that had gained a reputation of
+its own, and compared all we heard with the declamation of Burke and
+the rhetoric of Macaulay, many of whose later essays came out and
+were eagerly discussed by us while we were together at college. In
+our conversations on these essays, I remember that I always bitterly
+attacked, while Bagehot moderately defended, the glorification of
+compromise which marks all Macaulay’s writings. Even in early youth
+Bagehot had much of that ‘animated moderation’ which he praises so highly
+in his latest work. He was a voracious reader, especially of history, and
+had a far truer appreciation of historical conditions than most young
+thinkers; indeed, the broad historical sense which characterised him
+from first to last, made him more alive than ordinary students to the
+urgency of circumstance, and far less disposed to indulge in abstract
+moral criticism from a modern point of view. On theology, as on all other
+subjects, Bagehot was at this time more Conservative than myself, he
+sharing his mother’s orthodoxy, and I at that time accepting heartily the
+Unitarianism of my own people. Theology was, however, I think, the only
+subject on which, in later life, we, to some degree at least, exchanged
+places, though he never at any time, however doubtful he may have become
+on some of the cardinal issues of historical Christianity, accepted the
+Unitarian position. Indeed, within the last two or three years of his
+life, he spoke on one occasion of the Trinitarian doctrine as probably
+the best account which human reason could render of the mystery of the
+self-existent mind.
+
+In those early days Bagehot’s manner was often supercilious. We used
+to attack him for his intellectual arrogance—his ὕβρις we called it,
+in our college slang—a quality which I believe was not really in him,
+though he had then much of its external appearance. Nevertheless his
+genuine contempt for what was intellectually feeble was not accompanied
+by an even adequate appreciation of his own powers. At college, however,
+his satirical ‘Hear, hear,’ was a formidable sound in the debating
+society, and one which took the heart out of many a younger speaker;
+and the ironical ‘How much?’ with which in conversation he would meet
+an over-eloquent expression, was always of a nature to reduce a man, as
+the mathematical phrase goes, to his ‘lowest terms.’ In maturer life he
+became much gentler and mellower, and often even delicately considerate
+for others; but his inner scorn for ineffectual thought remained, in
+some degree, though it was very reticently expressed, to the last. For
+instance, I remember his attacking me for my mildness in criticising a
+book which, though it professed to rest on a basis of clear thought,
+really missed all its points. ‘There is a pale, whitey-brown substance,’
+he wrote to me, ‘in the man’s books, which people who don’t think take
+for thought, but it isn’t;’ and he upbraided me much for not saying
+plainly that the man was a muff. In his youth this scorn for anything
+like the vain beating of the wings in the attempt to think, was at
+its maximum. It was increased, I think, by that which was one of his
+greatest qualities, his remarkable ‘detachment’ of mind—in other words,
+his comparative inaccessibility to the contagion of blind sympathy. Most
+men, more or less unconsciously, shrink from even _thinking_ what they
+feel to be out of sympathy with the feelings of their neighbours, unless
+under some strong incentive to do so; and in this way the sources of much
+true and important criticism are dried up, through the mere diffusion
+and ascendancy of conventional but sincere habits of social judgment.
+And no doubt for the greater number of us this is much the best. We
+are worth more for the purpose of constituting and strengthening the
+cohesive power of the social bond, than we should ever be worth for the
+purpose of criticising feebly—and with little effect, perhaps, except the
+disorganising effect of seeming ill-nature—the various incompetences and
+miscarriages of our neighbours’ intelligence. But Bagehot’s intellect
+was always far too powerful and original to render him available for the
+function of mere social cement; and full as he was of genuine kindness
+and hearty personal affections, he certainly had not in any high degree
+that sensitive instinct as to what others would feel, which so often
+shapes even the thoughts of men, and still oftener their speech, into
+mild and complaisant, but unmeaning and unfruitful, forms.
+
+Thus it has been said that in his very amusing article on Crabb Robinson,
+published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for August 1869, he was more than a
+little rough in his delineation of that quaint old friend of our earlier
+days. And certainly there is something of the naturalist’s realistic
+manner of describing the habits of a new species, in the paper, though
+there is not a grain of malice or even depreciatory bias in it, and
+though there is a very sincere regard manifested throughout. But that
+essay will illustrate admirably what I mean by saying that Bagehot’s
+detachment of mind, and the deficiency in him of any aptitude for playing
+the part of mere social cement, tended to give the impression of an
+intellectual arrogance which—certainly in the sense of self-esteem or
+self-assertion—did not in the least belong to him. In the essay I have
+just mentioned he describes how Crabb Robinson, when he gave his somewhat
+famous breakfast-parties, used to forget to make the tea, then lost his
+keys, then told a long story about a bust of Wieland during the extreme
+agony of his guests’ appetites, and finally, perhaps, withheld the cup
+of tea he had at last poured out, while he regaled them with a poem of
+Wordsworth’s or a diatribe against Hazlitt. And Bagehot adds, ‘The more
+astute of his guests used to breakfast before they came, and then there
+was much interest in seeing a steady literary man, who did not understand
+the region, in agonies at having to hear three stories before he got
+his tea, one again between his milk and his sugar, another between his
+butter and his toast, and additional zest in making a stealthy inquiry
+that was sure to intercept the coming delicacies by bringing on Schiller
+and Goethe.’ The only ‘astute’ person referred to was, I imagine, Bagehot
+himself, who confessed to me, much to my amusement, that this was always
+his own precaution before one of Crabb Robinson’s breakfasts. I doubt
+if anybody else ever thought of it. It was very characteristic in him
+that he should have not only noticed—for that, of course, anyone might
+do—this weak element in Crabb Robinson’s breakfasts, but should have
+kept it so distinctly before his mind as to make it the centre, as it
+were, of a policy, and the opportunity of a mischievous stratagem to
+try the patience of others. It showed how much of the social naturalist
+there was in him. If any race of animals could understand a naturalist’s
+account of their ways and habits, and of the devices he adopted to get
+those ways and habits more amusingly or instructively displayed before
+him, no doubt they would think that he was a cynic; and it was this
+intellectual detachment, as of a social naturalist, from the society in
+which he moved, which made Bagehot’s remarks often seem somewhat harsh,
+when, in fact, they were animated not only by no suspicion of malice, but
+by the most cordial and earnest friendliness. Owing to this separateness
+of mind, he described more strongly and distinctly traits which, when
+delineated by a friend, we expect to find painted in the softened manner
+of one who is half disposed to imitate or adopt them.
+
+Yet, though I have used the word ‘naturalist’ to denote the keen and
+solitary observation with which Bagehot watched society, no word
+describes him worse, if we attribute to it any of that coldness and
+stillness of curiosity which we are apt to associate with scientific
+vigilance. Especially in his youth, buoyancy, vivacity, velocity of
+thought, were of the essence of the impression which he made. He had
+high spirits and great capacities for enjoyment, great sympathies indeed
+with the old English Cavalier. In his Essay on Macaulay he paints that
+character with profound sympathy:—
+
+    ‘What historian, indeed,’ he says, ‘has ever estimated
+    the Cavalier character? There is Clarendon, the grave,
+    rhetorical, decorous, lawyer—piling words, congealing
+    arguments—very stately, a little grim. There is Hume, the
+    Scotch metaphysician, who has made out the best case for
+    such people as never were, for a Charles who never died, for
+    a Strafford who could never have been attainted, a saving,
+    calculating North-countryman, fat, impassive, who lived
+    on eightpence a day. What have these people to do with an
+    enjoying English gentleman? Talk of the ways of spreading a
+    wholesome Conservatism throughout the country ... as far as
+    communicating and establishing your creed is concerned, try a
+    little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is to enjoy
+    old customs; the way to be satisfied with the present state of
+    things, is to enjoy that state of things. Over the “Cavalier”
+    mind this world passes with a thrill of delight; there is an
+    exultation in a daily event, zest in the “regular thing,” joy
+    at an old feast.’[3]
+
+And that aptly represents himself. Such arrogance as he seemed to have
+in early life was the arrogance as much of enjoyment as of detachment
+of mind—the _insouciance_ of the old Cavalier as much at least as the
+calm of a mind not accessible to the contagion of social feelings. He
+always talked, in youth, of his spirits as inconveniently high; and
+once wrote to me that he did not think they were quite as ‘boisterous’
+as they had been, and that his fellow-creatures were not sorry for the
+abatement; nevertheless, he added, ‘I am quite fat, gross, and ruddy.’
+He was, indeed, excessively fond of hunting, vaulting, and almost all
+muscular effort, so that his life would be wholly misconceived by anyone
+who, hearing of his ‘detachment’ of thought, should picture his mind as
+a vigilantly observant, far-away intelligence, such as Hawthorne’s, for
+example. He liked to be in the thick of the _mêlée_ when talk grew warm,
+though he was never so absorbed in it as not to keep his mind cool.
+
+As I said, Bagehot was a Somersetshire man, with all the richness
+of nature and love for the external glow of life which the most
+characteristic counties of the South-west of England contrive to give to
+their most characteristic sons:—
+
+    ‘This north-west corner of Spain,’ he wrote once to a newspaper
+    from the Pyrenees, ‘is the only place out of England where I
+    should like to live. It is a sort of better Devonshire; the
+    coast is of the same kind, the sun is more brilliant, the sea
+    is more brilliant, and there are mountains in the background.
+    I have seen some more beautiful places and many grander, but I
+    should not like to live in them. As Mr. Emerson puts it, “I do
+    not want to go to heaven before my time.” My English nature by
+    early use and long habit is tied to a certain kind of scenery,
+    soon feels the want of it, and is apt to be alarmed as well as
+    pleased at perpetual snow and all sorts of similar beauties.
+    But here, about San Sebastian, you have the best England can
+    give you (at least if you hold, as I do, that Devonshire is
+    the finest of our counties), and the charm, the ineffable,
+    indescribable charm of the South too. Probably the sun has some
+    secret effect on the nervous system that makes one inclined to
+    be pleased, but the golden light lies upon everything, and one
+    fancies that one is charmed only by the outward loveliness.’
+
+The vivacity and warm colouring of the landscapes of the South of England
+certainly had their full share in moulding his tastes, and possibly even
+his style.
+
+Bagehot took the mathematical scholarship with his Bachelor’s degree in
+the University of London in 1846, and the gold medal in Intellectual and
+Moral Philosophy with his Master’s degree in 1848, in reading for which
+he mastered for the first time those principles of political economy
+which were to receive so much illustration from his genius in later
+years. But at this time philosophy, poetry, and theology had, I think,
+a much greater share of his attention than any narrow and more sharply
+defined science. Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth, Coleridge,
+Martineau and John Henry Newman, all in their way exerted a great
+influence over his mind, and divided, not unequally, with the authors
+whom he was bound to study—that is, the Greek philosophers, together
+with Hume, Kant, J. S. Mill, and Sir William Hamilton—the time at his
+disposal. I have no doubt that for seven or eight years of his life the
+Roman Catholic Church had a great fascination for his imagination, though
+I do not think that he was ever at all near conversion. He was intimate
+with all Dr. Newman’s writings. And of these the Oxford sermons, and the
+poems in the _Lyra Apostolica_ afterwards separately published—partly,
+I believe, on account of the high estimate of them which Bagehot had
+himself expressed—were always his special favourites. The little poetry
+he wrote—and it is evident that he never had the kind of instinct for,
+or command of, language which is the first condition of genuine poetic
+genius—seems to me to have been obviously written under the spell which
+Dr. Newman’s own few but finely-chiselled poems had cast upon him. If
+I give one specimen of Bagehot’s poems, it is not that I think it in
+any way an adequate expression of his powers, but for a very different
+reason, because it will show those who have inferred from his other
+writings that his mind never deeply concerned itself with religion, how
+great is their mistake. Nor is there any real poverty of resource in
+these lines, except perhaps in the awkward mechanism of some of them.
+They were probably written when he was twenty-three or twenty-four.
+
+    ‘TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
+
+    ‘“Casta inceste.”—_Lucretius._
+
+    ‘Thy lamp of faith is brightly trimmed,
+    Thy eager eye is not yet dimmed,
+    Thy stalwart step is yet unstayed,
+                    Thy words are well obeyed.
+
+    ‘Thy proud voice vaunts of strength from heaven,
+    Thy proud foes carp, “By hell’s art given:”
+    No Titan thou of earth-born bands,
+                    Strange Church of hundred hands.
+
+    ‘Nursed without knowledge, born of night,
+    With hand of power and thoughts of light,
+    As Britain seas, far reachingly
+                    O’er-rul’st thou history.
+
+    ‘Wild as La Pucelle in her hour,
+    O’er prostrate realms with awe-girt power
+    Thou marchest stedfast on thy path
+                    Through wonder, love, and wrath.
+
+    ‘And will thy end be such as hers,
+    O’erpowered by earthly mail-clad powers,
+    Condemned for cruel, magic art,
+                    Though awful, bold of heart?
+
+    ‘Through thorn-clad Time’s unending waste
+    With ardent step alone thou strayest,
+    As Jewish scape-goats tracked the wild,
+                    Unholy, consecrate, defiled.
+
+    ‘Use not thy truth in manner rude
+    To rule for gain the multitude,
+    Or thou wilt see that truth depart,
+                    To seek some holier heart;
+
+    ‘Then thou wilt watch thy errors lorn,
+    O’erspread by shame, o’erswept by scorn,
+    In lonely want without hope’s smile,
+                    As Tyre her weed-clad Isle.
+
+    ‘Like once thy chief, thou bear’st Christ’s name;
+    Like him thou hast denied his shame,
+    Bold, eager, skilful, confident,
+                    Oh, now like him repent!’
+
+That has certainly no sign of the hand of the master in it, for the
+language is not moulded and vivified by the thought, but the thought
+itself is fine. And there is still better evidence than these lines
+would afford, of the fascination which the Roman Catholic Church had for
+Bagehot. A year or two later, in the letters on the _coup d’état_, to
+which I shall soon have to refer, there occurs the following passage.
+(He is trying to explain how the cleverness, the moral restlessness,
+and intellectual impatience of the French, all tend to unfit them for a
+genuine Parliamentary government):—
+
+    ‘I do not know that I can exhibit the way these qualities of
+    the French character operate on their opinions better than by
+    telling you how the Roman Catholic Church deals with them.
+    I have rather attended to it since I came here. It gives
+    sermons almost an interest, their being in French, and to those
+    curious in intellectual matters, it is worth observing. In
+    other times, and even now in out-of-the-way Spain, I suppose
+    it may be true that the Catholic Church has been opposed to
+    inquiry and reasoning. But it is not so now and here. Loudly
+    from the pens of a hundred writers, from the tongues of a
+    thousand pulpits, in every note of thrilling scorn and exulting
+    derision, she proclaims the contrary. Be she Christ’s workman
+    or Antichrist’s, she knows her work too well. “Reason, reason,
+    reason!” exclaims she to the philosophers of this world. “Put
+    in practice what you teach if you would have others believe
+    it. Be consistent. Do not prate to us of private judgment,
+    when you are but yourselves repeating what you heard in the
+    nursery, ill-mumbled remnants of a Catholic tradition. No;
+    exemplify what you command; inquire and make search. Seek,
+    and we warn you that ye will never find, yet do as ye will.
+    Shut yourselves up in a room, make your mind a blank, go
+    down (as you speak) into the depth of your consciousness,
+    scrutinise the mental structure, inquire for the elements of
+    belief,—spend years, your best years, in the occupation,—and
+    at length, when your eyes are dim, and your brain hot, and
+    your hands unsteady, then reckon what you have gained. See
+    if you cannot count on your fingers the certainties you have
+    reached; reflect which of them you doubted yesterday, which
+    you may disbelieve to-morrow; or rather, make haste—assume at
+    random some essential _credenda_,—write down your inevitable
+    postulates, enumerate your necessary axioms, toil on, toil
+    on, spin your spider’s web, adore your own soul, or if ye
+    prefer it, choose some German nostrum; try an intellectual
+    intuition, or the pure reason, or the intelligible ideas, or
+    the mesmeric clairvoyance, and when so, or somehow, you have
+    attained your results, try them on mankind. Don’t go out into
+    the byeways and hedges; it is unnecessary. Ring a bell, call in
+    the servants, give them a course of lectures, cite Aristotle,
+    review Descartes, panegyrise Plato, and see if the bonne will
+    understand you. It is you that say _Vox populi, vox Dei_. You
+    see the people reject you. Or, suppose you succeed,—what you
+    call succeeding. Your books are read; for three weeks or even
+    a season you are the idol of the _salons_. Your hard words are
+    on the lips of women; then a change comes—a new actress appears
+    at the Théâtre Français or the Opéra; her charms eclipse your
+    theories; or a great catastrophe occurs; political liberty, it
+    is said, is annihilated. _Il faut se faire mouchard_, is the
+    observation of scoffers. Anyhow you are forgotten. Fifty years
+    may be the gestation of a philosophy, not three its life.
+    Before long, before you go to your grave, your six disciples
+    leave you for some newer master, or to set up for themselves.
+    The poorest priest in the remotest region of the Basses-Alpes
+    has more power over men’s souls than human cultivation. His
+    ill-mouthed masses move women’s souls—can you? Ye scoff at
+    Jupiter, yet he at least was believed in, you never have been.
+    Idol for idol, the _de_throned is better than the _un_throned.
+    No, if you would reason, if you would teach, if you would
+    speculate,—come to us. We have our premises ready; years
+    upon years before you were born, intellects whom the best of
+    you delight to magnify, toiled to systematise the creed of
+    ages. Years upon years after you are dead, better heads than
+    yours will find new matter there to define, to divide, to
+    arrange. Consider the hundred volumes of Aquinas. Which of
+    you desire a higher life than that;—to deduce, to subtilise,
+    discriminate, systematise, and decide the highest truth, and
+    to be believed? Yet such was his luck, his enjoyment. He was
+    what you would be. No, no, _credite, credite_. Ours is the
+    life of speculation. The cloister is the home for the student.
+    Philosophy is stationary, Catholicism progressive. _You_ call.
+    _We_ are heard,” &c. So speaks each preacher, according to his
+    ability. And when the dust and noise of present controversies
+    have passed away, and, in the interior of the night, some grave
+    historian writes out the tale of half-forgotten times, let him
+    not forget to observe that, profoundly as the mediæval Church
+    subdued the superstitious cravings of a painful and barbarous
+    age, in after-years she dealt more discerningly still with the
+    feverish excitement, the feeble vanities, and the dogmatic
+    impatience of an over-intellectual generation.’[4]
+
+It is obvious, I think, both from the poem, and from these reflections,
+that what attracted Bagehot in the Church of Rome was the historical
+prestige and social authority which she had accumulated in believing and
+uncritical ages for use in the unbelieving and critical age in which we
+live,—while what he condemned and dreaded in her was her tendency to use
+her power over the multitude for purposes of a low ambition.
+
+And as I am on this subject, this will be, I think, the best opportunity
+I shall have to say what I have got to say of Bagehot’s later religious
+belief, without returning to it when I have to deal with a period in
+which the greatest part of his spare intellectual energy was given to
+other subjects. I do not think that the religious affections were very
+strong in Bagehot’s mind, but the primitive religious instincts certainly
+were. From childhood he was what he certainly remained to the last, in
+spite of the rather antagonistic influence of the able scientific group
+of men from whom he learned so much—a thorough transcendentalist, by
+which I mean one who could never doubt that there was a real foundation
+of the universe distinct from the outward show of its superficial
+qualities, and that the substance is never exhaustively expressed in
+these qualities. He often repeats in his essays Shelley’s fine line,
+‘Lift not the painted veil which those who live call life,’ and the
+essence at least of the idea in it haunted him from his very childhood.
+In the essay on ‘Hartley Coleridge’—perhaps the most perfect in style
+of any of his writings—he describes most powerfully, and evidently in
+great measure from his own experience, the mysterious confusion between
+appearances and realities which so bewildered little Hartley,—the
+difficulty that he complained of in distinguishing between the various
+Hartleys,—‘picture Hartley,’ ‘shadow Hartley,’ and between Hartley the
+subject and Hartley the object, the enigmatic blending of which last
+two Hartleys the child expressed by catching hold of his own arm, and
+then calling himself the ‘catch-me-fast Hartley.’ And in dilating on
+this bewildering experience of the child’s, Bagehot borrows from his own
+recollections:—
+
+    ‘All children have a world of their own, as distinct from
+    that of the grown people who gravitate around them, as the
+    dreams of girlhood from our prosaic life, or the ideas of the
+    kitten that plays with the falling leaves, from those of her
+    carnivorous mother that catches mice, and is sedulous in her
+    domestic duties. But generally about this interior existence
+    children are dumb. You have warlike ideas, but you cannot say
+    to a sinewy relative, “My dear aunt, I wonder when the big
+    bush in the garden will begin to walk about; I’m sure it’s a
+    Crusader, and I was cutting it all the day with my steel sword.
+    But what do you think, aunt? for I’m puzzled about its legs,
+    because you see, aunt, it has only _one_ stalk—and besides,
+    aunt, the leaves.” You cannot remark this in secular life, but
+    you hack at the infelicitous bush till you do not wholly reject
+    the idea that your small garden is Palestine, and yourself the
+    most adventurous of knights.’[5]
+
+They have a tradition in the family that this is but a fragment from
+Bagehot’s own imaginative childhood, and certainly this visionary
+element in him was very vivid to the last. However, the transcendental
+or intellectual basis of religious belief was soon strengthened in him,
+as readers of his remarkable paper on Bishop Butler will easily see, by
+those moral and retributive instincts which warn us of the meaning and
+consequences of guilt:—
+
+    ‘The moral principle,’ he wrote in that essay, ‘whatever may
+    be said to the contrary by complacent thinkers, is really
+    and to most men a principle of fear.... Conscience is the
+    condemnation of ourselves; we expect a penalty. As the Greek
+    proverb teaches, “Where there is shame, there is fear.”... How
+    to be free from this is the question. How to get loose from
+    this—how to be rid of the secret tie which binds the strong man
+    and cramps his pride, and makes him angry at the beauty of the
+    universe, which will not let him go forth like a great animal,
+    like the king of the forest, in the glory of his might, but
+    which restrains him with an inner fear and a secret foreboding
+    that if he do but exalt himself he shall be abased, if he do
+    but set forth his own dignity he will offend ONE who will
+    deprive him of it. This, as has often been pointed out, is the
+    source of the bloody rites of heathendom.’[6]
+
+And then, after a powerful passage, in which he describes the sacrificial
+superstitions of men like Achilles, he returns, with a flash of his own
+peculiar humour, to Bishop Butler, thus:—
+
+    ‘Of course it is not this kind of fanaticism that we impute
+    to a prelate of the English Church; human sacrifices are not
+    respectable, and Achilles was not rector of Stanhope. But
+    though the costume and circumstances of life change, the human
+    heart does not; its feelings remain. The same anxiety, the same
+    consciousness of personal sin, which lead, in barbarous times,
+    to what has been described, show themselves in civilised life
+    as well. In this quieter period, their great manifestation is
+    scrupulosity;’[7]
+
+which he goes on to describe as a sort of inexhaustible anxiety for
+perfect compliance with the minutest positive commands which may be
+made the condition of forgiveness for the innumerable lapses of moral
+obligation. I am not criticising the paper, or I should point out that
+Bagehot failed in it to draw out the distinction between the primitive
+moral instinct and the corrupt superstition into which it runs; but I
+believe that he recognised the weight of this moral testimony of the
+conscience to a divine Judge, as well as the transcendental testimony of
+the intellect to an eternal substance of things, to the end of his life.
+And certainly in the reality of human free-will as the condition of all
+genuine moral life, he firmly believed. In his ‘Physics and Politics’—the
+subtle and original essay upon which, in conjunction with the essay on
+the ‘English Constitution,’ Bagehot’s reputation as a European thinker
+chiefly rests—he repeatedly guards himself (for instance, pp. 9, 10)
+against being supposed to think that in accepting the principle of
+evolution, he has accepted anything inconsistent either with spiritual
+creation, or with the free will of man. On the latter point he adds,
+
+    ‘No doubt the modern doctrine of the “conservation of force,”
+    if applied to decision, is inconsistent with free-will; if you
+    hold that force is “never lost or gained,” you cannot hold that
+    there is a real gain, a sort of new creation of it in free
+    volition. But I have nothing to do here with the universal
+    “conservation of force.” The conception of the nervous organs
+    as stores of will-made power, does not raise or need so vast a
+    discussion.’[8]
+
+And in the same book he repeatedly uses the expression ‘Providence,’
+evidently in its natural meaning, to express the ultimate force at work
+behind the march of ‘evolution.’ Indeed, in conversation with me on this
+subject, he often said how much higher a conception of the creative mind,
+the new Darwinian ideas seemed to him to have introduced, as compared
+with those contained in what is called the argument from contrivance and
+design. On the subject of personal immortality, too, I do not think that
+Bagehot ever wavered. He often spoke, and even wrote, of ‘that vague
+sense of eternal continuity which is always about the mind, and which no
+one could bear to lose,’ and described it as being much more important to
+us than it even appears to be, important as that is; for, he said, ‘when
+we think we are thinking of the past, we are only thinking of a future
+that is to be like it.’ But with the exception of these cardinal points,
+I could hardly say how much Bagehot’s mind was or was not affected by
+the great speculative controversies of later years. Certainly he became
+much more doubtful concerning the force of the historical evidence of
+Christianity than I ever was, and rejected, I think, entirely, though
+on what amount of personal study he had founded his opinion I do not
+know, the Apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel. Possibly his mind may
+have been latterly in suspense as to miracle altogether, though I am
+pretty sure that he had not come to a negative conclusion. He belonged,
+in common with myself, during the last years of his life, to a society
+in which these fundamental questions were often discussed; but he seldom
+spoke in it, and told me very shortly before his death that he shrank
+from such discussions on religious points, feeling that, in debates of
+this kind, they were not and could not be treated with anything like
+thoroughness. On the whole, I think, the cardinal article of his faith
+would be adequately represented even in the latest period of his life by
+the following passage in his essay on Bishop Butler:—
+
+    ‘In every step of religious argument we require the assumption,
+    the belief, the faith, if the word is better, in an absolutely
+    _perfect_ Being; in and by whom we are, who is omnipotent
+    as well as most holy; who moves on the face of the whole
+    world, and ruleth all things by the word of his power. If we
+    grant this, the difficulty of the opposition between what
+    is here called the natural and the supernatural religion is
+    removed; and without granting it, that difficulty is perhaps
+    insuperable. It follows from the very idea and definition of
+    an infinitely perfect Being, that he is within us as well as
+    without us,—ruling the clouds of the air and the fishes of
+    the sea, as well as the fears and thoughts of men; smiling
+    through the smile of nature as well as warning with the pain
+    of conscience,—“sine qualitate, bonum; sine quantitate,
+    magnum; sine indigentiâ, creatorem; sine situ, præsidentem;
+    sine habitu, omnia continentem; sine loco, ubique totum; sine
+    tempore, sempiternum; sine ullâ sui mutatione, mutabilia
+    facientem, nihilque patientem.” If we assume this, life is
+    simple; without this, all is dark.’[9]
+
+Evidently, then, though Bagehot held that the doctrine of evolution by
+natural selection gave a higher conception of the Creator than the old
+doctrine of mechanical design, he never took any materialistic view of
+evolution. One of his early essays, written while at college, on some of
+the many points of the Kantian philosophy which he then loved to discuss,
+concluded with a remarkable sentence, which would probably have fairly
+expressed, even at the close of his life, his profound belief in God,
+and his partial sympathy with the agnostic view that we are, in great
+measure, incapable of apprehending, more than very dimly, His mind or
+purposes:—‘Gazing after the infinite essence, we are like men watching
+through the drifting clouds for a glimpse of the true heavens on a drear
+November day; layer after layer passes from our view, but still the same
+immovable grey rack remains.’
+
+After Bagehot had taken his Master’s degree, and while he was still
+reading Law in London, and hesitating between the Bar and the family
+bank, there came as Principal to University Hall (which is a hall of
+residence in connection with University College, London, established by
+the Presbyterians and Unitarians after the passing of the Dissenters’
+Chapel Act), the man who had, I think, a greater intellectual fascination
+for Bagehot than any of his contemporaries—Arthur Hugh Clough, Fellow
+of Oriel College, Oxford, and author of various poems of great genius,
+more or less familiar to the public, though Clough is perhaps better
+known as the subject of the exquisite poem written on his death in
+1861, by his friend Matthew Arnold—the poem to which he gave the name
+of ‘Thyrsis’—than by even the most popular of his own. Bagehot had
+subscribed for the erection of University Hall, and took an active
+part at one time on its council. Thus he saw a good deal of Clough,
+and did what he could to mediate between that enigma to Presbyterian
+parents—a college-head who held himself serenely neutral on almost
+all moral and educational subjects interesting to parents and pupils,
+except the observance of disciplinary rules—and the managing body who
+bewildered him and were by him bewildered. I don’t think either Bagehot
+or Clough’s other friends were very successful in their mediation, but
+he at least gained in Clough a cordial friend, and a theme of profound
+intellectual and moral interest to himself which lasted him his life, and
+never failed to draw him into animated discussion long after Clough’s
+own premature death; and I think I can trace the effect which some of
+Clough’s writings had on Bagehot’s mind to the very end of his career.
+There were some points of likeness between Bagehot and Clough, but many
+more of difference. Both had the capacity for boyish spirits in them,
+and the florid colour which usually accompanies a good deal of animal
+vigour; both were reserved men, with a great dislike of anything like
+the appearance of false sentiment, and both were passionate admirers of
+Wordsworth’s poetry; but Clough was slightly lymphatic, with a great
+tendency to unexpressed and unacknowledged discouragement, and to the
+paralysis of silent embarrassment when suffering from such feelings,
+while Bagehot was keen, and very quickly evacuated embarrassing
+positions, and never returned to them. When however, Clough was happy
+and at ease, there was a calm and silent radiance in his face, and his
+head was set with a kind of stateliness on his shoulders, that gave him
+almost an Olympian air; but this would sometimes vanish in a moment into
+an embarrassed taciturnity that was quite uncouth. One of his friends
+declares that the man who was said to be ‘a cross between a schoolboy
+and a bishop,’ must have been like Clough. There was in Clough, too, a
+large Chaucerian simplicity and a flavour of homeliness, so that now
+and then, when the light shone into his eyes, there was something, in
+spite of the air of fine scholarship and culture, which reminded one of
+the best likenesses of Burns. It was of Clough, I believe, that Emerson
+was thinking (though, knowing Clough intimately as he did, he was of
+course speaking mainly in joke) when he described the Oxford of that day
+thus:—‘“Ah,” says my languid Oxford gentleman, “nothing new, and nothing
+true, and no matter.”’ No saying could misrepresent Clough’s really
+buoyant and simple character more completely than that; but doubtless
+many of his sayings and writings, treating, as they did, most of the
+greater problems of life as insoluble, and enjoining a self-possessed
+composure under the discovery of their insolubility, conveyed an
+impression very much like this to men who came only occasionally in
+contact with him. Bagehot, in his article on Crabb Robinson, says that
+the latter, who in those days seldom remembered names, always described
+Clough as ‘that admirable and accomplished man—you know whom I mean—the
+one who never says anything.’ And certainly Clough was often taciturn to
+the last degree, or if he opened his lips, delighted to open them only
+to scatter confusion by discouraging, in words at least, all that was
+then called earnestness—as, for example, by asking, ‘Was it ordained that
+twice two should make four, simply for the intent that boys and girls
+should be cut to the heart that they do not make five? Be content; when
+the veil is raised, perhaps they will make five! Who knows?’[10]
+
+Clough’s chief fascination for Bagehot was, I think, that he had as
+a poet in some measure rediscovered, at all events realised, as few
+ever realised before, the enormous difficulty of finding truth—a
+difficulty which he somewhat paradoxically held to be enhanced rather
+than diminished by the intensity of the truest modern passion for it.
+The stronger the desire, he teaches, the greater is the danger of
+illegitimately satisfying that desire by persuading ourselves that what
+we _wish_ to believe, is true, and the greater the danger of ignoring the
+actual confusions of human things:—
+
+    ‘Rules baffle instincts, instincts rules,
+    Wise men are bad, and good are fools,
+    Facts evil, wishes vain appear,
+    We cannot go, why are we here?
+
+    ‘Oh, may we, for assurance’ sake,
+    Some arbitrary judgment take,
+    And wilfully pronounce it clear,
+    For this or that ’tis, we are here?
+
+    ‘Or is it right, and will it do
+    To pace the sad confusion through,
+    And say, it does not yet appear
+    What we shall be—what we are here?’
+
+This warning to withhold judgment and not cheat ourselves into beliefs
+which our own imperious desire to believe had alone engendered, is given
+with every variety of tone and modulation, and couched in all sorts of
+different forms of fancy and apologue, throughout Clough’s poems. He
+insists on ‘the _ruinous_ force of the will’ to persuade us of illusions
+which please us; of the tendency of practical life to give us beliefs
+which suit that practical life, but are none the truer for that; and is
+never weary of warning us that a firm belief in a falsity can be easily
+generated:—
+
+    ‘_Action will furnish belief_,—but will that belief be the true one?
+    This is the point, you know. However, it doesn’t much matter.
+    What one wants, I suppose, is to predetermine the action,
+    So as to make it entail, not a chance belief, but the true one.’
+
+This practical preaching, which Clough urges in season and out of season,
+met an answering chord in Bagehot’s mind, not so much in relation to
+religious belief as in relation to the over-haste and over-eagerness of
+human conduct, and I can trace the effect of it in all his writings,
+political and otherwise, to the end of his life. Indeed, it affected him
+much more in later days than in the years immediately following his first
+friendship with Clough. With all his boyish dash, there was something
+in Bagehot even in youth which dreaded precipitancy, and not only
+precipitancy itself, but those moral situations tending to precipitancy
+which men who have no minds of their own to make up, so often court. In
+later life he pleased himself by insisting that, on Darwin’s principle,
+civilised men, with all the complex problems of modern life to puzzle
+them, suspend their judgment so little, and are so eager for action,
+only because they have inherited from the earlier, simpler, and more
+violent ages, an excessive predisposition to action unsuited to our epoch
+and dangerous to our future development. But it was Clough, I think,
+who first stirred in Bagehot’s mind this great dread of ‘the ruinous
+force of the will,’ a phrase he was never weary of quoting, and which
+might almost be taken as the motto of his ‘Physics and Politics,’ the
+great conclusion of which is that in the ‘age of discussion,’ grand
+policies and high-handed diplomacy and sensational legislation of all
+kinds will become rarer and rarer, because discussion will point out all
+the difficulties of such policies in relation to a state of existence
+so complex as our own, and will in this way tend to repress the excess
+of practical energy handed down to us by ancestors to whom life was a
+sharper, simpler, and more perilous affair.
+
+But the time for Bagehot’s full adoption of the suspensive principle in
+public affairs was not yet. In 1851 he went to Paris, shortly before
+the _coup d’état_. And while all England was assailing Louis Napoleon
+(justly enough, as I think) for his perfidy, and his impatience of
+the self-willed Assembly he could not control, Bagehot was preparing
+a deliberate and very masterly defence of that bloody and high-handed
+act. Even Bagehot would, I think, if pressed judiciously in later life,
+have admitted—though I can’t say he ever _did_—that the _coup d’état_
+was one of the best illustrations of ‘the ruinous force of the will’ in
+engendering, or at least crystallising, a false intellectual conclusion
+as to the political possibilities of the future, which recent history
+could produce. Certainly he always spoke somewhat apologetically of
+these early letters, though I never heard him expressly retract their
+doctrine. In 1851 a knot of young Unitarians, of whom I was then one,
+headed by the late Mr. J. Langton Sanford—afterwards the historian of
+the Great Rebellion, who survived Bagehot barely four months—had engaged
+to help for a time in conducting the _Inquirer_, which then was, and
+still is, the chief literary and theological organ of the Unitarian
+body. Our _régime_ was, I imagine, a time of great desolation for the
+very tolerant and thoughtful constituency for whom we wrote; and many of
+them, I am confident, yearned, and were fully justified in yearning, for
+those better days when this tyranny of ours should be overpast. Sanford
+and Osler did a good deal to throw cold water on the rather optimist and
+philanthropic politics of the most sanguine, because the most benevolent
+and open-hearted of Dissenters. Roscoe criticised their literary work
+from the point of view of a devotee of the Elizabethan poets; and I
+attempted to prove to them in distinct heads, first, that their laity
+ought to have the protection afforded by a liturgy against the arbitrary
+prayers of their ministers; and next, that at least the great majority
+of their sermons ought to be suppressed, and the habit of delivering
+them discontinued almost altogether. Only a denomination of ‘just men’
+trained in tolerance for generations, and in that respect, at least,
+made all but ‘perfect,’ would have endured it at all; but I doubt if
+any of us caused the Unitarian body so much grief as Bagehot, who never
+was a Unitarian, but who contributed a series of brilliant letters on
+the _coup d’état_, in which he trod just as heavily on the toes of his
+colleagues as he did on those of the public by whom the _Inquirer_ was
+taken. In those letters he not only, as I have already shown, eulogised
+the Catholic Church, but he supported the Prince-President’s military
+violence, attacked the freedom of the Press in France, maintained
+that the country was wholly unfit for true Parliamentary government,
+and—worst of all perhaps—insinuated a panegyric on Louis Napoleon
+himself, asserting that he had been far better prepared for the duties of
+a statesman by gambling on the turf, than he would have been by poring
+over the historical and political dissertations of the wise and the good.
+This was Bagehot’s day of cynicism. The seven letters which he wrote on
+the _coup d’état_ were certainly very exasperating, and yet they were
+not caricatures of his real thought, for his private letters at the time
+were more cynical still. Crabb Robinson, in speaking of him, used ever
+afterwards to describe him to me as ‘that friend of yours—you know whom
+I mean, you rascal!—who wrote those abominable, those most disgraceful
+letters on the _coup d’état_—I did not forgive him for years after.’ Nor
+do I wonder, even now, that a sincere friend of constitutional freedom
+and intellectual liberty, like Crabb Robinson, found them difficult to
+forgive. They were light and airy, and even flippant on a very grave
+subject. They made nothing of the Prince’s perjury; and they took
+impertinent liberties with all the dearest prepossessions of the readers
+of the _Inquirer_, and assumed their sympathy just where Bagehot knew
+that they would be most revolted by his opinions. Nevertheless, they had
+a vast deal of truth in them, and no end of ability, and I hope that
+there will be many to read them with interest now that they are here
+republished. There is a good deal of the raw material of history in
+them, and certainly I doubt if Bagehot ever again hit the satiric vein
+of argument so well. Here is a passage that will bear taking out of its
+context, and therefore not so full of the shrewd malice of these letters
+as many others, but which will illustrate their ability. It is one in
+which Bagehot maintained for the first time the view (which I believe he
+subsequently almost persuaded English politicians to accept, though in
+1852 it was a mere flippant novelty, a paradox, and a heresy) that free
+institutions are apt to succeed with a stupid people, and to founder with
+a ready-witted and vivacious one. After broaching this, he goes on:—
+
+    ‘I see you are surprised. You are going to say to me as
+    Socrates did to Polus, “My young friend, _of course_ you are
+    right, but will you explain what you mean, as you are not yet
+    intelligible?” I will do so as well as I can, and endeavour to
+    make good what I say, not from a prior demonstration of my own,
+    but from the details of the present and the facts of history.
+    Not to begin by wounding any present susceptibilities, let me
+    take the Roman character, for, with one great exception—I need
+    not say to whom I allude—they are the great political people
+    of history. Now is not a certain dulness their most visible
+    characteristic? What is the history of their speculative
+    mind? A blank. What their literature? A copy. They have left
+    not a single discovery in any abstract science, not a single
+    perfect or well-formed work of high imagination. The Greeks,
+    the perfection of human and accomplished genius, bequeathed
+    to mankind the ideal forms of self-idolising art; the Romans
+    imitated and admired. The Greeks explained the laws of nature;
+    the Romans wondered and despised. The Greeks invented a system
+    of numerals second only to that now in use; the Romans counted
+    to the end of their days with the clumsy apparatus which
+    we still call by their name. The Greeks made a capital and
+    scientific calendar; the Romans began their month when the
+    Pontifex Maximus happened to spy out the new moon. Throughout
+    Latin literature this is the perpetual puzzle—Why are we free
+    and they slaves?—we prætors and they barbers? Why do the stupid
+    people always win and the clever people always lose? I need
+    not say that in real sound stupidity the English people are
+    unrivalled. You’ll have more wit, and better wit, in an Irish
+    street-row than would keep Westminster Hall in humour for five
+    weeks.... These valuable truths are no discoveries of mine.
+    They are familiar enough to people whose business it is to
+    know them. Hear what a douce and aged attorney says of your
+    peculiarly promising barrister. “Sharp? Oh! yes, yes: he’s too
+    sharp by half. He isn’t _safe_, not a minute, isn’t that young
+    man.” “What style, sir,” asked of an East India Director some
+    youthful aspirant for literary renown, “is most to be preferred
+    in the composition of official despatches?” “My good fellow,”
+    responded the ruler of Hindostan, “the style _as we_ like, is
+    the Humdrum.”’[11]
+
+The permanent value of these papers is due to the freshness of their
+impressions of the French capital, and their true criticisms of Parisian
+journalism and society; their perverseness consists in this, that
+Bagehot steadily ignored in them the distinction between the duty of
+resisting anarchy, and the assumption of the Prince-President that this
+could only be done by establishing his own dynasty, and deferring _sine
+die_ that great constitutional experiment which is now once more, no
+thanks to him or his Government, on its trial; an experiment which, for
+anything we see, had at least as good a chance then as now, and under
+a firm and popular chief of the executive like Prince Louis, would
+probably have had a better chance then than it has now under MacMahon.
+I need hardly say that in later life Bagehot was by no means blind to
+the political shortcomings of Louis Napoleon’s _régime_, as the article
+republished from the _Economist_, in the second appendix to this volume,
+sufficiently proves. Moreover, he rejoiced heartily in the moderation
+of the republican statesmen during the severe trials of the months
+which just preceded his own death, in 1877, and expressed his sincere
+belief—confirmed by the history of the last year and a half—that the
+existing Republic has every prospect of life and growth.
+
+During that residence in Paris, Bagehot, though, as I have said, in a
+somewhat cynical frame of mind, was full of life and courage, and was
+beginning to feel his own genius, which perhaps accounts for the air of
+recklessness so foreign to him, which he never adopted either before
+or since. During the riots he was a good deal in the streets, and from
+a mere love of art helped the Parisians to construct some of their
+barricades, notwithstanding the fact that his own sympathy was with those
+who shot down the barricades, not with those who manned them. He climbed
+over the rails of the Palais Royal on the morning of December 2nd to
+breakfast, and used to say that he was the only person who did breakfast
+there on that day. Victor Hugo is certainly wrong in asserting that no
+one expected Louis Napoleon to use force, and that the streets were as
+full as usual when the people were shot down, for the gates of the Palais
+Royal were shut quite early in the day. Bagehot was very much struck by
+the ferocious look of the Montagnards.
+
+    ‘Of late,’ he wrote to me, ‘I have been devoting my entire
+    attention to the science of barricades, which I found amusing.
+    They have systematised it in a way which is pleasing to the
+    cultivated intellect. We had only one good day’s fighting,
+    and I naturally kept out of cannon-shot. But I took a quiet
+    walk over the barricades in the morning, and superintended the
+    construction of three with as much keenness as if I had been
+    clerk of the works. You’ve seen lots, of course, at Berlin, but
+    I should not think those Germans were up to a real Montagnard,
+    who is the most horrible being to the eye I ever saw,—sallow,
+    sincere, sour fanaticism, with grizzled moustaches, and a
+    strong wish to shoot you rather than not. The Montagnards are a
+    scarce commodity, the real race—only three or four, if so many,
+    to a barricade. If you want a Satan any odd time, they’ll do;
+    only I hope that _he_ don’t believe in human brotherhood. It
+    is not possible to respect any one who does, and I should be
+    loth to confound the notion of _our_ friend’s solitary grandeur
+    by supposing him to fraternise,’ &c. ‘I think M. Buonaparte is
+    entitled to great praise. He has very good heels to his boots,
+    and the French just want treading down, and nothing else—calm,
+    cruel, business-like oppression, to take the dogmatic conceit
+    out of their heads. The spirit of generalisation which, John
+    Mill tells us, honourably distinguishes the French mind, has
+    come to this, that every Parisian wants his head _tapped_ in
+    order to get the formulæ and nonsense out of it. And it would
+    pay to perform the operation, for they are very clever on what
+    is within the limit of their experience, and all that can be
+    “expanded” in terms of it, but beyond, it is all generalisation
+    and folly.... So I am for any carnivorous government.’
+
+And again, in the same letter:—
+
+    ‘Till the Revolution came I had no end of trouble to find
+    conversation, but now they’ll talk against everybody, and
+    against the President like mad—and they talk immensely well,
+    and the language is like a razor, capital if you are skilful,
+    but sure to cut you if you aren’t. A fellow can talk German
+    in crude forms, and I don’t see it sounds any worse, but this
+    stuff is horrid unless you get it _quite_ right. A French lady
+    made a striking remark to me:—“_C’est une révolution qui a
+    sauvé la France. Tous mes amis sont mis en prison_.” She was
+    immensely delighted that such a pleasing way of saving her
+    country had been found.’
+
+Of course the style of these familiar private letters conveys a gross
+caricature not only of Bagehot’s maturer mind, but even of the judgment
+of the published letters, and I quote them only to show that at the time
+when he composed these letters on the _coup d’état_, Bagehot’s mood was
+that transient mood of reckless youthful cynicism through which so many
+men of genius pass. I do not think he had at any time any keen sympathy
+with the multitude, _i.e._, with masses of unknown men. And that he ever
+felt what has since then been termed ‘the enthusiasm of humanity,’ the
+sympathy with ‘the toiling millions of men sunk in labour and pain,’
+he himself would strenuously have denied. Such sympathy, even when men
+really desire to feel it, is, indeed, very much oftener coveted than
+actually felt by men as a living motive; and I am not quite sure that
+Bagehot would have even wished to feel it. Nevertheless, he had not the
+faintest trace of real hardness about him towards people whom he knew
+and understood. He could not bear to give pain; and when, in rare cases
+by youthful inadvertence, he gave it needlessly, I have seen how much
+and what lasting vexation it caused him. Indeed, he was capable of great
+sacrifices to spare his friends but a little suffering.
+
+It was, I think, during his stay in Paris that Bagehot finally decided
+to give up the notion of practising at the Bar, and to join his father
+in the Somersetshire Bank and in his other business as a merchant and
+ship-owner. This involved frequent visits to London and Liverpool, and
+Bagehot soon began to take a genuine interest in the larger issues of
+commerce, and maintained to the end that ‘business is much more amusing
+than pleasure.’ Nevertheless, he could not live without the intellectual
+life of London, and never stayed more than six weeks at a time in the
+country without finding some excuse for going to town; and long before
+his death he made his home there. Hunting was the only sport he really
+cared for. He was a dashing rider, and a fresh wind was felt blowing
+through his earlier literary efforts, as though he had been thinking
+in the saddle, an effect wanting in his later essays, where you see
+chiefly the calm analysis of a lucid observer. But most of the ordinary
+amusements of young people he detested. He used to say that he wished he
+could think balls _wicked_, being so stupid as they were, and all ‘the
+little blue and pink girls, so like each other,’—a sentiment partly due,
+perhaps, to his extreme shortness of sight.
+
+Though Bagehot never doubted the wisdom of his own decision to give up
+the law for the life of commerce, he thoroughly enjoyed his legal studies
+in his friend the late Mr. Justice Quain’s chambers, and in those of the
+present Vice-Chancellor Sir Charles Hall, and he learnt there a good deal
+that was of great use to him in later life. Moreover, in spite of his
+large capacity for finance and commerce, there were small difficulties in
+Bagehot’s way as a banker and merchant which he felt somewhat keenly. He
+was always absent-minded about _minutiæ_. For instance, to the last, he
+could not correct a proof well, and was sure to leave a number of small
+inaccuracies, harshnesses, and slipshodnesses in style, uncorrected.
+He declared at one time that he was wholly unable to ‘add up,’ and in
+his mathematical exercises in college he had habitually been inaccurate
+in trifles. I remember Professor Malden, on returning one of his Greek
+exercises, saying to him, with that curiously precise and emphatic
+articulation which made every remark of his go so much farther than
+that of our other lecturers, ‘Mr. Bagehot, you wage an internecine war
+with your aspirates’—not meaning, of course, that he ever left them out
+in pronunciation, but that he neglected to put them in in his written
+Greek. And to the last, even in his printed Greek quotations, the slips
+of this kind were always numerous. This habitual difficulty—due, I
+believe, to a preoccupied imagination—in attending to small details, made
+a banker’s duties seem irksome and formidable to him at first; and even
+to the last, in his most effective financial papers, he would generally
+get some one else to look after the precise figures for him. But in
+spite of all this, and in spite of a real attraction for the study of
+law, he was sure that his head would not stand the hot Courts and heavy
+wigs which make the hot Courts hotter, or the night-work of a thriving
+barrister in case of success; and he was certainly quite right. Indeed,
+had he chosen the Bar, he would have had no leisure for those two or
+three remarkable books which have made his reputation,—books which have
+been already translated into all the literary and some of the unliterary
+languages of Europe, and two of which are, I believe, used as text-books
+in some of the American Colleges.[12] Moreover, in all probability,
+his life would have been much shorter into the bargain. Soon after his
+return from Paris he devoted himself in earnest to banking and commerce,
+and also began that series of articles, first for the _Prospective_ and
+then for the _National Review_ (which latter periodical he edited in
+conjunction with me for several years), the most striking of which he
+republished in 1858, under the awkward and almost forbidding title of
+‘Estimates of some Englishmen and Scotchmen’—a book which never attracted
+the attention it deserved, and which has been long out of print. In
+republishing most of these essays as I am now doing,—and a later volume
+may, I hope, contain those essays on statesmen and politicians which
+are for the present omitted from these,—it is perhaps only fair to say
+that Bagehot in later life used to speak ill, much too ill, of his own
+early style. He used to declare that his early style affected him like
+the ‘jogging of a cart without springs over a very rough road,’ and no
+doubt in his earliest essays something abrupt and spasmodic may easily
+be detected. Still, this was all so inextricably mingled with flashes of
+insight and humour which could ill be spared, that I always protested
+against any notion of so revising the essays as to pare down their
+excrescences.
+
+I have never understood the comparative failure of this volume of
+Bagehot’s early essays; and a comparative failure it was, though I do not
+deny that, even at the time, it attracted much attention among the most
+accomplished writers of the day, and that I have been urged to republish
+it, as I am now doing, by many of the ablest men of my acquaintance.
+Obviously, as I have admitted, there are many faults of workmanship
+in it. Now and then the banter is forced. Often enough the style is
+embarrassed. Occasionally, perhaps, the criticism misses its mark, or
+is over-refined. But taken as a whole, I hardly know any book that is
+such good reading, that has so much lucid vision in it, so much shrewd
+and curious knowledge of the world, so sober a judgment and so dashing a
+humour combined. Take this, for instance, out of the paper on ‘The First
+Edinburgh Reviewers,’ concerning the judgment passed by Lord Jeffrey on
+the poetry of Bagehot’s favourite poet, Wordsworth:—
+
+    ‘The world has given judgment. Both Mr. Wordsworth and Lord
+    Jeffrey have received their rewards. The one had his own
+    generation—the laughter of men, the applause of drawing-rooms,
+    the concurrence of the crowd; the other, a succeeding age,
+    the fond enthusiasm of secret students, the lonely rapture of
+    lonely minds. And each has received according to his kind. If
+    all cultivated men speak differently because of the existence
+    of Wordsworth and Coleridge; if not a thoughtful English
+    book has appeared for years without some trace for good or
+    for evil of their influence; if sermon-writers subsist upon
+    their thoughts; if “sacred” poets thrive by translating their
+    weaker portions into the speech of women; if, when all this
+    is over, some sufficient part of their writing will ever be
+    fitting food for wild musing and solitary meditation, surely
+    this is because they possessed the inner nature—an “intense
+    and glowing mind”—“the vision and the faculty divine.” But,
+    if perchance in their weaker moments the great authors of the
+    Lyrical ballads did ever imagine that the world was to pause
+    because of their verses, that “Peter Bell” would be popular
+    in drawing-rooms, that “Christabel” would be perused in the
+    City, that people of fashion would make a hand-book of the
+    “Excursion,” it was well for them to be told at once that it
+    was not so. Nature ingeniously prepared a shrill artificial
+    voice, which spoke in season and out of season, enough and
+    more than enough, what will ever be the idea of the cities of
+    the plain concerning those who live alone among the mountains;
+    of the frivolous concerning the grave; of the gregarious
+    concerning the recluse; of those who laugh concerning those who
+    laugh not; of the common concerning the uncommon; of those who
+    lend on usury concerning those who lend not; the notions of the
+    world, of those whom it will not reckon among the righteous.
+    It said, “This won’t do.” And so in all times will the lovers
+    of polished Liberalism speak concerning the intense and lonely
+    “prophet.”’[13]
+
+I choose that passage because it illustrates so perfectly Bagehot’s
+double vein, his sympathy with the works of high imagination, and his
+clear insight into that busy life which does not and cannot take note
+of works of high imagination, and which would not do the work it does,
+if it could. And this is the characteristic of all the essays. How
+admirably, for instance, in his essay on Shakespeare, does he draw out
+the individuality of a poet who is generally supposed to be so completely
+hidden in his plays; and with how keen a satisfaction does he discern and
+display the prosperous and practical man in Shakespeare—the qualities
+which made him a man of substance and a Conservative politician, as well
+as the qualities which made him a great dramatist and a great dreamer.
+No doubt Bagehot had a strong personal sympathy with the double life.
+Somersetshire probably never believed that the imaginative student, the
+omnivorous reader, could prosper as a banker and a man of business,
+and it was a satisfaction to him to show that he understood the world
+far better than the world had ever understood him. Again, how delicate
+is his delineation of Hartley Coleridge; how firm and clear his study
+of ‘Sir Robert Peel;’[14] and how graphically he paints the literary
+pageant of Gibbon’s tame but splendid genius! Certainly the literary
+taste of England never made a greater blunder than when it passed by this
+remarkable volume of essays with comparatively little notice.
+
+In 1858 Bagehot married the eldest daughter of the Right Honourable
+James Wilson, who died two years later in India, whither he had gone as
+the financial member of the Indian Council, to reduce to some extent
+the financial anarchy which then prevailed there. This marriage gave
+Bagehot nineteen years of undisturbed happiness, and certainly led to the
+production of his most popular and original, if not in every respect his
+most brilliant books. It connected him with the higher world of politics,
+without which he would hardly have studied and written as he did on the
+English Constitution; and by making him the Editor of the _Economist_ it
+compelled him to give his whole mind as much to the theoretic side of
+commerce and finance, as his own duties had already compelled him to give
+it to the practical side. But when I speak of his marriage as the last
+impulse which determined his chief work in life, I do not forget that he
+had long been prepared both for political and for financial speculation
+by his early education. His father, a man of firm and deliberate
+political convictions, had taken a very keen interest in the agitation
+for the great Reform Bill of 1832, and had materially helped to return
+a Liberal member for his county after it passed. Probably no one in all
+England knew the political history of the country since the peace more
+accurately than he. Bagehot often said that when he wanted any detail
+concerning the English political history of the last half-century, he had
+only to ask his father, to obtain it. His uncle, Mr. Vincent Stuckey,
+too, was a man of the world, and his house in Langport was a focus of
+many interests during Bagehot’s boyhood. Mr. Stuckey had begun life at
+the Treasury, and was at one time private secretary to Mr. Huskisson; and
+when he gave up that career to take a leading share in the Somersetshire
+Bank, he kept up for a long time his house in London, and his relations
+with political society there. He was fond of his nephew, as was Bagehot
+of him; and there was always a large field of interests, and often there
+were men of eminence, to be found in his house. Thus Bagehot had been
+early prepared for the wider field of political and financial thought, to
+which he gave up so much of his time after his marriage.
+
+I need not say nearly as much on this later aspect of Bagehot’s life as
+I have done on its early and more purely literary aspects, because his
+services in this direction are already well appreciated by the public.
+But this I should like to point out, that he could never have written
+as he did on the English Constitution without having acutely studied
+living statesmen and their ways of acting on each other; that his book
+was essentially the book of a most realistic, because a most vividly
+imaginative, observer of the actual world of politics—the book of a
+man who was not blinded by habit and use to the enormous difficulties
+in the way of ‘government by public meeting,’ and to the secret of the
+various means by which in practice those difficulties had been attenuated
+or surmounted. It is the book of a meditative man who had mused much
+on the strange workings of human instincts, no less than of a quick
+observer who had seen much of external life. Had he not studied the men
+before he studied the institutions, had he not concerned himself with
+individual statesmen before he turned his attention to the mechanism of
+our Parliamentary system, he could never have written his book on ‘the
+English Constitution.’
+
+I think the same may be said of his book on ‘Physics and Politics,’ a
+book in which I find new force and depth every time I take it up afresh.
+It is true that Bagehot had a keen sympathy with natural science, that
+he devoured all Mr. Darwin’s and Mr. Wallace’s books, and many of a
+much more technical kind, as, for example, Professor Huxley’s on the
+‘Principles of Physiology,’ and grasped the leading ideas contained in
+them with a firmness and precision that left nothing to be desired. But
+after all, ‘Physics and Politics’ could never have been written without
+that sort of living insight into man which was the life of all his
+earlier essays. The notion that a ‘cake of custom,’ of rigid, inviolable
+law, was the first requisite for a strong human society, and that the
+very cause which was thus essential for the _first_ step of progress—the
+step towards unity—was the great danger of the second step—the step
+out of uniformity—and was the secret of all arrested and petrified
+civilisations, like the Chinese, is an idea which first germinated in
+Bagehot’s mind at the time he was writing his cynical letters from Paris
+about stupidity being the first requisite of a political people; though I
+admit, of course, that it could not have borne the fruit it did, without
+Mr. Darwin’s conception of a natural selection through conflict, to
+help it on. Such passages as the following could evidently never have
+been written by a mere student of Darwinian literature, nor without the
+trained imagination exhibited in Bagehot’s literary essays:—
+
+    ‘No one will ever comprehend the arrested civilisations unless
+    he sees the strict dilemma of early society. Either men had
+    no law at all and lived in confused tribes, hardly hanging
+    together, or they had to obtain a fixed law by processes of
+    incredible difficulty. Those who surmounted that difficulty
+    soon destroyed all those that lay in their way who did not.
+    And then they themselves were caught in their own yoke. The
+    customary discipline which could only be imposed on any early
+    men by terrible sanctions, continued with those sanctions, and
+    killed out of the whole society the propensities to variation
+    which are the principle of progress. Experience shows how
+    incredibly difficult it is to get men really to encourage the
+    principle of originality;’[15]
+
+and, as Bagehot held, for a very good reason, namely, that without a long
+accumulated and inherited tendency to discourage originality, society
+would never have gained the cohesion requisite for effective common
+action against its external foes. No one, I think, who had not studied as
+Bagehot had in actual life, first, the vast and unreasoning Conservatism
+of politically strong societies, like that of rural England, and next,
+the perilous mobility and impressibility of politically weak societies,
+like that of Paris, would ever have seen as he did the close connection
+of these ideas with Mr. Darwin’s principle of natural selection by
+conflict. And here I may mention, by way of illustrating this point, that
+Bagehot delighted in observing and expounding the bovine slowness of
+rural England in acquiring a new idea. Somersetshire, he used to boast,
+would not subscribe 1,000_l._ ‘to be represented by an archangel;’ and in
+one letter which I received from him during the Crimean War, he narrated
+with great gusto an instance of the tenacity with which a Somersetshire
+rustic stuck to his own notion of what was involved in conquering an
+enemy. ‘The Somersetshire view,’ he wrote, ‘of the chance of bringing
+the war to a successful conclusion is as follows:—_Countryman_: “How
+old, zir, be the Zar?”—_Myself_: “About sixty-three.”—_Countryman_:
+“Well, now, I can’t think however they be to take he. They do tell I that
+Rooshia is a very big place, and if he doo goo right into the middle
+of’n, you could not take he, not nohow.” I talked till the train came
+(it was at a station), and endeavoured to show how the war might be
+finished without capturing the Czar, but I fear without effect. At last
+he said, “Well, zir, I hope, _as you do say, zir_, we shall take he,” as
+I got into the carriage.’ It is clear that the humorous delight which
+Bagehot took in this tenacity and density of rural conceptions, was
+partly the cause of the attention which he paid to the subject. No doubt
+there was in him a vein of purely instinctive sympathy with this density,
+for intellectually he could not even have understood it. Writing on the
+intolerable and fatiguing cleverness of French journals, he describes
+in one of his Paris letters the true enjoyment he felt in reading a
+thoroughly stupid article in the _Herald_ (a Tory paper now no more), and
+I believe he was quite sincere. It was, I imagine, a real pleasure to him
+to be able to preach, in his last general work, that a ‘cake of custom,’
+just sufficiently stiff to make innovation of any kind very difficult,
+but not quite stiff enough to make it impossible, is the true condition
+of durable progress.
+
+The coolness of his judgment, and his power of seeing both sides of a
+question, undoubtedly gave Bagehot’s political opinions considerable
+weight with both parties, and I am quite aware that a great majority of
+the ablest political thinkers of the time would disagree with me when
+I say, that personally I do not rate Bagehot’s sagacity as a practical
+politician nearly so highly as I rate his wise analysis of the growth
+and _rationale_ of political institutions. Everything he wrote on the
+politics of the day was instructive, but, to my mind at least, seldom
+decisive, and, as I thought, often not true. He did not feel, and avowed
+that he did not feel, much sympathy with the masses, and he attached far
+too much relative importance to the refinement of the governing classes.
+That, no doubt, is most desirable, if you can combine it with a genuine
+consideration for the interests of ‘the toiling millions of men sunk in
+labour and pain.’ But experience, I think, sufficiently shows that they
+are often, perhaps even generally, incompatible; and that democratic
+governments of very low tone may consult more adequately the leading
+interests of the ‘dim common populations’ than aristocratic governments
+of very high calibre. Bagehot hardly admitted this, and always seemed to
+me to think far more of the intellectual and moral tone of governments,
+than he did of the intellectual and moral interests of the people
+governed.
+
+Again, those who felt most profoundly Bagehot’s influence as a political
+thinker, would probably agree with me that it was his leading idea
+in politics to discourage anything like too much action of any kind,
+legislative or administrative, and most of all anything like an ambitious
+colonial or foreign policy. This was not owing to any _doctrinaire_
+adhesion to the principle of _laissez-faire_. He supported, hesitatingly
+no doubt, but in the end decidedly, the Irish Land Bill, and never
+belonged to that straitest sect of the Economists who decry, as contrary
+to the laws of economy, and little short of a crime, the intervention of
+Government in matters which the conflict of individual self-interests
+might possibly be trusted to determine. It was from a very different
+point of view that he was so anxious to deprecate ambitious policies,
+and curb the practical energies of the most energetic of peoples. Next
+to Clough, I think that Sir George Cornewall Lewis had the most powerful
+influence over him in relation to political principles. There has been no
+statesman in our time whom he liked so much or regretted so deeply; and
+he followed him most of all in deprecating the greater part of what is
+called political _energy_. Bagehot held with Sir George Lewis that men
+in modern days do a great deal too much; that half the public actions,
+and a great many of the private actions of men, had better never have
+been done; that modern statesmen and modern peoples are far too willing
+to burden themselves with responsibilities. He held, too, that men have
+not yet sufficiently verified the principles on which action ought to
+proceed, and that till they have done so, it would be better far to act
+less. Lord Melbourne’s habitual query, ‘Can’t you let it alone?’ seemed
+to him, as regarded all new responsibilities, the wisest of hints for our
+time. He would have been glad to find a fair excuse for giving up India,
+for throwing the Colonies on their own resources, and for persuading the
+English people to accept deliberately the place of a fourth or fifth-rate
+European power—which was not, in his estimation, a cynical or unpatriotic
+wish, but quite the reverse, for he thought that such a course would
+result in generally raising the calibre of the national mind, conscience,
+and taste. In his ‘Physics and Politics’ he urges generally, as I have
+before pointed out, that the practical energy of existing peoples in the
+West is far in advance of the knowledge that would alone enable them to
+turn that energy to good account. He wanted to see the English a more
+leisurely race, taking more time to consider all their actions, and
+suspending their decisions on all great policies and enterprises till
+either these were well matured, or, as he expected it to be in the great
+majority of cases, the opportunity for sensational action was gone by. He
+quotes from Clough what really might have been taken as the motto of his
+own political creed:—
+
+    ‘Old things need not be therefore true,
+    O brother men, nor yet the new;
+    Ah, still awhile, th’ old thought retain,
+    And yet consider it again.’
+
+And in all this, if it were advanced rather as a principle of education
+than as a principle of political practice, there would be great force.
+But when he applied this teaching, not to the individual but to the
+State, not to encourage the gradual formation of a new type of character,
+but to warn the nation back from a multitude of practical duties of a
+simple though arduous kind, such as those, for example, which we have
+undertaken in India—duties, the value of which, performed even as they
+are, could hardly be overrated, if only because they involve so few
+debatable and doubtful assumptions, and are only the elementary tasks
+of the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the civilisation of the
+future—I think Bagehot made the mistake of attaching far too little value
+to the moral instincts of a sagacious people, and too much to the refined
+deductions of a singularly subtle intellect. I suspect that the real
+effect of suddenly stopping the various safety-valves, by which the spare
+energy of our nation is diverted to the useful work of roughly civilising
+other lands, would be, not to stimulate the deliberative understanding
+of the English people, but to stunt its thinking as well as its acting
+powers, and render it more frivolous and more vacant-minded than it is.
+
+In the field of economy there are so many thinkers who are far better
+judges of Bagehot’s invaluable work than myself, that I will say a very
+few words indeed upon it. It is curious, but I believe it to be almost
+universally true, that what may be called the primitive impulse of all
+economic _action_, is generally also strong in great economic _thinkers_
+and financiers—I mean the saving, or at least the anti-spending,
+instinct. It is very difficult to see why it should be so, but I think
+it _is_ so. No one was more large-minded in his view of finance than
+Bagehot. He preached that, in the case of a rich country like England,
+efficiency was vastly more important than the mere reduction of
+expenditure, and held that Mr. Gladstone and other great Chancellors of
+the Exchequer made a great deal too much of saving for saving’s sake.
+None the less he himself had the anti-spending instinct in some strength,
+and he was evidently pleased to note its existence in his favourite
+economic thinker, Ricardo. Generous as Bagehot was—and no one ever
+hesitated less about giving largely for an adequate end—he always told
+me, even in boyhood, that spending was disagreeable to him, and that it
+took something of an effort to pay away money. In a letter before me,
+he tells his correspondent of the marriage of an acquaintance, and adds
+that the lady is a Dissenter, ‘and therefore probably rich. Dissenters
+don’t spend, _and quite right too_.’ I suppose it takes some feeling of
+this kind to give the intellect of a man of high capacity that impulse
+towards the study of the laws of the increase of wealth, without which
+men of any imagination would be more likely to turn in other directions.
+Nevertheless, even as an economist, Bagehot’s most original writing was
+due less to his deductions from the fundamental axioms of the modern
+science, than to that deep insight into men which he had gained in many
+different fields. The essays, published in the _Fortnightly Review_ for
+February and May 1876[16]—in which he showed so powerfully how few of
+the conditions of the science known to us as ‘political economy’ have
+ever been really applicable to any large portion of the globe during
+the longest periods of human history—furnish quite an original study in
+social history and in human nature. His striking book, ‘Lombard Street,’
+is quite as much a study of bankers and bill-brokers as of the principles
+of banking. Take, again, Bagehot’s view of the intellectual position and
+value of the capitalist classes. Every one who knows his writings in
+the _Economist_, knows how he ridiculed the common impression that the
+chief service of the capitalist class—that by which they _earn_ their
+profits—is merely what the late Mr. Senior used to call ‘abstinence,’
+that is, the practice of deferring their enjoyment of their savings
+in order that those savings may multiply themselves; and knows too
+how inadequate he thought it, merely to add that when capitalists are
+themselves managers, they discharge the task of ‘superintending labour’
+as well. Bagehot held that the capitalists of a commercial country do—not
+merely the saving, and the work of foremen in superintending labour,
+but all the difficult intellectual work of commerce besides, and are so
+little appreciated as they are, chiefly because they are a dumb class
+who are seldom equal to explaining to others the complex processes by
+which they estimate the wants of the community, and conceive how best
+to supply them. He maintained that capitalists are the great generals
+of commerce, that they plan its whole strategy, determine its tactics,
+direct its commissariat, and incur the danger of great defeats, as well
+as earn, if they do not always gain, the credit of great victories.
+
+Here again is a new illustration of the light which Bagehot’s keen
+insight into men, taken in connection with his own intimate understanding
+of the commercial field, brought into his economic studies. He brought
+life into these dry subjects from almost every side; for instance, in
+writing to the _Spectator_, many years ago, about the cliff scenery of
+Cornwall, and especially about the petty harbour of Boscastle, with its
+fierce sea and its two breakwaters—which leave a mere ‘Temple Bar’ for
+the ships to get in at—a harbour of which he says that ‘the principal
+harbour of Liliput probably had just this look,’—he goes back in
+imagination at once to the condition of the country at the time when a
+great number of such petty harbours as these were essential to such trade
+as there was, and shows that at that time the Liverpool and London docks
+not only could not have been built for want of money, but would have been
+of no use if they had been built, since the auxiliary facilities which
+alone make such emporia useful did not exist. ‘Our old gentry built on
+their own estates as they could, and if their estates were near some
+wretched little haven, they were much pleased. The sea was the railway of
+those days. It brought, as it did to Ellangowan, in Dirk Hatteraick’s
+time, brandy for the men and pinners for the women, to the loneliest
+of coast castles.’ It was by such vivid illustrations as this of the
+conditions of a very different commercial life from our own, that Bagehot
+lit up the ‘dismal science,’ till in his hands it became both picturesque
+and amusing.
+
+Bagehot made two or three efforts to get into Parliament, but after an
+illness which he had in 1868 he deliberately abandoned the attempt, and
+held, I believe rightly, that his political judgment was all the sounder,
+as well as his health the better, for a quieter life. Indeed, he used to
+say of himself that it would be very difficult for him to find a borough
+which would be willing to elect him its representative, because he was
+‘between sizes in politics.’ Nevertheless in 1866 he was very nearly
+elected for Bridgewater, but was by no means pleased that he was so near
+success, for he stood to lose, not to win, in the hope that if he and
+his party were really quite pure, he might gain the seat on petition.
+He did his very best, indeed, to secure purity, though he failed. As a
+speaker, he did not often succeed. His voice had no great compass, and
+his manner was somewhat odd to ordinary hearers; but at Bridgewater he
+was completely at his ease, and his canvass and public speeches were
+decided successes. His examination, too, before the Commissioners sent
+down a year or two later to inquire into the corruption of Bridgewater
+was itself a great success. He not only entirely defeated the somewhat
+eagerly pressed efforts of one of the Commissioners, Mr. Anstey, to
+connect him with the bribery, but he drew a most amusing picture of the
+bribable electors whom he had seen only to shun. I will quote a little
+bit from the evidence he gave in reply to what Mr. Anstey probably
+regarded as home-thrusts:—
+
+    ‘42,018. (_Mr. Anstey._) Speaking from your experience of
+    those streets, when you went down them canvassing, did any
+    of the people say anything to you, or in your hearing, about
+    money?—Yes, one I recollect standing at the door, who said,
+    “I won’t vote for gentlefolks unless they do something for
+    I. Gentlefolks do not come to I unless they want something
+    of I, and I won’t do nothing for gentlefolks, unless they do
+    something for me.” Of course, I immediately retired out of that
+    house.
+
+    ‘42,019. That man did not give you his promise?—I retired
+    immediately; he stood in the doorway sideways, as these rustics
+    do.
+
+    ‘42,020. Were there many such instances?—One or two, I
+    remember. One suggested that I might have a place. I
+    immediately retired from him.
+
+    ‘42,021. Did anybody of a better class than those voters,
+    privately, of course, expostulate with you against your
+    resolution to be pure?—No, nobody ever came to me at all.
+
+    ‘42,022. But those about you, did any of them say anything
+    of this kind: “Mr. Bagehot, you are quite wrong in putting
+    purity of principles forward. It will not do if the other side
+    bribes?”—I might have been told that I should be unsuccessful
+    in the stream of conversation; many people may have told me
+    that; that is how I gathered that if the other side was impure
+    and we were pure, I should be beaten.
+
+    ‘42,023. Can you remember the names of any who told you
+    that?—No, I cannot, but I daresay I was told by as many as
+    twenty people, and we went upon that entire consideration.’
+
+To leave my subject without giving some idea of Bagehot’s racy
+conversation would be a sin. He inherited this gift, I believe, in great
+measure from his mother, to whose stimulating teaching in early life
+he probably owed also a great deal of his rapidity of thought. A lady
+who knew him well, says that one seldom asked him a question without
+his answer making you either think or laugh, or both think and laugh
+together. And this is the exact truth. His habitual phraseology was
+always vivid. He used to speak, for instance, of the minor people, the
+youths or admirers who collect round a considerable man, as his ‘fringe.’
+It was he who invented the phrase ‘padding,’ to denote the secondary
+kind of article, not quite of the first merit, but with interest and
+value of its own, with which a judicious editor will fill up perhaps
+three-quarters of his review. If you asked him what he thought on a
+subject on which he did not happen to have read or thought at all, he
+would open his large eyes and say, ‘My mind is “to let” on that subject,
+pray tell me what to think;’ though you soon found that this might be
+easier attempted than done. He used to say banteringly to his mother, by
+way of putting her off at a time when she was anxious for him to marry,
+‘A man’s mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault.’ He told
+me once, at a time when the _Spectator_ had perhaps been somewhat more
+eager or sanguine on political matters than he approved, that he always
+got his wife to ‘break’ it to him on the Saturday morning, as he found it
+too much for his nerves to encounter its views without preparation. Then
+his familiar antitheses not unfrequently reminded me of Dickens’s best
+touches in that line. He writes to a friend, ‘Tell —— that his policies
+went down in the _Colombo_, but were fished up again. _They are dirty,
+but valid._’ I remember asking him if he had enjoyed a particular dinner
+which he had rather expected to enjoy, but he replied, ‘No, the sherry
+was bad; tasted as if L—— had dropped his h’s into it.’ His practical
+illustrations, too, were full of wit. In his address to the Bridgewater
+constituency, on the occasion when he was defeated by eight votes, he
+criticised most happily the sort of bribery which ultimately resulted in
+the disfranchisement of the place.
+
+    ‘I can make allowance,’ he said, ‘for the poor voter; he is
+    most likely ill-educated, certainly ill-off, and a little
+    money is a nice treat to him. What he does is wrong, but it
+    is intelligible. What I do not understand is the position
+    of the rich, respectable, virtuous members of a party which
+    countenances these things. They are like the man who stole
+    stinking fish; they commit a crime, and they get no benefit.’
+
+But perhaps the best illustration I can give of his more sardonic humour
+was his remark to a friend who had a church in the grounds near his
+house:—‘Ah, you’ve got the church in the grounds! I like that. It’s
+well the tenants shouldn’t be _quite_ sure that the landlord’s power
+stops with this world.’ And his more humorous exaggerations were very
+happy. I remember his saying of a man who was excessively fastidious in
+rejecting under-done meat, that he once sent away a cinder ‘because it
+was red;’ and he confided gravely to an early friend that when he was in
+low spirits, it cheered him to go down to the bank, and dabble his hand
+in a heap of sovereigns. But his talk had finer qualities than any of
+these. One of his most intimate friends—both in early life, and later in
+Lincoln’s Inn—Mr. T. Smith Osler, writes to me of it thus:—
+
+    ‘As an instrument for arriving at truth, I never knew anything
+    like a talk with Bagehot. It had just the quality which the
+    farmers desiderated in the claret, of which they complained
+    that though it was very nice, it brought them “no forrader;”
+    for Bagehot’s conversation did get you forward, and at a most
+    amazing pace. Several ingredients went to this; the foremost
+    was his power of getting to the heart of the subject, taking
+    you miles beyond your starting point in a sentence, generally
+    by dint of sinking to a deeper stratum. The next was his
+    instantaneous appreciation of the bearing of everything you
+    yourself said, making talk with him, as Roscoe once remarked,
+    “like riding a horse with a perfect mouth.” But most unique of
+    all was his power of keeping up animation without combat. I
+    never knew a power of discussion, of co operative investigation
+    of truth, to approach to it. It was all stimulus, and yet no
+    contest.’
+
+But I must have done; and, indeed, it is next to impossible to convey,
+even faintly, the impression of Bagehot’s vivid and pungent conversation
+to anyone who did not know him. It was full of youth, and yet had all
+the wisdom of a mature judgment in it. The last time we met, only five
+days before his death, I remarked on the vigour and youthfulness of his
+look, and told him he looked less like a contemporary of my own than one
+of a younger generation. In a pencil-note, the last I received from him,
+written from bed on the next day but one, he said, ‘I think you must
+have had the evil eye when you complimented me on my appearance. Ever
+since, I have been sickening, and am now in bed with a severe attack on
+the lungs.’ Indeed, well as he appeared to me, he had long had delicate
+health, and heart disease was the immediate cause of death. In spite of
+a heavy cold on his chest, he went down to his father’s for his Easter
+visit the day after I last saw him, and he passed away painlessly in
+sleep on the 24th March 1877, aged 51. It was at Herds Hill, the pretty
+place west of the river Parret, that flows past Langport, which his
+grandfather had made some fifty years before, that he breathed his
+last. He had been carried thither as an infant to be present when the
+foundation stone was laid of the home which he was never to inherit;
+and now very few of his name survive. Bagehot’s family is believed to
+be the only one remaining that has retained the old spelling of the
+name, as it appears in Doomsday Book, the modern form being Bagot. The
+Gloucestershire family of the same name, from whose stock they are
+supposed to have sprung, died out in the beginning of this century.
+
+Not very many perhaps, outside Bagehot’s own inner circle, will carry
+about with them that hidden pain, that burden of emptiness, inseparable
+from an image which has hitherto been one full of the suggestions of
+life and power, when that life and power are no longer to be found; for
+he was intimately known only to the few. But those who do will hardly
+find again in this world a store of intellectual sympathy of so high a
+stamp, so wide in its range and so full of original and fresh suggestion,
+a judgment to lean on so real and so sincere, or a friend so frank and
+constant, with so vivid and tenacious a memory for the happy associations
+of a common past, and so generous in recognising the independent value of
+divergent convictions in the less pliant present.
+
+                                                                  R. H. H.
+
+_November 1, 1878._
+
+
+
+
+LITERARY STUDIES.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+_THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS._[17]
+
+(1855.)
+
+
+It is odd to hear that the Edinburgh Review was once thought an
+incendiary publication. A young generation, which has always regarded the
+appearance of that periodical as a grave constitutional event (and been
+told that its composition is intrusted to Privy Councillors only), can
+scarcely believe, that once grave gentlemen kicked it out of doors—that
+the dignified classes murmured at ‘those young men’ starting such views,
+abetting such tendencies, using _such_ expressions—that aged men said,
+‘Very clever, but not at all sound.’ Venerable men too exaggerate. People
+say the Review was planned in a garret, but this is incredible. Merely to
+take such a work into a garret would be inconsistent with propriety; and
+the tale that the original conception, the pure idea to which each number
+is a quarterly aspiration, ever was in a garret is the evident fiction of
+reminiscent age—striving and failing to remember.
+
+Review writing is one of the features of modern literature. Many able
+men really give themselves up to it. Comments on ancient writings are
+scarcely so common as formerly; no great part of our literary talent is
+devoted to the illustration of the ancient masters; but what seems at
+first sight less dignified, annotation on modern writings was never so
+frequent. Hazlitt started the question, whether it would not be as well
+to review works which did not appear, in lieu of those which did—wishing,
+as a reviewer, to escape the labour of perusing print, and, as a man, to
+save his fellow-creatures from the slow torture of tedious extracts. But,
+though approximations may frequently be noticed—though the neglect of
+authors and independence of critics are on the increase—this conception,
+in its grandeur, has never been carried out. We are surprised at first
+sight, that writers should wish to comment on one another; it appears a
+tedious mode of stating opinions, and a needless confusion of personal
+facts with abstract arguments; and some, especially authors who have
+been censured, say that the cause is laziness—that it is easier to write
+a review than a book—and that reviewers are, as Coleridge declared, a
+species of maggots, inferior to bookworms, living on the delicious brains
+of real genius. Indeed it _would_ be very nice, but our world is so
+imperfect. This idea is wholly false. Doubtless it is easier to write one
+review than one book: but not, which is the real case, many reviews than
+one book. A deeper cause must be looked for.
+
+In truth, review-writing but exemplifies the casual character of modern
+literature. Everything about it is temporary and fragmentary. Look at
+a railway stall; you see books of every colour—blue, yellow, crimson,
+‘ring-streaked, speckled, and spotted,’ on every subject, in every
+style, of every opinion, with every conceivable difference, celestial
+or sublunary, maleficent, beneficent—but all small. People take their
+literature in morsels, as they take sandwiches on a journey. The volumes
+at least, you can see clearly, are not intended to be everlasting. It
+may be all very well for a pure essence like poetry to be immortal in a
+perishable world; it has no feeling; but paper cannot endure it, paste
+cannot bear it, string has no heart for it. The race has made up its mind
+to be fugitive, as well as minute. What a change from the ancient volume!—
+
+    ‘That weight of wood, with leathern coat o’erlaid,
+    Those ample clasps, of solid metal made;
+    The close-press’d leaves, unoped for many an age,
+    The dull red edging of the well-fill’d page;
+    On the broad back the stubborn ridges roll’d,
+    Where yet the title stands in tarnish’d gold.’
+
+And the change in the appearance of books has been accompanied—has been
+caused—by a similar change in readers. What a transition from the student
+of former ages!—from a grave man, with grave cheeks and a considerate
+eye, who spends his life in study, has no interest in the outward world,
+hears nothing of its din, and cares nothing for its honours, who would
+gladly learn and gladly teach, whose whole soul is taken up with a few
+books of ‘Aristotle and his Philosophy,’—to the merchant in the railway,
+with a head full of sums, an idea that tallow is ‘up,’ a conviction that
+teas are ‘lively,’ and a mind reverting perpetually from the little
+volume which he reads to these mundane topics, to the railway, to the
+shares, to the buying and bargaining universe. We must not wonder that
+the outside of books is so different, when the inner nature of those for
+whom they are written is so changed.
+
+It is indeed a peculiarity of our times, that we must instruct so many
+persons. On politics, on religion, on all less important topics still
+more, every one thinks himself competent to think,—in some casual manner
+does think,—to the best of our means must be taught to think rightly.
+Even if we had a profound and far-seeing statesman, his deep ideas and
+long-reaching vision would be useless to us, unless we could impart a
+confidence in them to the mass of influential persons, to the unelected
+Commons, the unchosen Council, who assist at the deliberations of the
+nation. In religion the appeal now is not to the technicalities of
+scholars, or the fictions of recluse schoolmen, but to the deep feelings,
+the sure sentiments, the painful strivings of all who think and hope.
+And this appeal to the many necessarily brings with it a consequence.
+We must speak to the many so that they will listen,—that they will like
+to listen,—that they will understand. It is of no use addressing them
+with the forms of science, or the rigour of accuracy, or the tedium of
+exhaustive discussion. The multitude are impatient of system, desirous of
+brevity, puzzled by formality. They agree with Sydney Smith: ‘Political
+economy has become, in the hands of Malthus and Ricardo, a school of
+metaphysics. All seem agreed what is to be done; the contention is, how
+the subject is to be divided and defined. _Meddle with no such matters._’
+We are not sneering at ‘the last of the sciences;’ we are concerned with
+the essential doctrine, and not with the particular instance. Such is the
+taste of mankind.
+
+We may repeat ourselves.
+
+There is, as yet, no Act of Parliament compelling a _bonâ fide_ traveller
+to read. If you wish him to read, you must make reading pleasant. You
+must give him short views, and clear sentences. It will not answer to
+explain what all the things which you describe, are _not_. You must
+begin by saying what they are. There is exactly the difference between
+the books of this age, and those of a more laborious age, that we
+feel between the lecture of a professor and the talk of the man of
+the world—the former profound, systematic, suggesting all arguments,
+analysing all difficulties, discussing all doubts,—very admirable, a
+little tedious, slowly winding an elaborate way, the characteristic
+effort of one who has hived wisdom during many studious years, agreeable
+to such as he is, anything but agreeable to such as he is not: the
+latter, the talk of the manifold talker, glancing lightly from topic to
+topic, suggesting deep things in a jest, unfolding unanswerable arguments
+in an absurd illustration, expounding nothing, completing nothing,
+exhausting nothing, yet really suggesting the lessons of a wider
+experience, embodying the results of a more finely tested philosophy,
+passing with a more Shakespearian transition, connecting topics with a
+more subtle link, refining on them with an acuter perception, and what
+is more to the purpose, pleasing all that hear him, charming high and
+low, in season and out of season, with a word of illustration for each
+and a touch of humour intelligible to all,—fragmentary yet imparting
+what he says, allusive yet explaining what he intends, disconnected
+yet impressing what he maintains. This is the very model of our modern
+writing. The man of the modern world is used to speak what the modern
+world will hear; the writer of the modern world must write what that
+world will indulgently and pleasantly peruse.
+
+In this transition from ancient writing to modern, the review-like essay
+and the essay-like review fill a large space. Their small bulk, their
+slight pretension to systematic completeness, their avowal, it might be
+said, of necessary incompleteness, the facility of changing the subject,
+of selecting points to attack, of exposing only the best corner for
+defence, are great temptations. Still greater is the advantage of ‘our
+limits.’ A real reviewer always spends his first and best pages on the
+parts of a subject on which he wishes to write, the easy comfortable
+parts which he knows. The formidable difficulties which he acknowledges,
+you foresee by a strange fatality that he will only reach two pages
+before the end; to his great grief there is no opportunity for discussing
+them. As a young gentleman, at the India House examination, wrote ‘Time
+up’ on nine unfinished papers in succession, so you may occasionally read
+a whole review, in every article of which the principal difficulty of
+each successive question is about to be reached at the conclusion. Nor
+can any one deny that this is the suitable skill, the judicious custom of
+the craft.
+
+Some may be inclined to mourn over the old days of systematic arguments
+and regular discussion. A ‘field-day’ controversy is a fine thing.
+These skirmishes have much danger and no glory. Yet there is one immense
+advantage. The appeal now is to the mass of sensible persons. Professed
+students are not generally suspected of common sense; and though they
+often show acuteness in their peculiar pursuits, they have not the
+various experience, the changing imagination, the feeling nature, the
+realised detail which are necessary _data_ for a thousand questions.
+Whatever we may think on this point, however, the transition has been
+made. The Edinburgh Review was, at its beginning, a material step in
+the change. Unquestionably, the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, and such-like
+writings, had opened a similar vein, but their size was too small.
+They could only deal with small fragments, or the extreme essence of a
+subject. They could not give a view of what was complicated, or analyse
+what was involved. The modern man must be told what to think—shortly, no
+doubt—but he _must_ be told it. The essay-like criticism of modern times
+is about the length which he likes. The Edinburgh Review, which began the
+system, may be said to be, in this country, the commencement on large
+topics of suitable views for sensible persons.
+
+The circumstances of the time were especially favourable to such an
+undertaking. Those years were the commencement of what is called the
+Eldonine period. The cold and haughty Pitt had gone down to the grave in
+circumstances singularly contrasting with his prosperous youth, and he
+had carried along with him the inner essence of half-liberal principle,
+which had clung to a tenacious mind from youthful associations, and
+was all that remained to the Tories of abstraction or theory. As for
+Lord Eldon, it is the most difficult thing in the world to believe that
+there ever was such a man. It only shows how intense historical evidence
+is, that no one really doubts it. He believed in everything which it
+is impossible to believe in—in the danger of Parliamentary Reform,
+the danger of Catholic Emancipation, the danger of altering the Court
+of Chancery, the danger of altering the Courts of Law, the danger of
+abolishing capital punishment for trivial thefts, the danger of making
+landowners pay their debts, the danger of making anything more, the
+danger of making anything less. It seems as if he maturely thought, ‘Now
+I know the present state of things to be consistent with the existence
+of John Lord Eldon; but if we begin altering that state, I am sure I do
+not know that it will be consistent.’ As Sir Robert Walpole was against
+all committees of inquiry on the simple ground, ‘If they once begin that
+sort of thing, who knows who will be safe?’—so that great Chancellor
+(still remembered in his own scene) looked pleasantly down from the
+woolsack, and seemed to observe, ‘Well, it _is_ a queer thing that I
+should be here, and here I mean to stay.’ With this idea he employed,
+for many years, all the abstract intellect of an accomplished lawyer,
+all the practical _bonhomie_ of an accomplished courtier, all the energy
+of both professions, all the subtlety acquired in either, in the task of
+maintaining John Lord Eldon in the cabinet, and maintaining a cabinet
+that would suit John Lord Eldon. No matter what change or misfortunes
+happened to the Royal house,—whether the most important person in
+court politics was the old King or the young King, Queen Charlotte or
+Queen Caroline—whether it was a question of talking grave business to
+the mutton of George the Third, or queer stories beside the champagne
+of George the Fourth, there was the same figure. To the first he was
+tearfully conscientious, and at the second the old northern circuit
+stories (how old, what outlasting tradition shall ever say?) told with a
+cheerful _bonhomie_, and a strong conviction that they _were_ ludicrous,
+really seem to have pleased as well as the more artificial niceties of
+the professed wits. He was always agreeable, and always serviceable. No
+little peccadillo offended him: the ideal, according to the satirist,
+of a ‘good-natured man,’ he cared for nothing until he was himself
+hurt. He ever remembered the statute which absolves obedience to a king
+_de facto_. And it was the same in the political world. There was one
+man who never changed. No matter what politicians came and went—and a
+good many, including several that are now scarcely remembered, did come
+and go,—the ‘Cabinet-maker,’ as men called him, still remained. ‘As to
+Lord Liverpool being Prime Minister,’ continued Mr. Brougham, ‘he is
+no more Prime Minister than I am. I reckon Lord Liverpool as a sort of
+member of opposition; and after what has recently passed, if I were
+required, I should designate him as “a noble lord with whom I have the
+honour to act.” Lord Liverpool may have collateral influence, but Lord
+Eldon has all the direct influence of the Prime Minister. He is Prime
+Minister to all intents and purposes, and he stands alone in the full
+exercise of all the influence of that high situation. Lord Liverpool
+has carried measures against the Lord Chancellor; so have I. If Lord
+Liverpool carried the Marriage Act, I carried the Education Bill,’ &c.
+&c. And though the general views of Lord Eldon may be described,—though
+one can say at least negatively and intelligibly that he objected to
+everything proposed, and never proposed anything himself,—the arguments
+are such as it would require great intellectual courage to endeavour
+at all to explain. What follows is a favourable specimen. ‘Lord Grey,’
+says his biographer, ‘having introduced a bill for dispensing with the
+declarations prescribed by the Acts of 25 and 30 Car. II., against the
+doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Invocation of Saints, moved the
+second reading of it on the 10th of June, when the Lord Chancellor again
+opposed the principle of such a measure, urging that the law which had
+been introduced under Charles II. had been re-enacted in the first
+Parliament of _William III._, the founder of our civil and religious
+liberties. It had been thought necessary for the preservation of these,
+that papists should not be allowed to sit in Parliament, and some test
+was necessary by which it might be ascertained whether a man was a
+Catholic or Protestant. The only possible test for such a purpose was an
+oath declaratory of religious belief, and, as _Dr. Paley_ had observed,
+it was perfectly just to have a religious test of a political creed.
+He entreated the House not to commit the crime against posterity of
+transmitting to them in an impaired and insecure state the civil and
+religious liberties of England.’ And this sort of appeal to Paley and
+King William is made the ground—one can hardly say the reason—for the
+most rigid adherence to all that was established.
+
+It may be asked, How came the English people to endure this? They are
+not naturally illiberal; on the contrary, though slow and cautious, they
+are prone to steady improvement, and not at all disposed to acquiesce
+in the unlimited perfection of their rulers. On a certain imaginative
+side, unquestionably, there is or was a strong feeling of loyalty, of
+attachment to what is old, love for what is ancestral, belief in what
+has been tried. But the fond attachment to the past is a very different
+idea from a slavish adoration of the present. Nothing is more removed
+from the Eldonine idolatry of the _status quo_ than the old cavalier
+feeling of deep idolatry for the ancient realm—that half-mystic idea that
+consecrated what it touched; the moonlight, as it were, which
+
+    ‘Silver’d the walls of Cumnor Hall,
+    And many an oak that grew thereby.’
+
+Why, then, did the English endure the everlasting Chancellor?
+
+The fact is, that Lord Eldon’s rule was maintained a great deal on the
+same motives as that of Louis Napoleon. One can fancy his astonishment
+at hearing it said, and his cheerful rejoinder, ‘That whatever he was,
+and Mr. Brougham was in the habit of calling him strange names, no
+one should ever make him believe that he was a _Bonaparte_.’ But, in
+fact, he was, like the present Emperor, the head of what we call the
+party of order. Everybody knows what keeps Louis Napoleon in his place.
+It is not attachment to him, but dread of what he restrains—dread of
+revolution. The present may not be good, and having such newspapers,—you
+might say no newspapers,—is dreadful; but it is better than no trade,
+bankrupt banks, loss of old savings; your mother beheaded on destructive
+principles; your eldest son shot on conservative ones. Very similar was
+the feeling of Englishmen in the year 1800. They had no liking at all for
+the French system. Statesmen saw its absurdity, holy men were shocked at
+its impiety, mercantile men saw its effect on the 5 per cents. Everybody
+was revolted by its cruelty. That it came across the Channel was no
+great recommendation. A witty writer of our own time says, that if a
+still Mussulman, in his flowing robes, wished to give his son a warning
+against renouncing his faith, he would take the completest, smartest,
+dapperest French dandy out of the streets of Pera, and say, ‘There, my
+son, if ever you come to forget God and the Prophet, you may come to look
+like _that_.’ Exactly similar in old conservative speeches is the use of
+the French Revolution. If you proposed to alter anything, of importance
+or not of importance, legal or social, religious or not religious, the
+same answer was ready: ‘You see what the French have come to. They made
+alterations; if we make alterations, who knows but we may end in the
+same way?’ It was not any peculiar bigotry in Lord Eldon that actuated
+him, or he would have been powerless; still less was it any affected
+feeling which he put forward (though, doubtless, he was aware of its
+persuasive potency, and worked on it most skilfully to his own ends); it
+was genuine, hearty, craven fear; and he ruled naturally the common-place
+Englishman, because he sympathised in his sentiments, and excelled him in
+his powers.
+
+There was, too, another cause beside fear which then inclined, and which
+in similar times of miscellaneous revolution will ever incline, subtle
+rather than creative intellects to a narrow conservatism. Such intellects
+require an exact creed; they want to be able clearly to distinguish
+themselves from those around them, to tell to each man where they differ,
+and why they differ; they cannot make assumptions; they cannot, like the
+merely practical man, be content with rough and obvious axioms; they
+require a _theory_. Such a want it is difficult to satisfy in an age of
+confusion and tumult, when old habits are shaken, old views overthrown,
+ancient assumptions rudely questioned, ancient inferences utterly
+denied, when each man has a different view from his neighbour, when an
+intellectual change has set father and son at variance, when a man’s own
+household are the special foes of his favourite and self-adopted creed.
+A bold and original mind breaks through these vexations, and forms for
+itself a theory satisfactory to its notions, and sufficient for its
+wants. A weak mind yields a passive obedience to those among whom it is
+thrown. But a mind which is searching without being creative, which is
+accurate and logical enough to see defects, without being combinative
+or inventive enough to provide remedies,—which, in the old language,
+is discriminative rather than discursive,—is wholly unable, out of the
+medley of new suggestions, to provide itself with an adequate belief; and
+it naturally falls back on the _status quo_. This is, at least, clear
+and simple and defined; you know at any rate what you propose—where you
+end—why you pause;—an argumentative defence it is, doubtless, difficult
+to find; but there are arguments on all sides; the world is a medley
+of arguments; no one is agreed in which direction to alter the world;
+what is proposed is as liable to objection as what exists; nonsense
+for nonsense, the old should keep its ground: and so in times of
+convulsion, the philosophic scepticism—the ever-questioning hesitation
+of Hume and Montaigne—the subtlest quintessence of the most restless
+and refining abstraction—becomes allied to the stupidest, crudest
+acquiescence in the present and concrete world. We read occasionally
+in conservative literature (the remark is as true of religion as of
+politics) alternations of sentences, the first an appeal to the coarsest
+prejudice,—the next a subtle hint to a craving and insatiable scepticism.
+You may trace this even in Vesey junior. Lord Eldon never read Hume or
+Montaigne, but sometimes, in the interstices of cumbrous law, you may
+find sentences with their meaning, if not in their manner; ‘Dumpor’s case
+always struck me as extraordinary; but if you depart from Dumpor’s case,
+what is there to prevent a departure in every direction?’
+
+The glory of the Edinburgh Review is that from the first it steadily
+set itself to oppose this timorous acquiescence in the actual system.
+On domestic subjects the history of the first thirty years of the
+nineteenth century is a species of duel between the Edinburgh Review and
+Lord Eldon. All the ancient abuses which he thought it most dangerous
+to impair, they thought it most dangerous to retain. ‘To appreciate
+the value of the Edinburgh Review,’ says one of the founders, ‘the
+state of England at the period when that journal began should be had
+in remembrance. The Catholics were not emancipated. The Corporation
+and Test Acts were unrepealed. The game-laws were horribly oppressive;
+steel-traps and spring-guns were set all over the country; prisoners
+tried for their lives could have no counsel. Lord Eldon and the Court
+of Chancery pressed heavily on mankind. Libel was punished by the most
+cruel and vindictive imprisonments. The principles of political economy
+were little understood. The laws of debt and conspiracy were on the
+worst footing. The enormous wickedness of the slave-trade was tolerated.
+A thousand evils were in existence which the talents of good and noble
+men have since lessened or removed: and these efforts have been not a
+little assisted by the honest boldness of the Edinburgh Review.’ And even
+more characteristic than the advocacy of these or any other partial or
+particular reforms is the systematic opposition of the Edinburgh Review
+to the crude acquiescence in the _status quo_; the timorous dislike to
+change because it was change; to the optimistic conclusion, ‘that what
+is, ought to be;’ the sceptical query, ‘How do you know that what you say
+will be any better?’
+
+In this defence of the principle of innovation, a defence which it
+requires great imagination (or, as we suggested, the looking across
+the Channel) to conceive the efficacy of now, the Edinburgh Review was
+but the doctrinal organ of the Whigs. A great deal of philosophy has
+been expended in endeavouring to fix and express theoretically the creed
+of that party: various forms of abstract doctrine have been drawn out,
+in which elaborate sentence follows hard on elaborate sentence, to be
+set aside, or at least vigorously questioned by the next or succeeding
+inquirers. In truth Whiggism is not a creed, it is a character. Perhaps
+as long as there has been a political history in this country there have
+been certain men of a cool, moderate, resolute firmness, not gifted with
+high imagination, little prone to enthusiastic sentiment, heedless of
+large theories and speculations, careless of dreamy scepticism; with a
+clear view of the next step, and a wise intention to take it; a strong
+conviction that the elements of knowledge are true, and a steady belief
+that the present world can, and should be, quietly improved.
+
+These are the Whigs. A tinge of simplicity still clings to the character;
+of old it was the Country Party. The limitation of their imagination
+is in some sort an advantage to such men; it confines them to a simple
+path, prevents their being drawn aside by various speculations, restricts
+them to what is clear and intelligible, and at hand. ‘I cannot,’ said
+Sir S. Romilly, ‘be convinced without arguments, and I do not see that
+either Burke or Paine advance any.’ He was unable to see that the most
+convincing arguments,—and some of those in the work of Burke, which he
+alludes to, are certainly sound enough,—may be expressed imaginatively,
+and may work a far firmer persuasion than any neat and abstract
+statement. Nor are the intellectual powers of the characteristic element
+in this party exactly of the loftiest order; they have no call to make
+great discoveries, or pursue unbounded designs, or amaze the world by
+some wild dream of empire and renown. That terrible essence of daring
+genius, such as we see it in Napoleon, and can imagine it in some of
+the conquerors of old time, is utterly removed from their cool and
+placid judgment. In taste they are correct,—that is, better appreciating
+the complete compliance with explicit and ascertained rules, than the
+unconscious exuberance of inexplicable and unforeseen beauties. In their
+own writings, they display the defined neatness of the second order,
+rather than the aspiring hardihood of the first excellence. In action
+they are quiet and reasonable rather than inventive and overwhelming.
+Their power indeed is scarcely intellectual; on the contrary, it resides
+in what Aristotle would have called their ἦθος, and we should call
+their nature. They are emphatically pure-natured and firm-natured.
+Instinctively casting aside the coarse temptations and crude excitements
+of a vulgar earth, they pass like a September breeze across the other
+air, cool and refreshing, unable, one might fancy, even to comprehend the
+many offences with which all else is fainting and oppressed. So far even
+as their excellence is intellectual, it consists less in the supereminent
+possession of any single talent or endowment, than in the simultaneous
+enjoyment and felicitous adjustment of many or several;—in a certain
+balance of the faculties which we call judgment or sense, which placidly
+indicates to them what should be done, and which is not preserved without
+an equable calm, and a patient, persistent watchfulness. In such men the
+moral and intellectual nature half become one. Whether, according to
+the Greek question, manly virtue can be taught or not, assuredly it has
+never been taught to them; it seems a native endowment; it seems a soul—a
+soul of honour—as we speak, within the exterior soul; a fine impalpable
+essence, more exquisite than the rest of the being; as the thin pillar of
+the cloud, more beautiful than the other blue of heaven, governing and
+guiding a simple way through the dark wilderness of our world.
+
+To descend from such elevations, among _people_ Sir Samuel Romilly is
+the best-known type of this character. The admirable biography of him
+made public his admirable virtues. Yet it is probable that among the
+aristocratic Whigs, persons as typical of the character can be found.
+This species of noble nature is exactly of the kind which hereditary
+associations tend to purify and confirm; just that casual, delicate,
+placid virtue, which it is so hard to find, perhaps so sanguine to
+expect, in a rough tribune of the people. Defects enough there are in
+this character, on which we shall say something; yet it is wonderful to
+see what an influence in this sublunary sphere it gains and preserves.
+The world makes an oracle of its judgment. There is a curious living
+instance of this. You may observe that when an ancient liberal, Lord
+John Russell, or any of the essential sect, has done anything very
+queer, the last thing you would imagine anybody would dream of doing,
+and is attacked for it, he always answers boldly, ‘Lord Lansdowne said
+I _might_;’ or if it is a ponderous day, the eloquence runs, ‘A noble
+friend with whom I have ever had the inestimable advantage of being
+associated from the commencement (the infantile period, I might say) of
+my political life, and to whose advice,’ &c. &c. &c.—and a very cheerful
+existence it must be for ‘my noble friend’ to be expected to justify—(for
+they never say it except they have done something very odd)—and dignify
+every aberration. Still it must be a beautiful feeling to have a man like
+Lord John, to have a stiff, small man bowing down before you. And a good
+judge certainly suggested the conferring of this authority. ‘Why do they
+not talk over the virtues and excellences of Lansdowne? There is no man
+who performs the duties of life better, or fills a high station in a more
+becoming manner. He is full of knowledge, and eager for its acquisition.
+His remarkable politeness is the result of good nature, regulated by good
+sense. He looks for talents and qualities among all ranks of men, and
+adds them to his stock of society, as a botanist does his plants; and
+while other aristocrats are yawning among stars and garters, Lansdowne is
+refreshing his soul with the fancy and genius which he has found in odd
+places, and gathered to the marbles and pictures of his palace. Then he
+is an honest politician, a wise statesman, and has a philosophic mind,’
+&c. &c.[18] Here is devotion for a carping critic; and who ever heard
+before of _bonhomie_ in an idol?
+
+It may strike some that this equable kind of character is not the most
+interesting. Many will prefer the bold felicities of daring genius,
+the deep plans of latent and searching sagacity, the hardy triumphs of
+an overawing and imperious will. Yet it is not unremarkable that an
+experienced and erudite Frenchman, not unalive to artistic effect, has
+just now selected this very species of character for the main figure in
+a large portion of an elaborate work. The hero of M. Villemain is one to
+whom he delights to ascribe such things as _bon sens_, _esprit juste_,
+_cœur excellent_. The result, it may be owned, is a little dull, yet it
+is not the less characteristic. The instructed observer has detected
+the deficiency of his country. If France had more men of firm will,
+quiet composure, with a suspicion of enormous principle and a taste
+for moderate improvement: if a Whig party, in a word, were possible in
+France, France would be free. And though there are doubtless crises
+in affairs, dark and terrible moments, when a more creative intellect
+is needful to propose, a more dictatorial will is necessary to carry
+out, a sudden and daring resolution; though in times of inextricable
+confusion—perhaps the present is one of them[19]—a more abstruse and
+disentangling intellect is required to untwist the ravelled perplexities
+of a complicated world; yet England will cease to be the England of
+our fathers, when a large share in great affairs is no longer given to
+the equable sense, the composed resolution, the homely purity of the
+characteristic Whigs.
+
+It is evident that between such men and Lord Eldon there could be no
+peace; and between them and the Edinburgh Review there was a natural
+alliance. Not only the kind of reforms there proposed, the species of
+views therein maintained, but the very manner in which those views and
+alterations are put forward and maintained, is just what they would
+like. The kind of writing suitable to such minds is not the elaborate,
+ambitious, exhaustive discussion of former ages, but the clear, simple,
+occasional writing (as we just now described it) of the present times.
+The opinions to be expressed are short and simple; the innovations
+suggested are natural and evident; neither one nor the other require
+more than an intelligible statement, a distinct exposition to the world;
+and their reception would be only impeded and complicated by operose and
+cumbrous argumentation. The exact mind which of all others dislikes the
+stupid adherence to the _status quo_, is the keen, quiet, improving Whig
+mind; the exact kind of writing most adapted to express that dislike is
+the cool, pungent, didactic essay.
+
+Equally common to the Whigs and the Edinburgh Review is the enmity to the
+sceptical, over-refining Toryism of Hume and Montaigne. The Whigs, it is
+true, have a conservatism of their own, but it instinctively clings to
+certain practical rules tried by steady adherence, to appropriate formulæ
+verified by the regular application and steady success of many ages.
+Political philosophers speak of it as a great step when the idea of an
+attachment to an organised code and system of rules and laws takes the
+place of the exclusive oriental attachment to the person of the single
+monarch. This step is natural, is instinctive to the Whig mind; that
+cool impassive intelligence is little likely to yield to ardent emotions
+of personal loyalty; but its chosen ideal is a body or collection of
+wise rules fitly applicable to great affairs, pleasing a placid sense
+by an evident propriety, gratifying the capacity for business by a
+constant and clear applicability. The Whigs are constitutional by
+instinct, as the Cavaliers were monarchical by devotion. It has been
+a jest at their present leader that he is over familiar with public
+forms and parliamentary rites. The first wish of the Whigs is to retain
+the constitution; the second—and it is of almost equal strength—is
+to improve it. They think the body of laws now existing to be, in the
+main and in its essence, excellent; but yet that there are exceptional
+defects which should be remedied, superficial inconsistencies that
+should be corrected. The most opposite creed is that of the sceptic,
+who teaches that you are to keep what is because it exists; not from
+a conviction of its excellence, but from an uncertainty that anything
+better can be obtained. The one is an attachment to precise rules for
+specific reasons; the other an acquiescence in the present on grounds
+that would be equally applicable to its very opposite, from a disbelief
+in the possibility of improvement, and a conviction of the uncertainty
+of all things. And equally adverse to an unlimited scepticism is the
+nature of popular writing. It is true that the greatest teachers of that
+creed have sometimes, and as it were of set purpose, adopted that species
+of writing; yet essentially it is inimical to them. Its appeal is to
+the people; as has been shown, it addresses the _élite_ of common men,
+sensible in their affairs, intelligent in their tastes, influential among
+their neighbours. What is absolute scepticism to such men?—a dream, a
+chimera, an inexplicable absurdity. Tell it to them to-day, and they will
+have forgotten it to-morrow. A man of business hates elaborate trifling.
+‘If you do not believe _your own_ senses,’ he will say, ‘there is no use
+in _my_ talking to you.’ As to the multiplicity of arguments and the
+complexity of questions, he feels them little. He has a plain, simple, as
+he would say, practical way of looking at the matter; and you will never
+make him comprehend any other. He knows the world _can_ be improved. And
+thus what we may call the middle species of writing—which is intermediate
+between the light, frivolous style of merely amusing literature, and the
+heavy, conscientious elaborateness of methodical philosophy—the style of
+the original Edinburgh—is, in truth, as opposed to the vague, desponding
+conservatism of the sceptic as it is to the stupid conservatism of the
+crude and uninstructed; and substantially for the same reason—that it is
+addressed to men of cool, clear, and practical understandings.
+
+It is, indeed, no wonder that the Edinburgh Review should be agreeable to
+the Whigs, for the people who founded it were Whigs. Among these, three
+stand pre-eminent—Horner, Jeffrey, and Sydney Smith. Other men of equal
+ability may have contributed—and a few did contribute—to its pages; but
+these men were, more than any one else, the first Edinburgh Review.
+
+Francis Horner’s was a short and singular life. He was the son of
+an Edinburgh shopkeeper. He died at thirty-nine; and when he died,
+from all sides of the usually cold House of Commons great statesmen
+and thorough gentlemen got up to deplore his loss. Tears are rarely
+parliamentary: all men are arid towards young Scotchmen; yet it was one
+of that inclement nation whom statesmen of the species Castlereagh, and
+statesmen of the species Whitbread—with all the many kinds and species
+that lie between the two—rose in succession to lament. The fortunes and
+superficial aspect of the man make it more singular. He had no wealth,
+was a briefless barrister, never held an office, was a conspicuous member
+of the most unpopular of all oppositions—the opposition to a glorious
+and successful war. He never had the means of obliging any one. He
+was destitute of showy abilities: he had not the intense eloquence or
+overwhelming ardour which enthral and captivate popular assemblies: his
+powers of administration were little tried, and may possibly be slightly
+questioned. In his youthful reading he was remarkable for laying down,
+for a few months of study, enormous plans, such as many years would
+scarcely complete; and not especially remarkable for doing anything
+wonderful towards accomplishing those plans. Sir Walter Scott, who,
+though not illiberal in his essential intellect, was a keen partisan on
+superficial matters, and no lenient critic on actual Edinburgh Whigs,
+used to observe, ‘I cannot admire your Horner; he always reminds me of
+Obadiah’s bull, who, though he never certainly did produce a calf,
+nevertheless went about his business with so much gravity, that he
+commanded the respect of the whole parish.’ It is no explanation of the
+universal regret, that he was a considerable political economist: no real
+English gentleman, in his secret soul, was ever sorry for the death of
+a political economist: he is much more likely to be sorry for his life.
+There is an idea that he has something to do with statistics; or, if that
+be exploded, that he is a person who writes upon ‘value:’ says that rent
+is—you cannot very well make out what; talks excruciating currency; he
+may be useful as drying machines are useful;[20] but the notion of crying
+about him is absurd. The economical loss might be great, but it will not
+explain the mourning for Francis Horner.
+
+The fact is that Horner is a striking example of the advantage of keeping
+an atmosphere. This may sound like nonsense, and yet it is true. There
+is around some men a kind of circle or halo of influences, and traits,
+and associations, by which they infallibly leave a distinct and uniform
+impression on all their contemporaries. It is very difficult, even for
+those who have the best opportunities, to analyse exactly what this
+impression consists in, or why it was made—but it _is_ made. There is a
+certain undefinable keeping in the traits and manner, and common speech
+and characteristic actions of some men, which inevitably stamps the same
+mark and image. It is like a man’s style. There are some writers who can
+be known by a few words of their writing; each syllable is instinct with
+a certain spirit: put it into the hands of any one chosen at random,
+the same impression will be produced by the same casual and felicitous
+means. Just so in character, the air and atmosphere, so to speak, which
+are around a man, have a delicate and expressive power, and leave a
+stamp of unity on the interpretative faculty of mankind. Death dissolves
+this association, and it becomes a problem for posterity what it was
+that contemporaries observed and reverenced. There is Lord Somers. Does
+any one know why he had such a reputation? He was Lord Chancellor, and
+decided a Bank case, and had an influence in the Cabinet; but there have
+been Lord Chancellors, and Bank cases, and influential Cabinet ministers
+not a few, that have never attained to a like reputation. There is
+little we can connect specifically with his name. Lord Macaulay, indeed,
+says that he spoke for five minutes on the Bishops’ trial; and that
+when he sat down, his reputation as an orator and constitutional lawyer
+was established. But this must be a trifle eloquent; hardly any orator
+could be fast enough to attain such a reputation in five minutes. The
+truth is, that Lord Somers had around him that inexpressible attraction
+and influence of which we speak. He left a sure, and if we may trust
+the historian, even a momentary impression on those who saw him. By a
+species of tact they felt him to be a great man. The ethical sense—for
+there is almost such a thing in simple persons—discriminated the fine
+and placid oneness of his nature. It was the same on a smaller scale
+with Horner. After he had left Edinburgh several years, his closest and
+most confidential associate writes to him:—‘There is no circumstance
+in your life, my dear Horner, so enviable as the universal confidence
+which your conduct has produced among all descriptions of men. I do not
+speak of your friends, who have been near and close observers; but I
+have had some occasions of observing the impression which those who are
+distant spectators have had, and I believe there are few instances of any
+person of your age possessing the same character for independence and
+integrity, qualities for which very little credit is given in general to
+young men.’[21] Sydney Smith said, ‘the Ten Commandments were written
+on his countenance.’ Of course he was a very ugly man, but the moral
+impression in fact conveyed was equally efficacious; ‘I have often,’ said
+the same most just observer, ‘told him, that there was not a crime he
+might not commit with impunity, as no judge or jury who saw him would
+give the smallest credit to any evidence against him. There was in his
+look a calm settled love of all that was honourable and good—an air of
+wisdom and of sweetness. You saw at once that he was a great man, whom
+nature had intended for a leader of human beings; you ranged yourself
+willingly under his banners, and cheerfully submitted to his sway.’ From
+the somewhat lengthened description of what we defined as the essential
+Whig character, it is evident how agreeable and suitable such a man was
+to their quiet, composed, and aristocratic nature. His tone was agreeable
+to English gentlemen: a firm and placid manliness, without effort or
+pretension, is what they like best; and therefore it was that the House
+of Commons grieved for his loss—unanimously and without distinction.
+
+Some friends of Horner’s, in his own time, mildly criticised him for a
+tendency to party spirit. The disease in him, if real, was by no means
+virulent; but it is worth noticing as one of the defects to which the
+proper Whig character is specially prone. It is evident in the quiet
+agreement of the men. Their composed, unimaginative nature is inclined
+to isolate itself in a single view; their placid disposition, never
+prone to self-distrust, is rather susceptible of friendly influence;
+their practical habit is concentrated on what should be done. They do
+not wish—they do not like to go forth into various speculation; to put
+themselves in the position of opponents; to weigh in a refining scale the
+special weight of small objections. Their fancy is hardly vivid enough
+to explain to them all the characters of those whom they oppose; their
+intellect scarcely detective enough to discover a meaning for each grain
+in opposing arguments. Nor is their temper, it may be, always prone to be
+patient with propositions which tease, and persons who resist them. The
+wish to call down fire from heaven is rarely absent in pure zeal for a
+pure cause.
+
+A good deal of praise has naturally been bestowed upon the Whigs for
+adopting such a man as Horner, with Romilly and others of that time; and
+much excellent eulogy has been expended on the close boroughs, which
+afforded to the Whig leaders a useful mode of showing their favour.
+Certainly the character of Horner was one altogether calculated to
+ingratiate itself with the best and most special Whig nature. But as
+for the eulogy on the proprietary seats in Parliament, it is certain
+that from the position of the Whig party, the nomination system was
+then most likely to show its excellences, and to conceal its defects.
+Nobody but an honest man would bind himself thoroughly to the Whigs. It
+was evident that the reign of Lord Eldon must be long; the heavy and
+common Englishman (after all, the most steady and powerful force in
+our political constitution) had been told that Lord Grey was in favour
+of the ‘Papists,’ and liked Bonaparte; and the consequence was a long,
+painful, arduous exile on ‘the other side of the table,’—the last place
+any political adventurer would wish to arrive at. Those who have no
+bribes will never charm the corrupt; those who have nothing to give will
+not please those who desire that much shall be given them. There is an
+observation of Niel Blane, the innkeeper, in ‘Old Mortality.’ ‘“And
+what are we to eat ourselves, then, father,” asked Jenny, “when we hae
+sent awa the haile meal in the ark and the girnel?” “We maun gaur wheat
+flour serve us for a blink,” said Niel, with an air of resignation. “It
+is not that ill food, though far frae being sae hearty and kindly to a
+Scotchman’s stomach as the curney aitmeal is: the Englishers live amaist
+upon it,”’ &c. It was so with the Whigs; they were obliged to put up with
+honest and virtuous men, and they wanted able men to carry on a keen
+opposition; and after all, they and the ‘Englishers’ like such men best.
+
+In another point of view, too, Horner’s life was characteristic of those
+times. It might seem, at first sight, odd that the English Whigs should
+go to Scotland to find a literary representative. There was no place
+where Toryism was so intense. The constitution of Scotland at that time
+has been described as the worst constitution in Europe. The nature of
+the representation made the entire country a government borough. In the
+towns, the franchise belonged to a close and self-electing corporation,
+who were always carefully watched: the county representation, anciently
+resting on a property qualification, had become vested in a few
+titular freeholders, something like lords of the manor, only that
+they might have no manor; and these, even with the addition of the
+borough freeholders, did not amount to three thousand. The whole were
+in the hands of Lord Eldon’s party, and the entire force, influence,
+and patronage of Government were spent to maintain and keep it so. By
+inevitable consequence, Liberalism, even of the most moderate kind, was
+thought almost a criminal offence. The mild Horner was considered a man
+of ‘very violent opinions.’ Jeffrey’s father, a careful and discerning
+parent, was so anxious to shield him from the intellectual taint, as to
+forbid his attendance at Stewart’s lectures. This seems an odd place to
+find the eruption of a liberal review. Of course the necessary effect
+of a close and common-place tyranny was to engender a strong reaction
+in searching and vigorous minds. The Liberals of the north, though far
+fewer, may perhaps have been stronger Liberals than those of the south;
+but this will hardly explain the phenomenon. The reason is an academical
+one; the teaching of Scotland seems to have been designed to teach men
+to write essays and articles. There are two kinds of education, into
+all the details of which it is not now pleasant to go, but which may be
+adequately described as the education of facts, and the education of
+speculation. The system of facts is the English system. The strength of
+the pedagogue and the agony of the pupil are designed to engender a good
+knowledge of two languages; in the old times, a little arithmetic; now
+also a knowledge, more or less, of mathematics and mathematical physics.
+The positive tastes and tendencies of the English mind confine its
+training to ascertained learning and definite science. In Scotland the
+case has long been different. The time of a man like Horner was taken
+up with speculations like these: ‘I have long been feeding my ambition
+with the prospect of accomplishing, at some future period of my life, a
+work similar to that which Sir Francis Bacon executed about two hundred
+years ago. It will depend on the sweep and turn of my speculations,
+whether they shall be thrown into the form of a discursive commentary
+on the “Instauratio Magna” of that great author, or shall be entitled
+to an original form, under the title of a “View of the Limits of Human
+Knowledge and a System of the Principles of Philosophical Inquiry.” I
+shall say nothing at present of the audacity,’ &c. &c. And this sort
+of planning, which is the staple of his youthful biography, was really
+accompanied by much application to metaphysics, history, political
+economy, and such like studies. It is not at all to our present purpose
+to compare this speculative and indeterminate kind of study with the
+rigorous accurate education of England. The fault of the former is
+sometimes to produce a sort of lecturer _in vacuo_, ignorant of exact
+pursuits, and diffusive of vague words. The English now and then produce
+a learned creature like a thistle, prickly with all facts, and incapable
+of all fruit. But passing by this general question, it cannot be doubted
+that, as a preparation for the writing of various articles, the system of
+Edinburgh is enormously superior to that of Cambridge. The particular,
+compact, exclusive learning of England is inferior in this respect to
+the general, diversified, omnipresent information of the North; and
+what is more, the speculative, dubious nature of metaphysical and such
+like pursuits tends, in a really strong mind, to cultivate habits of
+independent thought and original discussion. A bold mind so trained will
+even _wish_ to advance its peculiar ideas, on its own account, in a
+written and special form; that is, as we said, to write an article. Such
+are the excellences in this respect of the system of which Horner is an
+example. The defects tend the same way. It tends, as is said, to make a
+man fancy he knows everything. ‘Well then, at least,’ it may be answered,
+‘I can write an article on everything.’
+
+The facility and boldness of the habits so produced were curiously
+exemplified in Lord Jeffrey. During the first six years of the Edinburgh
+Review he wrote as many as seventy-nine articles; in a like period
+afterwards he wrote forty. Any one who should expect to find a pure
+perfection in these miscellaneous productions, should remember their
+bulk. If all his reviews were reprinted, they would be very many. And
+all the while he was a busy lawyer, was editor of the Review, did the
+business, corrected the proof sheets; and more than all, what one would
+have thought a very strong man’s work, actually managed Henry Brougham.
+You must not criticise papers like these, rapidly written in the hurry
+of life, as you would the painful words of an elaborate sage, slowly and
+with anxious awfulness instructing mankind. Some things, a few things,
+are for eternity; some, and a good many, are for time. We do not expect
+the everlastingness of the Pyramids from the vibratory grandeur of a
+Tyburnian mansion.
+
+The truth is, that Lord Jeffrey was something of a Whig critic. We have
+hinted, that among the peculiarities of that character, an excessive
+partiality for new, arduous, overwhelming, original excellence, was by no
+means to be numbered. Their tendency inclining to the quiet footsteps of
+custom, they like to trace the exact fulfilment of admitted rules, a just
+accordance with the familiar features of ancient merit. But they are most
+averse to mysticism. A clear, precise, discriminating intellect shrinks
+at once from the symbolic, the unbounded, the indefinite. The misfortune
+is that mysticism is true. There certainly are kinds of truth, borne in
+as it were instinctively on the human intellect, most influential on
+the character and the heart, yet hardly capable of stringent statement,
+difficult to limit by an elaborate definition. Their course is shadowy;
+the mind seems rather to have seen than to see them, more to feel
+after than definitely apprehend them. They commonly involve an infinite
+element, which of course cannot be stated precisely, or else a first
+principle—an original tendency—of our intellectual constitution, which
+it is impossible not to feel, and yet which it is hard to extricate in
+terms and words. Of this latter kind is what has been called the religion
+of nature, or more exactly, perhaps, the religion of the imagination.
+This is an interpretation of the world. According to it the beauty of the
+universe has a meaning, its grandeur a soul, its sublimity an expression.
+As we gaze on the faces of those whom we love; as we watch the light of
+life in the dawning of their eyes, and the play of their features, and
+the wildness of their animation; as we trace in changing lineaments a
+varying sign; as a charm and a thrill seem to run along the tone of a
+voice, to haunt the mind with a mere word; as a tone seems to roam in the
+ear; as a trembling fancy hears words that are unspoken; so in nature the
+mystical sense finds a motion in the mountain, and a power in the waves,
+and a meaning in the long white line of the shore, and a thought in the
+blue of heaven, and a gushing soul in the buoyant light, an unbounded
+being in the vast void air, and
+
+    ‘Wakeful watchings in the pointed stars.’
+
+There is a philosophy in this which might be explained, if explaining
+were to our purpose. It might be advanced that there are original
+sources of expression in the essential grandeur and sublimity of nature,
+of an analogous though fainter kind, to those familiar, inexplicable
+signs by which we trace in the very face and outward lineaments of
+man the existence and working of the mind within. But be this as it
+may, it is certain that Mr. Wordsworth preached this kind of religion,
+and that Lord Jeffrey did not believe a word of it. His cool, sharp,
+collected mind revolted from its mysticism; his detective intelligence
+was absorbed in its apparent fallaciousness; his light humour made
+sport with the sublimities of the preacher. His love of perspicuity
+was vexed by its indefiniteness; the precise philosopher was amazed at
+its mystic unintelligibility. Finding a little fault was doubtless not
+unpleasant to him. The reviewer’s pen—φόνος ἡρώεσσιν—has seldom been
+more poignantly wielded. ‘If,’ he was told, ‘you could be alarmed into
+the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my
+joke against you’ (Sydney Smith _loquitur_) ‘about the moon. D—n the
+solar system—bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets: feeble
+contrivance; could make a better with great ease.’ Yet we do not mean
+that in this great literary feud, either of the combatants had all the
+right, or gained all the victory. The world has given judgment. Both
+Mr. Wordsworth and Lord Jeffrey have received their reward. The one had
+his own generation; the laughter of men, the applause of drawing-rooms,
+the concurrence of the crowd: the other a succeeding age, the fond
+enthusiasm of secret students, the lonely rapture of lonely minds. And
+each has received according to his kind. If all cultivated men speak
+differently because of the existence of Wordsworth and Coleridge; if
+not a thoughtful English book has appeared for forty years, without
+some trace for good or evil of their influence; if sermon-writers
+subsist upon their thoughts; if ‘sacred poets’ thrive by translating
+their weaker portion into the speech of women; if, when all this is
+over, some sufficient part of their writing will ever be fitting food
+for wild musing and solitary meditation, surely this is because they
+possessed the inner nature—‘an intense and glowing mind,’ ‘the vision
+and the faculty divine.’ But if, perchance, in their weaker moments, the
+great authors of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ did ever imagine that the world
+was to pause because of their verses: that Peter Bell would be popular
+in drawing-rooms; that Christabel would be perused in the City; that
+people of fashion would make a hand-book of the Excursion,—it was well
+for them to be told at once that this was not so. Nature ingeniously
+prepared a shrill artificial voice, which spoke in season and out of
+season, enough and more than enough, what will ever be the idea of the
+cities of the plain concerning those who live alone among the mountains;
+of the frivolous concerning the grave; of the gregarious concerning the
+recluse; of those who laugh concerning those who laugh not; of the common
+concerning the uncommon; of those who lend on usury concerning those who
+lend not; the notion of the world of those whom it will not reckon among
+the righteous—it said,[22] ‘This won’t do!’ And so in all time will the
+lovers of polished Liberalism speak, concerning the intense and lonely
+prophet.
+
+Yet, if Lord Jeffrey had the natural infirmities of a Whig critic, he
+certainly had also its extrinsic and political advantages. Especially
+at Edinburgh the Whigs wanted a literary man. The Liberal party in
+Scotland had long groaned under political exclusion; they had suffered,
+with acute mortification, the heavy sway of Henry Dundas, but they had
+been compensated by a literary supremacy; in the book-world they enjoyed
+a domination. On a sudden this was rudely threatened. The fame of Sir
+Walter Scott was echoed from the southern world, and appealed to every
+national sentiment—to the inmost heart of every Scotchman. And what a
+ruler! a lame Tory, a jocose Jacobite, a laugher at Liberalism, a scoffer
+at metaphysics, an unbeliever in political economy! What a gothic ruler
+for the modern Athens;—was this man to reign over them? It would not have
+been like human nature, if a strong and intellectual party had not soon
+found a clever and noticeable rival. Poets, indeed, are not made ‘to
+order;’ but Byron, speaking the sentiment of his time and circle, counted
+reviewers their equals. If a Tory produced ‘Marmion,’ a Whig wrote the
+best article upon it; Scott might, so ran Liberal speech, be the best
+living writer of fiction; Jeffrey, clearly, was the most shrewd and
+accomplished of literary critics.
+
+And though this was an absurd delusion, Lord Jeffrey was no every-day
+man. He invented the trade of editorship. Before him an editor was a
+bookseller’s drudge; he is now a distinguished functionary. If Jeffrey
+was not a great critic, he had, what very great critics have wanted, the
+art of writing what most people would think good criticism. He might not
+know his subject, but he knew his readers. People like to read ideas
+which they can imagine to have been their own. ‘Why does Scarlett always
+persuade the jury?’ asked a rustic gentleman. ‘Because there are twelve
+Scarletts in the jury-box,’ replied an envious advocate. What Scarlett
+was in law, Jeffrey was in criticism; he could become that which his
+readers could not avoid being. He was neither a pathetic writer nor
+a profound writer; but he was a quick-eyed, bustling, black-haired,
+sagacious, agreeable man of the world. He had his day, and was entitled
+to his day; but a gentle oblivion must now cover his already subsiding
+reputation.
+
+Sydney Smith was an after-dinner writer. His words have a flow, a vigour,
+an expression, which is not given to hungry mortals. You seem to read
+of good wine, of good cheer, of beaming and buoyant enjoyment. There is
+little trace of labour in his composition; it is poured forth like an
+unceasing torrent, rejoicing daily to run its course. And what courage
+there is in it! There is as much variety of pluck in writing across a
+sheet, as in riding across a country. Cautious men have many adverbs,
+‘usually,’ ‘nearly,’ ‘almost:’ safe men begin, ‘it may be advanced:’ you
+never know precisely what their premises are, nor what their conclusion
+is; they go tremulously like a timid rider; they turn hither and thither;
+they do not go straight across a subject, like a masterly mind. A few
+sentences are enough for a master of sentences. A practical topic wants
+rough vigour and strong exposition. This is the writing of ‘Sydney
+Smith.’ It is suited to the broader kind of important questions. For
+anything requiring fine nicety of speculation, long elaborateness of
+deduction, evanescent sharpness of distinction, neither his style nor
+his mind was fit. He had no patience for long argument, no acuteness
+for delicate precision, no fangs for recondite research. Writers, like
+teeth, are divided into incisors and grinders. Sydney Smith was a
+‘molar.’ He did not run a long sharp argument into the interior of a
+question; he did not, in the common phrase, go deeply into it; but he
+kept it steadily under the contact of a strong, capable, heavy, jaw-like
+understanding,—pressing its surface, effacing its intricacies, grinding
+it down. Yet as we said, this is done without toil. The play of the
+‘molar’ is instinctive and placid; he could not help it; it would seem
+that he had an enjoyment in it.
+
+The story is, that he liked a bright light; that when he was a poor
+parson in the country, he used, not being able to afford more delicate
+luminaries, to adorn his drawing-room with a hundred little lamps of
+tin metal and mutton fat. When you know this, you see it in all his
+writings. There is the same preference of perspicuity throughout them.
+Elegance, fine savour, sweet illustration, are quite secondary. His only
+question to an argument was, ‘Will it tell?’ as to an example, ‘Will it
+exemplify?’ Like what is called ‘push’ in a practical man, his style goes
+straight to its object; it is not restrained by the gentle hindrances,
+the delicate decorums of refining natures. There is nothing more
+characteristic of the Scandinavian mythology, than that it had a god with
+a hammer. You have no better illustration of our English humour, than the
+great success of this huge and healthy organisation.
+
+There is something about this not exactly to the Whig taste. They do
+not like such broad fun, and rather dislike unlimited statement. Lord
+Melbourne, it is plain, declined to make him a bishop. In this there
+might be a vestige of Canningite prejudice, but on the whole, there was
+the distinction between the two men which there is between the loud wit
+and the _recherché_ thinker—between the bold controversialist and the
+discriminative statesman. A refined _noblesse_ can hardly respect a
+humorist; he amuses them, and they like him, but they are puzzled to
+know whether he does not laugh at them as well as with them; and the
+notion of being laughed at, ever, or on any score, is alien to their shy
+decorum and suppressed pride. But in a broader point of view, and taking
+a wider range of general character, there was a good deal in common.
+More than any one else, Sydney Smith was Liberalism in life. Somebody
+has defined Liberalism as the spirit of the world. It represents its
+genial enjoyment, its wise sense, its steady judgment, its preference
+of the near to the far, of the seen to the unseen; it represents, too,
+its shrinking from difficult dogma, from stern statement, from imperious
+superstition. What health is to the animal, Liberalism is to the polity.
+It is a principle of fermenting enjoyment, running over all the nerves,
+inspiring the frame, happy in its mind, easy in its place, glad to
+behold the sun. All this Sydney Smith, as it were, personified. The
+biography just published of him will be very serviceable to his fame.
+He has been regarded too much as a fashionable jester, and metropolitan
+wit of society. We have now for the first time a description of him as
+he was,—equally at home in the crude world of Yorkshire, and amid the
+quintessential refinements of Mayfair. It is impossible to believe that
+he did not give the epithet to his parish: it is now called Foston _le
+Clay_. It was a ‘mute inglorious’ Sydney of the district, that invented
+the name, if it is really older than the century. The place has an obtuse
+soil, inhabited by stiff-clayed Yorkshiremen. There was nobody in the
+parish to speak to, only peasants, farmers, and such like (what the
+clergy call ‘parishioners’) and an old clerk who thought every one who
+came from London a fool, ‘but you I do zee, Mr. Smith, be no fool.’ This
+was the sort of life.
+
+    ‘I turned schoolmaster, to educate my son, as I could
+    not afford to send him to school. Mrs. Sydney turned
+    schoolmistress, to educate my girls, as I could not afford
+    a governess. I turned farmer, as I could not let my land.
+    A man-servant was too expensive; so I caught up a little
+    garden-girl, made like a milestone, christened her Bunch, put
+    a napkin in her hand, and made her my butler. The girls taught
+    her to read, Mrs. Sydney to wait, and I undertook her morals.
+    Bunch became the best butler in the county.
+
+    ‘I had little furniture, so I bought a cart-load of deals;
+    took a carpenter (who came to me for parish relief, called
+    Jack Robinson) with a face like a full-moon, into my service;
+    established him in a barn, and said, “Jack, furnish my house.”
+    You see the result!
+
+    ‘At last it was suggested that a carriage was much wanted in
+    the establishment. After diligent search, I discovered in
+    the back settlements of a York coach-maker an ancient green
+    chariot, supposed to have been the earliest invention of the
+    kind. I brought it home in triumph to my admiring family.
+    Being somewhat dilapidated, the village tailor lined it, the
+    village blacksmith repaired it; nay, (but for Mrs. Sydney’s
+    earnest entreaties,) we believe the village painter would
+    have exercised his genius upon the exterior; it escaped this
+    danger however, and the result was wonderful. Each year added
+    to its charms: it grew younger and younger; a new wheel, a new
+    spring; I christened it the _Immortal_; it was known all over
+    the neighbourhood; the village boys cheered it, and the village
+    dogs barked at it; but “Faber meæ fortunæ” was my motto, and we
+    had no false shame.
+
+    ‘Added to all these domestic cares, I was village parson,
+    village doctor, village comforter, village magistrate, and
+    Edinburgh Reviewer; so you see I had not much time left on my
+    hands to regret London.’
+
+It is impossible that this should not at once remind us of the life of
+Sir Walter Scott. There is the same strong sense, the same glowing,
+natural pleasure, the same power of dealing with men, the same power of
+diffusing common happiness. Both enjoyed as much in a day, as an ordinary
+man in a month. The term ‘animal spirits’ peculiarly expresses this
+bold enjoyment; it seems to come from a principle intermediate between
+the mind and the body; to be hardly intellectual enough for the soul,
+and yet too permeating and aspiring for crude matter. Of course, there
+is an immense imaginative world in Scott’s existence to which Sydney
+Smith had no claim. But they met upon the present world; they enjoyed
+the spirit of life; ‘they loved the world, and the world them;’ they
+did not pain themselves with immaterial speculation—roast beef was an
+admitted fact. A certain, even excessive practical caution which is
+ascribed to the Englishman, Scott would have been the better for. Yet his
+biography would have been the worse. There is nothing in the life before
+us comparable in interest to the tragic, gradual cracking of the great
+mind; the overtasking of the great capital, and the ensuing failure; the
+spectacle of heaving genius breaking in the contact with misfortune.
+The anticipation of this pain increases the pleasure of the reader; the
+commencing threads of coming calamity shade the woof of pleasure; the
+proximity of suffering softens the ὕβρις, the terrible, fatiguing energy
+of enjoyment.
+
+A great deal of excellent research has been spent on the difference
+between ‘humour’ and ‘wit,’ into which metaphysical problem ‘our limits,’
+of course, forbid us to enter. There is, however, between them, the
+distinction of dry sticks and green sticks; there is in humour a living
+energy, a diffused potency, a noble sap; it grows upon the character of
+the humorist. Wit is part of the machinery of the intellect; as Madame
+de Staël says, ‘_La gaieté de l’esprit est facile à tous les hommes
+d’esprit_.’ We wonder Mr. Babbage does not invent a punning-engine;
+it is just as possible as a calculating one. Sydney Smith’s mirth was
+essentially humorous; it clings to the character of the man; as with the
+sayings of Dr. Johnson, there is a species of personality attaching to
+it; the word is more graphic because Sydney Smith—that man being the man
+that he was,—said it, than it would have been if said by any one else.
+In a desponding moment, he would have it he was none the better for the
+jests which he made, any more than a bottle for the wine which passed
+through it: this is a true description of many a wit, but he was very
+unjust in attributing it to himself.
+
+Sydney Smith is often compared to Swift; but this only shows with how
+little thought our common criticism is written. The two men have really
+nothing in common, except that they were both high in the Church, and
+both wrote amusing letters about Ireland. Of course, to the great
+constructive and elaborative power displayed in Swift’s longer works,
+Sydney Smith has no pretension; he could not have written ‘Gulliver’s
+Travels;’ but so far as the two series of Irish letters goes, it
+seems plain that he has the advantage. Plymley’s letters are true;
+the treatment may be incomplete—the Catholic religion may have latent
+dangers and insidious attractions which are not there mentioned—but
+the main principle is sound; the common sense of religious toleration
+is hardly susceptible of better explanation. Drapier’s letters, on
+the contrary, are essentially absurd; they are a clever appeal to
+ridiculous prejudices. Who cares now for a disputation on the evils to be
+apprehended a hundred years ago from adulterated halfpence, especially
+when we know that the halfpence were not adulterated, and that if they
+had been, those evils would never have arisen? Any one, too, who wishes
+to make a collection of currency crotchets, will find those letters worth
+his attention. No doubt there is a clever affectation of common-sense
+as in all of Swift’s political writings, and the style has an air of
+business; yet, on the other hand, there are no passages which any one
+would now care to quote for their manner and their matter; and there are
+many in ‘Plymley’ that will be constantly cited, so long as existing
+controversies are at all remembered. The whole genius of the two writers
+is emphatically opposed. Sydney Smith’s is the ideal of popular, buoyant,
+riotous fun; it cries and laughs with boisterous mirth; it rolls hither
+and thither like a mob, with elastic and common-place joy. Swift was a
+detective in a dean’s wig; he watched the mob; his whole wit is a kind
+of dexterous indication of popular frailties; he hated the crowd; he was
+a spy on beaming smiles, and a common informer against genial enjoyment.
+His whole essence was a soreness against mortality. Show him innocent
+mirth, he would say, How absurd! He was painfully wretched, no doubt,
+in himself: perhaps, as they say, he had no heart; but his mind, his
+brain had a frightful capacity for secret pain; his sharpness was the
+sharpness of disease; his power the sore acumen of morbid wretchedness.
+It is impossible to fancy a parallel more proper to show the excellence,
+the unspeakable superiority of a buoyant and bounding writer.
+
+At the same time, it is impossible to give to Sydney Smith the highest
+rank, even as a humorist. Almost all his humour has reference to the
+incongruity of special means to special ends. The notion of Plymley
+is want of conformity between the notions of ‘my brother Abraham,’
+and the means of which he makes use; of the quiet clergyman, who was
+always told he was a bit of a goose, advocating conversion by muskets,
+and stopping Bonaparte by Peruvian bark. The notion of the letters to
+Archdeacon Singleton is, a bench of bishops placidly and pleasantly
+destroying the Church. It is the same with most of his writings. Even
+when there is nothing absolutely practical in the idea, the subject is
+from the scenery of practice, from concrete entities, near institutions,
+superficial facts. You might quote a hundred instances. Here is one: ‘A
+gentleman, in speaking of a nobleman’s wife of great rank and fortune,
+lamented very much that she had no children. A medical gentleman who was
+present observed, that to have no children was a great misfortune, but
+he had often observed it was _hereditary_ in families.’ This is what we
+mean by saying his mirth lies in the superficial relations of phenomena
+(some will say we are pompous, like the medical man); in the relation
+of one external fact to another external fact; of one detail of common
+life to another detail of common life. But this is not the highest topic
+of humour. Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd. There seems an
+unalterable contradiction between the human mind and its employments.
+How can a _soul_ be a merchant? What relation to an immortal being have
+the price of linseed, the fall of butter, the tare on tallow, or the
+brokerage on hemp? Can an undying creature debit ‘petty expenses,’ and
+charge for ‘carriage paid’? All the world’s a stage;—‘the satchel, and
+the shining morning face’—the ‘strange oaths;’—‘the bubble reputation’—the
+
+    ‘Eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
+    Full of wise saws and modern instances.’
+
+Can these things be real? Surely they are acting. What relation have they
+to the truth as we see it in theory? What connection with our certain
+hopes, our deep desires, our craving and infinite thought? ‘In respect of
+itself, it is a good life; but in respect it is a shepherd’s life, it is
+nought.’ The soul ties its shoe; the mind washes its hands in a basin.
+All is incongruous.
+
+    _Shallow._ Certain, ’tis certain; very sure, very sure; death,
+    as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a
+    good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?
+
+    _Silence._ Truly, cousin, I was not there.
+
+    _Shallow._ Death is certain.—Is old Double, of your town,
+    living yet?
+
+    _Silence._ Dead, sir.
+
+    _Shallow._ Dead. See! See! He drew a good bow,—and dead. He
+    shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted
+    much money on his head.—Dead! He would have clapped i’ the
+    clout at fourscore, and carried you a forehandshaft, a fourteen
+    and fourteen and-a-half, that it would have done a man’s heart
+    good to see.—How a score of ewes now?
+
+    _Silence._ Thereafter as they be; a score of ewes may be worth
+    ten pounds.
+
+    _Shallow._ And is Double dead!—
+
+It is because Sydney Smith had so little of this Shakespearian humour,
+that there is a glare in his pages, and that in the midst of his best
+writing, we sigh for the soothing superiority of quieter writers.
+
+Sydney Smith was not only the wit of the first Edinburgh, but likewise
+the divine. He was, to use his own expression, the only clergyman who
+in those days ‘turned out’ to fight the battles of the Whigs. In some
+sort this was not so important. A curious abstinence from religious
+topics characterises the original Review. There is a wonderful omission
+of this most natural topic of speculation in the lives of Horner and
+Jeffrey. In truth, it would seem that, living in the incessant din of
+a Calvinistic country, the best course for thoughtful and serious men
+was to be silent—at least they instinctively thought so. They felt no
+involuntary call to be theological teachers themselves, and gently
+recoiled from the coarse admonition around them. Even in the present
+milder time, few cultivated persons willingly think on the special dogmas
+of distinct theology. They do not deny them, but they live apart from
+them: they do not disbelieve them, but they are silent when they are
+stated. They do not question the existence of Kamschatka, but they have
+no call to busy themselves with Kamschatka; they abstain from peculiar
+tenets. Nor in truth is this, though much aggravated by existing facts,
+a mere accident of this age. There are some people to whom such a course
+of conduct is always natural: there are certain persons who do not, as
+it would seem cannot, feel all that others feel; who have, so to say, no
+_ear_ for much of religion: who are in some sort out of its reach. ‘It is
+impossible,’ says a late divine of the Church of England, ‘not to observe
+that innumerable persons (may we not say the majority of mankind?) who
+have a belief in God and immortality, have, nevertheless, scarcely any
+consciousness of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. They seem to live
+aloof from them in the world of business or of pleasure, “the common
+life of all men,” not without a sense of right, and a rule of truth and
+honesty, yet insensible’ to much which we need not name. ‘They have never
+in their whole lives experienced the love of God, the sense of sin, or
+the need of forgiveness. Often they are remarkable for the purity of
+their morals; many of them have strong and disinterested attachments
+and quick human sympathies; sometimes a stoical feeling of uprightness,
+or a peculiar sensitiveness to dishonour. It would be a mistake to say
+that they are without religion. They join in its public acts; they are
+offended at profaneness or impiety; they are thankful for the blessings
+of life, and do not rebel against its misfortunes. Such men meet us at
+every step. They are those whom we know and associate with; honest in
+their dealings, respectable in their lives, decent in their conversation.
+The Scripture speaks to us of two classes, represented by the church and
+the world, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the friends
+and enemies of God. We cannot say in which of these two divisions we
+should find a place for them.’ They believe always a kind of ‘natural
+religion.’ Now these are what we may call, in the language of the
+present, Liberals. Those who can remember, or who will re-read our
+delineation of the Whig character, may observe its conformity. There is
+the same purity and delicacy, the same tranquil sense; an equal want of
+imagination, of impulsive enthusiasm, of shrinking fear. You need not
+speak like the above writer of ‘peculiar doctrines;’ the phenomenon is no
+speciality of a particular creed. Glance over the whole of history. As
+the classical world stood beside the Jewish; as Horace beside St. Paul;
+like the heavy ark and the buoyant waves, so are men in contrast with one
+another. You cannot imagine a classical Isaiah; you cannot fancy a Whig
+St. Dominic; there is no such thing as a Liberal Augustine. The deep sea
+of mysticism lies opposed to some natures; in some moods it is a sublime
+wonder; in others an ‘impious ocean,’—they will never put forth on it at
+any time.
+
+All this is intelligible, and in a manner beautiful as a character;
+but it is not equally excellent as a creed. A certain class of Liberal
+divines have endeavoured to petrify into a theory, a pure and placid
+disposition. In some respects Sydney Smith is one of these; his sermons
+are the least excellent of his writings; of course they are sensible
+and well-intentioned, but they have the defect of his school. With
+misdirected energy, these divines have laboured after a plain religion;
+they have forgotten that a quiet and definite mind is confined to a
+placid and definite world; that religion has its essence in awe, its
+charm in infinity, its sanction in dread; that its dominion is an
+inexplicable dominion; that mystery is its power. There is a reluctance
+in all such writers; they creep away from the unintelligible parts of the
+subject: they always seem to have something behind;—not to like to bring
+out what they know to be at hand. They are in their nature apologists;
+and, as George the Third said, ‘I did not know the Bible needed an
+apology.’ As well might the thunder be ashamed to roll, as religion
+hesitate to be too awful for mankind. The invective of Lucretius is truer
+than the placid patronage of the divine. Let us admire Liberals in life,
+but let us keep no terms with Paleyans in speculation.
+
+And so we must draw to a conclusion. We have in some sort given a
+description of, with one great exception, the most remarkable men
+connected at its origin with the Edinburgh Review. And that exception
+is a man of too fitful, defective, and strange greatness to be spoken
+of now. Henry Brougham must be left to after-times. Indeed, he would
+have marred the unity of our article. He was connected with the Whigs,
+but he never was one. His impulsive ardour is the opposite of their
+coolness; his irregular, discursive intellect contrasts with their quiet
+and perfecting mind. Of those of whom we have spoken, let us say, that
+if none of them attained to the highest rank of abstract intellect; if
+the disposition of none of them was ardent or glowing enough to hurry
+them forward to the extreme point of daring greatness; if only one can be
+said to have a lasting place in real literature, it is clear that they
+vanquished a slavish cohort; that they upheld the name of freemen in a
+time of bondmen; that they applied themselves to that which was real,
+and accomplished much which was very difficult; that the very critics
+who question their inimitable excellence will yet admire their just and
+scarcely imitable example.
+
+
+
+
+_HARTLEY COLERIDGE._[23]
+
+(1852.)
+
+
+Hartley Coleridge was not like the Duke of Wellington.[24] Children are
+urged by the example of the great statesman and warrior just departed—not
+indeed to neglect ‘their book’ as he did—but to be industrious and
+thrifty; to ‘always perform business,’ to ‘beware of procrastination,’
+to ‘NEVER fail to do their best:’ good ideas, as may be ascertained by
+referring to the masterly despatches on the Mahratta transactions—‘great
+events,’ as the preacher continues, ‘which exemplify the efficacy of
+diligence even in regions where the very advent of our religion is as yet
+but partially made known.’ But
+
+    ‘What a wilderness were this sad world,
+    If man were always man and never child!’
+
+And it were almost a worse wilderness if there were not some, to relieve
+the dull monotony of activity, who are children through life; who act on
+wayward impulse, and whose will has never come; who toil not and who spin
+not; who always have ‘fair Eden’s simpleness:’ and of such was Hartley
+Coleridge. ‘Don’t you remember,’ writes Gray to Horace Walpole, when
+Lord B. and Sir H. C. and Viscount D., who are now great statesmen, were
+little dirty boys playing at cricket? For my part I do not feel one bit
+older or wiser now than I did then.’ For as some apply their minds to
+what is next them, and labour ever, and attain to governing the Tower,
+and entering the Trinity House,—to commanding armies, and applauding
+pilots,—so there are also some who are ever anxious to-day about what
+ought only to be considered to-morrow; who never get on; whom the earth
+neglects, and whom tradesmen little esteem; who are where they were; who
+cause grief, and are loved; that are at once a by-word and a blessing;
+who do not live in life, and it seems will not die in death: and of such
+was Hartley Coleridge.
+
+A curious instance of poetic anticipation was in this instance vouchsafed
+to Wordsworth. When Hartley was six years old, he addressed to him these
+verses, perhaps the best ever written on a real and visible child:—
+
+    ‘O thou, whose fancies from afar are brought,
+    Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel
+    And fittest to unutterable thought
+    The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
+    Thou fairy voyager, that dost float
+    In such clear water that thy boat
+    May rather seem
+    To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
+    O blessed vision, happy child,
+    Thou art so exquisitely wild,
+    I think of thee with many fears
+    For what may be thy lot in future years.
+    ...
+    O too industrious folly!
+    O vain and causeless melancholy!
+    Nature will either end thee quite,
+    Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
+    Preserve for thee by individual right
+    A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.’
+
+And so it was. As often happens, being very little of a boy in actual
+childhood, Hartley preserved into manhood and age all of boyhood which
+he had ever possessed—its beaming imagination and its wayward will. He
+had none of the natural roughness of that age. He never played—partly
+from weakness, for he was very small, but more from awkwardness. His
+uncle Southey used to say he had two left hands, and might have added
+that they were both useless. He could no more have achieved football, or
+mastered cricket, or kept in with the hounds, than he could have followed
+Charles’s Wain or played pitch and toss with Jupiter’s satellites. Nor
+was he very excellent at school-work. He showed, indeed, no deficiency.
+The Coleridge family have inherited from the old scholar of Ottery St.
+Mary a certain classical facility which could not desert the son of
+Samuel Taylor. But his real strength was in his own mind. All children
+have a world of their own, as distinct from that of the grown people who
+gravitate around them as the dreams of girlhood from our prosaic life; as
+the ideas of the kitten that plays with the falling leaves, from those of
+her carnivorous mother that catches mice and is sedulous in her domestic
+duties. But generally about this interior existence, children are dumb.
+You have warlike ideas, but you cannot say to a sinewy relative, ‘My
+dear aunt, I wonder when the big bush in the garden will begin to walk
+about; I’m sure it’s a crusader, and I was cutting it all the day with
+my steel sword. But what do you think, aunt, for I’m puzzled about its
+legs, because you see, aunt, it has only _one_ stalk; and besides, aunt,
+the leaves.’ You cannot remark this in secular life; but you hack at the
+infelicitous bush till you do not altogether reject the idea that your
+small garden is Palestine, and yourself the most adventurous of knights.
+Hartley had this, of course, like any other dreamy child, but in his
+case it was accompanied with the faculty of speech, and an extraordinary
+facility in continuous story-telling. In the very earliest childhood he
+had conceived a complete outline of a country like England, whereof he
+was king himself, and in which there were many wars, and rumours of wars,
+and foreign relations and statesmen, and rebels and soldiers. ‘My people,
+Derwent,’ he used to begin, ‘are giving me much pain; they want to go
+to war.’ This faculty, as was natural, showed itself before he went to
+school, but he carried on the habit of fanciful narration even into that
+bleak and ungenial region. ‘It was not,’ says his brother, ‘by a series
+of tales, but by one continuous tale, regularly evolved, and possessing a
+real unity, that he enchained the attention of his auditors, night after
+night, as we lay in bed, for a space of years, and not unfrequently for
+hours together.’... ‘There was certainly,’ he adds, ‘a great variety of
+persons sharply characterised, who appeared on the stage in combination
+and not in succession.’ Connected, in Hartley, with this premature
+development of the imagination, there was a singular deficiency in what
+may be called the _sense_ of reality. It is alleged that he hardly
+knew that Ejuxrea, which is the name of his kingdom, was not as solid
+a _terra firma_ as Keswick or Ambleside. The deficiency showed itself
+on other topics. His father used to tell a story of his metaphysical
+questioning. When he was about five years old, he was asked, doubtless
+by the paternal metaphysician, some question as to why he was called
+Hartley. ‘Which Hartley?’ replied the boy. ‘Why, is there more than one
+Hartley?’ ‘Yes, there is a deal of Hartleys; there is Picture Hartley
+(Hazlitt had painted a picture of him), and Shadow Hartley, and there’s
+Echo Hartley, and there’s Catchmefast Hartley,’ seizing his own arm very
+eagerly, and as if reflecting on the ‘summject and ommject,’ which is to
+say, being in hopeless confusion. We do not hear whether he was puzzled
+and perplexed by such difficulties in later life; and the essays which
+we are reviewing, though they contain much keen remark on the detail of
+human character, are destitute of the Germanic profundities; they do not
+discuss how existence is possible, nor enumerate the pure particulars of
+the soul itself. But considering the idle dreaminess of his youth and
+manhood, we doubt if Hartley ever got over his preliminary doubts—ever
+properly grasped the idea of fact and reality. This is not nonsense. If
+you attend acutely, you may observe that in few things do people differ
+more than in their perfect and imperfect realisation of this earth.
+To the Duke of Wellington a coat was a coat; ‘there was no mistake;’
+no reason to disbelieve it; and he carried to his grave a perfect and
+indubitable persuasion that he really did (what was his best exploit),
+without fluctuation, _shave_ on the morning of the battle of Waterloo.
+You could not have made him doubt it. But to many people who will never
+be Field Marshals, there is on such points, not rational doubt, but
+instinctive questioning. ‘Who the devil,’ said Lord Byron, ‘could _make_
+such a world? No one, I believe.’ ‘Cast your thoughts,’ says a very
+different writer, ‘back on the time when our ancient buildings were
+first reared. Consider the churches all around us; how many generations
+have passed since stone was put upon stone, till the whole edifice was
+finished! The first movers and instruments of its erection, the minds
+that planned it, and the limbs that wrought at it, the pious hands
+that contributed to it, and the holy lips that consecrated it, have
+long, long ago been taken away, yet we benefit by their good deed. Does
+it not seem strange that men should be able, not merely by acting on
+others, not by a continued influence carried on through many minds in
+succession, but by a single direct act, to come into contact with us,
+and, as if with their own hand, to benefit us who live centuries later?’
+Or again, speaking of the lower animals: ‘Can anything be more marvellous
+or startling, than that we should have a race of beings about us, whom
+we do but see, and as little know their state, or can describe their
+interests or their destiny, as we can tell of the inhabitants of the
+sun and moon? It is indeed a very overpowering thought, that we hold
+intercourse with creatures who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious
+as if they were the fabulous, unearthly beings, more powerful than man,
+and yet his slaves, which Eastern superstitions have invented.... Cast
+your thoughts abroad on the whole number of them, large and small, in
+vast forests, or in the water, or in the air, and then say whether the
+presence of such countless multitudes, so various in their natures, so
+strange and wild in their shapes, is not’ as incredible as anything can
+be. We go into a street, and see it thronged with men, and we say, Is
+it _true_, _are_ there these men? We look on a creeping river, till we
+say, _Is_ there this river? We enter the law courts: we watch the patient
+Chancellor: we hear the droning wigs:—surely this is not real,—this is
+a dream,—nobody would do _that_,—it is a delusion. We are really, as
+the sceptics insinuate, but ‘sensations and impressions,’ in groups or
+alone, that float up and down; or, as the poet teaches, phantoms and
+images, whose idle stir but mocks the calm reality of the ‘pictures on
+the wall.’ All this will be called dreamy; but it is exactly because it
+_is_ dreamy that we notice it. Hartley Coleridge was a dreamer: he began
+with Ejuxrea, and throughout his years, he but slumbered and slept. Life
+was to him a floating haze, a disputable mirage: you must not treat him
+like a believer in stocks and stones—you might as well say he was a man
+of business.
+
+Hartley’s school education is not worth recounting; but beside and along
+with it there was another education, on every side of him, singularly
+calculated to bring out the peculiar aptitudes of an imaginative mind,
+yet exactly, on that very account, very little likely to bring it down
+to fact and reality, to mix it with miry clay, or define its dreams by
+a daily reference to the common and necessary earth. He was bred up in
+the house of Mr. Southey, where, more than anywhere else in all England,
+it was held that literature and poetry are the aim and object of every
+true man, and that grocery and other affairs lie beneath at an wholly
+immeasurable distance, to be attended to by the inferior animals. In
+Hartley’s case the seed fell on fitting soil. In youth, and even in
+childhood, he was a not unintelligent listener to the unspeakable talk of
+the Lake poets.
+
+‘It was so,’ writes his brother, ‘rather than by a regular course of
+study, that he was educated; by desultory reading, by the living voice
+of Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth, Lloyd, Wilson, and De Quincey;
+and again, by homely familiarity with townsfolk and countryfolk of every
+degree; lastly, by daily recurring hours of solitude—by lonely wanderings
+with the murmur of the Brathay in his ear.’
+
+Thus he lived till the time came that he should go to Oxford, and
+naturally enough, it seems, he went up with much hope and strong
+excitement; for, quiet and calm as seem those ancient dormitories, to
+him, as to many, the going among them seemed the first entrance into
+the real world—the end of torpidity—the beginning of life. He had often
+stood by the white Rydal Water, and thought it was coming, and now it
+was come in fact. At first his Oxford life was prosperous enough. An
+old gentleman, who believes that he too was once an undergraduate,
+well remembers how Hartley’s eloquence was admired at wine parties and
+breakfast parties. ‘Leaning his head on one shoulder, turning up his
+dark bright eyes, and swinging backwards and forwards in his chair, he
+would hold forth by the hour, for no one wished to interrupt him, on
+whatever subject might have been started—either of literature, politics,
+or religion—with an originality of thought, a force of illustration,
+which,’ the narrator doubts, ‘if any man then living, except his father,
+could have surpassed.’ The singular gift of continuous conversation—for
+singular it is, if in any degree agreeable—seems to have come to him by
+nature, and it was through life the one quality which he relied on for
+attraction in society. Its being agreeable is to be accounted for mainly
+by its singularity; if one knew any respectable number of declaimers—if
+any proportion of one’s acquaintance should receive the gift of the
+English language, and ‘improve each shining hour’ with liquid eloquence,
+how we should regret their present dumb and torpid condition! If we
+are to be dull—which our readers will admit to be an appointment of
+providence—surely we will be dull in silence. Do not sermons exist, and
+are they not a warning to mankind?
+
+In fact, the habit of common and continuous speech is a symptom of
+mental deficiency. It proceeds from not knowing what is going on in
+other people’s minds. S. T. Coleridge, it is well known, talked to
+everybody, and to everybody alike; like a Christian divine, he did not
+regard persons. ‘That is a fine opera, Mr. Coleridge,’ said a young
+lady, some fifty years back. ‘Yes, ma’am; and I remember Kant somewhere
+makes a very similar remark for, as _we_ know, the idea of philosophical
+infinity—.’ Now, this sort of talk will answer with two sorts of
+people—with comfortable, stolid, solid people, who don’t understand it at
+all—who don’t feel that they ought to understand it—who feel that they
+ought not—that _they_ are to sell treacle and appreciate figs—but that
+there _is_ this transcendental superlunary sphere, which is known to
+others—which is now revealed in the spiritual speaker, the unmitigated
+oracle, the evidently celestial sound. That the dreamy orator himself
+has no more notion what is passing in their minds than they have what
+is running through his, is of no consequence at all. If he did know
+it, he would be silent; he would be jarred to feel how utterly he was
+misunderstood; it would break the flow of his everlasting words. Much
+better that he should run on in a never-pausing stream, and that the
+wondering rustics should admire for ever. The basis of the entertainment
+is that neither should comprehend the other.—But in a degree yet higher
+is the society of an omniscient orator agreeable to a second sort of
+people,—generally young men, and particularly—as in Hartley’s case—clever
+undergraduates. All young men like what is theatrical, and by a fine
+dispensation all clever young men like notions. They want to hear about
+opinions, to know about opinions. The ever-flowing rhetorician gratifies
+both propensions. He is a notional _spectacle_. Like the sophist of old,
+he _is_ something and says something. The vagabond speculator in all
+ages will take hold on those who wish to reason, and want premises—who
+wish to argue, and want theses—who desire demonstrations, and have but
+presumptions. And so it was acceptable enough that Hartley should make
+the low tones of his musical voice glide sweetly and spontaneously
+through the cloisters of Merton, debating the old questions, the ‘fate,
+free-will, foreknowledge,’—the points that Ockham and Scotus propounded
+in these same enclosures—the common riddles, the everlasting enigmas of
+mankind. It attracts the scorn of middle-aged men (who depart πρὸς τὰ
+ἱερά, and fancy they are wise), but it is a pleasant thing, that impact
+of hot thought upon hot thought, of young thought upon young thought, of
+new thought upon new thought. It comes to the fortunate once, but to no
+one a second time thereafter for ever.
+
+Nor was Hartley undistinguished in the regular studies of the University.
+A regular, exact, accurate scholar he never was; but even in his early
+youth he perhaps knew much more and understood much more of ancient
+literature than seven score of schoolmasters and classmen. He had,
+probably, in his mind a picture of the ancient world, or of some of it,
+while the dry _literati_ only know the combinations and permutations of
+the Greek alphabet. There is a pleasant picture of him at this epoch,
+recorded by an eye-witness. ‘My attention,’ he narrates, ‘was at first
+aroused by seeing from a window a figure flitting about amongst the
+trees and shrubs of the garden with quick and agitated motion. This was
+Hartley, who, in the ardour of preparing for his college examination, did
+not even take his meals with the family, but snatched a hasty morsel in
+his own apartment, and only sought the free air when the fading daylight
+prevented him from seeing his books. Having found who he was that so
+mysteriously flitted about the garden, I was determined to lose no time
+in making his acquaintance, and through the instrumentality of Mrs.
+Coleridge I paid Hartley a visit in what he called his den. This was a
+room afterwards converted by Mr. Southey’—as what chink was not?—‘into
+a supplementary library, but then appropriated as a study to Hartley,
+and presenting a most picturesque and student-like disorder of scattered
+pamphlets and folios.’ This is not a picture of the business-like
+reading man—one wonders what fraction of his time he did read—but
+it was probably the happiest period of his life. There was no coarse
+prosaic action there. Much musing, little studying,—fair scholarship, an
+atmosphere of the classics, curious fancies, much perusing of pamphlets,
+light thoughts on heavy folios—these make the meditative poet, but not
+the technical and patient-headed scholar; yet, after all, he was happy,
+and obtained a second class.
+
+A more suitable exercise, as it would have seemed at first sight, was
+supplied by that curious portion of Oxford routine, the Annual Prize
+Poem. This, he himself tells us, was, in his academic years, the real and
+single object of his ambition. His reason is, for an autobiographical
+reason, decidedly simple. ‘A great poet,’ he says, ‘I should not have
+imagined myself, for I knew well enough that the verses were no great
+things.’ But he entertained at that period of life—he was twenty-one—a
+favourable opinion of young ladies; and he seems to have ascertained,
+possibly from actual trial, that verses were not in themselves a very
+emphatic attraction. Singular as it may sound, the ladies selected were
+not only insensible to what is, after all, a metaphysical line, the
+distinction between good poetry and bad, but were almost indifferent to
+poetry itself. Yet the experiment was not quite conclusive. Verses might
+fail in common life, and yet succeed in the Sheldonian theatre. It is
+plain that they would be _read out_; it occurred to him, as he naïvely
+relates, that if he should appear ‘as a prizeman,’ ‘as an intelligible
+reciter of poetry,’ he would be an object of ‘some curiosity to the fair
+promenaders in Christchurch Meadow;’ that the young ladies ‘with whom he
+was on bowing and speaking terms might have felt a satisfaction in being
+known to know me, which they had never experienced before.’ ‘I should,’
+he adds, ‘have deemed myself a prodigious lion, and it was a character I
+was weak enough to covet more than that of poet, scholar, or philosopher.’
+
+In fact, he did not get the prize. The worthy East Indian, who imagined
+that, in leaving a bequest for a prize to poetry, he should be as sure
+of possessing poetry for his money as of eggs, if he had chosen eggs,
+or of butter, if he had chosen butter, did not estimate rightly the
+nature of poetry, or the nature of the human mind. The mechanical parts
+of rhythm and metre are all that a writer can be certain of producing,
+or that a purchaser can be sure of obtaining; and these an industrious
+person will find in any collection of the Newdegate poems, together with
+a fine assortment of similes and sentiments, respectively invented and
+enjoined by Shem and Japhet for and to the use of after generations. And
+there is a peculiar reason why a great poet (besides his being, as a
+man of genius, rather more likely than another, to find a difficulty in
+the preliminary technicalities of art) should not obtain an academical
+prize, to be given for excellent verses to people of about twenty-one.
+It is a bad season. ‘The imagination,’ said a great poet of the very
+age, ‘of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is
+healthy, but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a
+ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition
+thick-sighted.’[25] And particularly in a real poet, where the disturbing
+influences of passion and fancy are most likely to be in excess, will
+this unhealthy tinge be most likely to be excessive and conspicuous.
+Nothing in the style of Endymion would have a chance of a prize; there
+are no complete conceptions, no continuance of adequate words. What
+is worse, there are no defined thoughts, or aged illustrations. The
+characteristic of the whole is beauty and novelty, but it is beauty which
+is not formed, and novelty which is strange and wavering. Some of these
+defects are observable in the copy of verses on the ‘Horses of Lysippus,’
+which Hartley Coleridge contributed to the list of unsuccessful attempts.
+It does not contain so much originality as we might have expected; on
+such a topic we anticipated more nonsense; a little, we are glad to say,
+there is, and also that there is an utter want of those even raps, which
+are the music of prize poems,—which were the right rhythm for Pope’s
+elaborate sense, but are quite unfit for dreamy classics or contemplative
+enthusiasm. If Hartley, like Pope, had been the son of a shopkeeper,
+he would not have received the paternal encouragement, but rather a
+reprimand,—‘Boy, boy, these be bad rhymes;’ and so, too, believed a
+grizzled and cold examiner.
+
+A much worse failure was at hand. He had been elected to a Fellowship,
+in what was at that time the only open foundation in Oxford, Oriel
+College: an event which shows more exact scholarship in Hartley, or
+more toleration in the academical authorities for the grammatical
+delinquencies of a superior man, than we should have been inclined, _a
+priori_, to attribute to either of them. But it soon became clear that
+Hartley was not exactly suited to that place. Decorum is the essence,
+pomposity the advantage, of tutors. These Hartley had not. Beside the
+serious defects which we shall mention immediately, he was essentially
+an absent and musing, and therefore at times a highly indecorous man;
+and though not defective in certain kinds of vanity, there was no tinge
+in his manner of scholastic dignity. A schoolmaster should have an
+atmosphere of awe, and walk wonderingly, as if he was amazed at being
+himself. But an excessive sense of the ludicrous disabled Hartley
+altogether from the acquisition of this valuable habit; perhaps he never
+really attempted to obtain it. He accordingly never became popular as a
+tutor, nor was he ever described as ‘exercising an influence over young
+persons.’ Moreover, however excellently suited Hartley’s eloquence might
+be to the society of undergraduates, it was out of place at the Fellows’
+table. This is said to be a dull place. The excitement of early thought
+has passed away; the excitements of active manhood are unknown. A certain
+torpidity seems natural there. We find too that, probably for something
+to say, he was in those years rather fond of exaggerated denunciation
+of the powers that be. This is not the habit most grateful to the heads
+of houses. ‘Sir,’ said a great authority, ‘do you deny that Lord Derby
+ought to be Prime Minister? you might as well say, that I ought not to
+be Warden of So and So.’ These habits rendered poor Hartley no favourite
+with the leading people of his college, and no great prospective
+shrewdness was required to predict that he would fare but ill, if any
+sufficient occasion should be found for removing from the place, a person
+so excitable and so little likely to be of use in inculcating ‘safe’
+opinions among the surrounding youth.
+
+Unhappily, the visible morals of Hartley offered an easy occasion. It
+is not quite easy to gather from the narrative of his brother the exact
+nature or full extent of his moral delinquencies; but enough is shown
+to warrant, according to the rules, the unfavourable judgment of the
+collegiate authorities. He describes, probably truly, the commencement
+of his errors—‘I verily believe that I should have gone crazy, silly,
+mad with vanity, had I obtained the prize for my “Horses of Lysippus.”
+It was the only occasion in my life wherein I was keenly disappointed,
+for it was the only one upon which I felt any confident hope. I had made
+myself very sure of it; and the intelligence that not I but Macdonald was
+the lucky man, absolutely stupefied me; yet I contrived for a time to
+lose all sense of my misfortunes in exultation for Burton’s success.... I
+sang, I danced, I whistled, I ran from room to room, announcing the great
+tidings, and trying to persuade myself that I cared nothing at all for my
+own case. But it would not do. It was bare sands with me the next day.
+It was not the mere loss of the prize, but the feeling or phantasy of
+an adverse destiny.... I foresaw that all my aims and hopes would prove
+frustrate and abortive; and from that time I date my downward declension,
+my impotence of will, and my melancholy recklessness. It was the first
+time I sought relief in wine, which, as usual in such cases, produced
+not so much intoxication as downright madness.’ Cast in an uncongenial
+society, requiring to live in an atmosphere of respect and affection—and
+surrounded by gravity and distrust—misconstrued and half tempted to
+maintain the misconstruction; with the waywardness of childhood without
+the innocency of its impulses; with the passions of manhood without the
+repressive vigour of a man’s will,—he lived as a woman lives that is lost
+and forsaken, who sins ever and hates herself for sinning, but who sins,
+perhaps, more on that very account; because she requires some relief
+from the keenness of her own reproach; because, in her morbid fancy, the
+idea is ever before her; because her petty will is unable to cope with
+the daily craving and the horrid thought—that she may not lose her own
+identity—that she may not give in to the rigid, the distrustful, and the
+calm.
+
+There is just this excuse for Hartley, whatever it may be worth, that
+the weakness was hereditary. We do not as yet know, it seems most likely
+that we shall never know, the precise character of his father. But with
+all the discrepancy concerning the details, enough for our purpose is
+certain of the outline. We know that he lived many and long years a prey
+to weaknesses and vice of this very description; and though it be false
+and mischievous to speak of hereditary vice, it is most true and wise
+to observe the mysterious fact of hereditary temptation. Doubtless it
+is strange that the nobler emotions and the inferior impulses, their
+peculiar direction or their proportionate strength, the power of a fixed
+idea—that the inner energy of the very will, which seems to issue from
+the inmost core of our complex nature, and to typify, if anything does,
+the pure essence of the immortal soul—that these and such as these should
+be transmitted by material descent, as though they were an accident of
+the body, the turn of an eyebrow or the feebleness of a joint,—if this
+were not obvious, it would be as amazing, perhaps more amazing, than
+any fact which we know; it looks not only like predestinated, but even
+heritable election. But, explicable or inexplicable—to be wondered at
+or not wondered at—the fact is clear; tendencies and temptations are
+transmitted even to the fourth generation both for good and for evil,
+both in those who serve God and in those who serve Him not. Indeed, the
+weakness before us seems essentially connected—perhaps we may say on a
+final examination essentially identical—with the dreaminess of mind, the
+inapprehensiveness of reality which we remarked upon before. Wordsworth
+used to say, that ‘at a particular stage of his mental progress he used
+to be frequently so wrapt into an unreal transcendental world of ideas,
+that the external world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him,
+and he had to convince himself of its existence by _clasping a tree_ or
+something that happened to be near him.’ But suppose a mind which did not
+feel acutely the sense of reality which others feel, in hard contact with
+the tangible universe; which was blind to the distinction between the
+palpable and the impalpable, or rather lived in the latter in preference
+to, and nearly to the exclusion of, the former. What is to fix such a
+mind, what is to strengthen it, to give it a fulcrum? To exert itself,
+the will, like the arm, requires to have an obvious and a definite
+resistance, to know where it is, why it is, whence it comes, and whither
+it goes. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made of,’ says Prospero. So,
+too, the difficulty of Shakespeare’s greatest dreamer, Hamlet, is that
+he cannot quite believe that his duty is to be done where it lies, and
+immediately. Partly from the natural effect of a vision of a spirit which
+is not, but more from native constitution and instinctive bent, he is for
+ever speculating on the reality of existence, the truth of the world.
+‘How,’ discusses Kant, ‘is Nature in general possible?’ and so asked
+Hamlet too. With this feeling on his mind, persuasion is useless and
+argument in vain. Examples gross as earth exhort him, but they produce no
+effect; but he thinks and thinks the more.
+
+                          ‘Now whether it be
+    Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
+    Of thinking too precisely on the event,—
+    A thought which quarter’d hath but one part wisdom
+    And ever three parts coward,—I do not know
+    Why yet I live to say, “This thing’s to do,”
+    Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
+    To do ’t.’
+
+Hartley himself well observes that on such a character the likelihood
+of action is inversely as the force of the motive and the time for
+deliberation. The stronger the reason, the more certain the scepticism?
+_Can_ anything be so certain? Does not the excess of the evidence alleged
+make it clear that there is something behind, something on the other
+side? Search then diligently lest anything be overlooked. Reflection
+‘puzzles the will,’ Necessity ‘benumbs like a torpedo:’ and so
+
+                  ‘The native hue of resolution
+    Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
+    And enterprises of great pith and moment
+    With this regard, their currents turn awry,
+    And lose the name of action.’
+
+Why should we say any more? We do but ‘chant snatches of old tunes.’
+But in estimating men like the Coleridges—the son even more than the
+father—we must take into account this peculiar difficulty—this dreamy
+unbelief—this daily scepticism—this haunting unreality—and imagine that
+some may not be quite responsible either for what they do, or for what
+they do not—because they are bewildered, and deluded, and perplexed, and
+want the faculty as much to comprehend their difficulty as to subdue it.
+
+The Oxford life of Hartley is all his life. The failure of his prospects
+there, in his brother’s words, ‘deprived him of the residue of his
+years.’ The biography afterwards goes to and fro—one attempt after
+another failing, some beginning in much hope, but even the sooner for
+that reason issuing in utter despair. His literary powers came early to
+full perfection. For some time after his expulsion from Oriel he was
+resident in London, and the poems written there are equal, perhaps are
+superior, to any which he afterwards produced. This sonnet may serve as a
+specimen:—
+
+    ‘In the great city we are met again
+    Where many souls there are, that breathe and die
+    Scarce knowing more of nature’s potency
+    Than what they learn from heat or cold or rain,
+    The sad vicissitude of weary pain:—
+    For busy man is lord of ear and eye,
+    And what hath Nature, but the vast, void sky,
+    And the throng’d river toiling to the main?
+    Oh! say not so, for she shall have her part
+    In every smile, in every tear that falls,
+    And she shall hide her in the secret heart
+    Where love persuades and sterner duty calls;
+    But worse it were than death or sorrow’s smart,
+    To live without a friend within these walls.’
+
+He soon, however, went down to the lakes, and there, except during one or
+two short intervals, he lived and died. This exception was a residence
+at Leeds, during which he brought out, besides a volume containing his
+best poems, the book which stands at the head of our article—the Lives of
+Northern Worthies. We selected the book, we confess, with the view mainly
+of bringing a remarkable character before the notice of our readers—but
+in itself the work is an excellent one, and of a rare kind.
+
+Books are for various purposes—tracts to teach, almanacs to sell, poetry
+to make pastry, but this is the rarest sort of book, a book to _read_.
+As Dr. Johnson said, ‘Sir, a good book is one you can hold in your hand,
+and take to the fire.’ Now there are extremely few books which can, with
+any propriety, be so treated. When a great author, as Grote or Gibbon,
+has devoted a whole life of horrid industry to the composition of a large
+history, one feels one ought not to touch it with a mere hand—it is not
+respectful. The idea of slavery hovers over the ‘Decline and Fall.’ Fancy
+a stiffly dressed gentleman, in a stiff chair, slowly writing that stiff
+compilation in a stiff hand: it is enough to stiffen you for life. Or is
+poetry readable? Of course it is rememberable; when you have it in the
+mind, it clings; if by heart, it haunts. Imagery comes from it; songs
+which lull the ear, heroines that waste the time. But this Biographia is
+actually read; a man is glad to take it up, and slow to lay it down; it
+is a book which is truly valuable, for it is truly pleasing; and which
+a man who has once had it in his library would miss from his shelves,
+not only in the common way, by a physical vacuum, but by a mental
+deprivation. This strange quality it owes to a peculiarity of style. Many
+people give many theories of literary composition, and Dr. Blair, whom we
+will read, is sometimes said to have exhausted the subject; but, unless
+he has proved the contrary, we believe that the knack in style is to
+write like a human being. Some think they must be wise, some elaborate,
+some concise; Tacitus wrote like a pair of stays; some startle as Thomas
+Carlyle, or a comet, inscribing with his tail. But legibility is given
+to those who neglect these notions, and are willing to be themselves, to
+write their own thoughts in their own words, in the simplest words, in
+the words wherein they were thought; and such, and so great, was in this
+book the magnanimity of Hartley.
+
+As has been said, from his youth onwards, Hartley’s outward life was
+a simple blank. Much writing, and much musing, some intercourse with
+Wordsworth, some talking to undergraduate readers or lake ladies, great
+loneliness, and much intercourse with the farmers of Cumberland—these
+pleasures, simple enough, most of them, were his life. The extreme
+pleasure of the peasantry in his conversation, is particularly remarked.
+‘Aye, but Mr. Coleridge talks fine,’ observed one. ‘I would go through
+fire and water for Mr. C.,’ interjected another. His father, with real
+wisdom, had provided (in part, at least) for his necessary wants in the
+following manner:—
+
+    ‘This is a codicil to my last will and testament.
+
+                                                   ‘S. T. COLERIDGE.
+
+    ‘Most desirous to secure, as far as in me lies, for my dear
+    son Hartley, the tranquillity essential to any continued and
+    successful exertion of his literary talents, and which, from
+    the like characters of our minds in this respect, I know to
+    be especially requisite for his happiness, and persuaded that
+    he will recognise in this provision that anxious affection
+    by which it is dictated, I affix this codicil to my last
+    will and testament.... And I hereby request them (the said
+    trustees) to hold the sum accruing to Hartley Coleridge from
+    the equal division of my total bequest between him, his brother
+    Derwent, and his sister Sara, after his mother’s decease,
+    to dispose of the interests or proceeds of the same portion
+    to or for the use of my dear son Hartley Coleridge, at such
+    time or times, in such manner, or under such conditions, as
+    they, the trustees above named, know to be my wish, and shall
+    deem conducive to the attainment of my object in adding the
+    codicil, namely, the anxious wish to ensure for my son the
+    continued means of a home, in which I comprise board, lodging,
+    and raiment. Providing that nothing in this codicil shall be
+    so interpreted as to interfere with my son H. C.’s freedom of
+    choice respecting his place of residence, or with his power of
+    disposing of his portion by will after his decease according as
+    his own judgments and affections may decide.’
+
+An excellent provision, which would not, however, by the English law,
+have disabled the ‘said Hartley’ from depriving himself of ‘the continued
+means of a home’ by alienating the principal of the bequest; since the
+jurisprudence of this country has no legal definition of ‘prodigality,’
+and does not consider any person incompetent to manage his pecuniary
+affairs unless he be quite and certainly insane. Yet there undoubtedly
+are persons, and poor Hartley was one of them, who though in general
+perfectly sane, and even with superior powers of thought or fancy, are as
+completely unable as the most helpless lunatic to manage any pecuniary
+transactions, and to whom it would be a great gain to have perpetual
+guardians and compulsory trustees. But such people are rare, and few
+principles are so English as the maxim _de minimis non curat lex_.
+
+He lived in this way for thirty years or nearly so, but there is nothing
+to tell of all that time. He died January 6, 1849, and was buried in
+Grasmere churchyard—the quietest place in England, ‘by the yews,’ as
+Arnold says, ‘that Wordsworth planted, the Rotha with its big silent
+pools passing by.’ It was a shining January day when Hartley was borne to
+the grave. ‘Keep the ground for us,’ said Mr. Wordsworth to the sexton;
+‘we are old, and it cannot be long.’
+
+We have described Hartley’s life at length for a peculiar reason. It is
+necessary to comprehend his character, to appreciate his works; and there
+is no way of delineating character but by a selection of characteristic
+sayings and actions. All poets, as is commonly observed, are delineated
+in their poems, but in very different modes. Each minute event in the
+melancholy life of Shelley is frequently alluded to in his writings. The
+tender and reverential character of Virgil is everywhere conspicuous in
+his pages. It is clear that Chaucer was shrewd. We seem to have talked
+with Shakespeare, though we have forgotten the facts of his life; but
+it is not by minute allusion, or a tacit influence, or a genial and
+delightful sympathy, that a writer like Hartley Coleridge leaves the
+impress of himself, but in a more direct manner, which it will take a few
+words to describe.
+
+Poetry begins in Impersonality. Homer is a voice—a fine voice, a fine
+eye, and a brain that drew with light; and this is all we know. The
+natural subjects of the first art are the scenes and events in which the
+first men naturally take an interest. They don’t care—who does?—for a
+kind old man; but they want to hear of the exploits of their ancestors—of
+the heroes of their childhood—of them that their fathers saw—of the
+founders of their own land—of wars, and rumours of wars—of great
+victories boldly won—of heavy defeats firmly borne—of desperate disasters
+unsparingly retrieved. So in all countries—Siegfried, or Charlemagne, or
+Arthur,—they are but attempts at an Achilles: the subject is the same—the
+κλέα ἀνδρῶν and the death that comes to all. But then the mist of battles
+passes away, and the sound of the daily conflict no longer hurtles in
+the air, and a generation arises skilled with the skill of peace, and
+refined with the refinement of civilisation, yet still remembering the
+old world, still appreciating the old life, still wondering at the old
+men, and ready to receive, at the hand of the poet, a new telling of
+the old tale—a new idealisation of the legendary tradition. This is the
+age of dramatic art, when men wonder at the big characters of old, as
+schoolboys at the words of Æschylus, and try to find in their own breasts
+the roots of those monstrous, but artistically developed impersonations.
+With civilisation too comes another change: men wish not only to tell
+what they have seen, but also to express what they are conscious of.
+Barbarians feel only hunger, and that is not lyrical; but as time runs
+on, arise gentler emotions and finer moods and more delicate desires
+which need expression, and require from the artist’s fancy the lightest
+touches and the most soothing and insinuating words. Lyrical poetry, too,
+as we know, is of various kinds. Some, as the war song, approach to the
+epic, depict events and stimulate to triumph; others are love songs to
+pour out wisdom, others sober to describe champagne; some passive and
+still, and expressive of the higher melancholy, as Gray’s ‘Elegy in a
+Country Churchyard.’ But with whatever differences of species and class,
+the essence of lyrical poetry remains in all identical; it is designed
+to express, and when successful does express, some one mood, some single
+sentiment, some isolated longing in human nature. It deals not with man
+as a whole, but with man piecemeal, with man in a scenic aspect, with man
+in a peculiar light. Hence lyrical poets must not be judged literally
+from their lyrics: they are discourses; they require to be reduced into
+the scale of ordinary life, to be stripped of the enraptured element,
+to be clogged with gravitating prose. Again, moreover, and in course
+of time, the advance of ages and the progress of civilisation appear
+to produce a new species of poetry which is distinct from the lyrical,
+though it grows out of it, and contrasted with the epic, though in a
+single respect it exactly resembles it. This kind may be called the
+_self-delineative_, for in it the poet deals not with a particular
+desire, sentiment, or inclination in his own mind, not with a special
+phase of his own character, not with his love of war, his love of ladies,
+his melancholy, but with his mind viewed as a whole, with the entire
+essence of his own character. The first requisite of this poetry is
+truth. It is in Plato’s phrase the soul ‘itself by itself’ aspiring to
+view and take account of the particular notes and marks that distinguish
+it from all other souls. The sense of reality is necessary to excellence;
+the poet being himself, speaks like one who has authority; he knows and
+must not deceive. This species of poetry, of course, adjoins on the
+lyrical, out of which it historically arises. Such a poem as the ‘Elegy’
+is, as it were, on the borders of the two; for while it expresses but
+a single emotion, meditative, melancholy, you seem to feel that this
+sentiment is not only then and for a moment the uppermost, but (as with
+Gray it was) the habitual mood, the pervading emotion of his whole life.
+Moreover, in one especial peculiarity, this sort of poetry is analogous
+to the narrative or epic. Nothing certainly can, in a general aspect,
+be more distantly removed one from another, the one dealing in external
+objects and stirring events, the other with the stillness and repose of
+the poet’s mind; but still in a single characteristic the two coincide.
+They describe character as the painters say _in mass_. The defect of the
+drama is, that it can delineate only motion. If a thoughtful person will
+compare the character of Achilles, as we find it in Homer, with the more
+surpassing creations of dramatic invention, say with Lear or Othello,
+he will perhaps feel that character in repose, character on the lonely
+beach, character in marble, character in itself, is more clearly and
+perfectly seen in the epic narrative, than in the conversational drama.
+It of course requires immense skill to make mere talk exhibit a man as
+he is ἑτάρων ἄφαρ. Now this quality of epic poetry the self-delineative
+precisely shares with it. It describes a character—the poet’s—alone by
+itself. And therefore, when the great master in both kinds did not
+hesitate to turn aside from his ‘high argument’ to say—
+
+    ‘More safe I sing with mortal voice unchanged
+    To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,’
+
+pedants may prose as they please about the ‘impropriety’ of
+‘interspersing’ species of composition which are by nature remote; but
+Milton felt more profoundly that in its treatment of character the
+egotistical poetry is allied to the epic; that he was putting together
+elements which would harmoniously combine; that he was but exerting the
+same faculties in either case—being guided thereto by a sure instinct,
+the desire of genius to handle and combine every one of the subjects on
+which it is genius.
+
+Now it is in this self-delineative species of poetry that, in our
+judgment, Hartley Coleridge has attained to nearly, if not quite the
+highest excellence; it pervades his writings everywhere. But a few
+sonnets may be quoted to exemplify it:—
+
+    ‘We parted on the mountains, as two streams
+    From one clear spring pursue their several ways;
+    And thy fleet course hath been through many a maze
+    In foreign lands, where silvery Padus gleams
+    To that delicious sky, whose glowing beams
+    Brightened the tresses that old poets praise,
+    Where Petrarch’s patient love and artful lays,
+    And Ariosto’s song of many themes,
+    Moved the soft air.—But I, a lazy brook,
+    As close pent up within my native dell,
+    Have crept along from nook to shady nook,
+    Where flow’rets blow and whispering Naiads dwell.
+    Yet now we meet that parted were so wide,
+    For rough and smooth to travel side by side.
+
+    ‘Once I was young, and fancy was my all,
+    My love, my joy, my grief, my hope, my fear,
+    And ever ready as an infant’s tear,
+    Whate’er in Fancy’s kingdom might befall,
+    Some quaint device had Fancy still at call,
+    With seemly verse to greet the coming cheer;
+    Such grief to soothe, such airy hope to rear,
+    To sing the birth-song, or the funeral
+    Of such light love, it was a pleasant task;
+    But ill accord the quirks of wayward glee
+    That wears affliction for a wanton mask,
+    With woes that bear not Fancy’s livery;
+    With Hope that scorns of Fate its fate to ask,
+    But is itself its own sure destiny.
+
+    ‘Too true it is my time of power was spent
+    In idly watering weeds of casual growth
+    That wasted energy to desperate sloth
+    Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent;
+    That the huge debt for all that nature lent
+    I sought to cancel,—and was nothing loth,
+    To deem myself an outlaw, severed both
+    From duty and from hope,—yea, blindly sent
+    Without an errand where I would to stray:—
+    Too true it is, that knowing now my state,
+    I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,
+    Nor love the law I yet would fain obey:
+    But true it is, above all law and fate
+    Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.
+
+    ‘Long time a child, and still a child when years
+    Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I:
+    For yet I lived like one not born to die,
+    A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears;
+    No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.
+    But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
+    I waked to sleep no more, at once o’ertaking
+    The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
+    Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
+    Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
+    For I have lost the race I never ran;
+    A rathe December blights my lagging May;
+    And still I am a child, tho’ I be old,
+    Time is my debtor for my years untold.’
+
+Indeed, the whole series of sonnets with which the earliest and best
+work of Hartley began is (with a casual episode on others), mainly and
+essentially a series on himself. Perhaps there is something in the
+structure of the sonnet rather adapted to this species of composition.
+It is too short for narrative, too artificial for the intense passions,
+too complex for the simple, too elaborate for the domestic; but in an
+impatient world where there is not a premium on self-describing, who so
+would speak of himself must be wise and brief, artful and composed—and in
+these respects he will be aided by the concise dignity of the tranquil
+sonnet.
+
+It is remarkable that in this, too, Hartley Coleridge resembled his
+father. Turn over the early poems of S. T. Coleridge, the minor poems
+(we exclude the ‘Mariner’ and ‘Christabel,’ which are his epics), but
+the small shreds which Bristol worshipped and Cottle paid for, and you
+will be disheartened by utter dulness. Taken on a decent average, and
+perhaps excluding a verse here and there, it really seems to us that they
+are inferior to the daily works of the undeserving and multiplied poets.
+If any reader will peruse any six of the several works intituled ‘Poems
+by a Young Gentleman,’ we believe he will find the refined anonymity
+less insipid than the small productions of Samuel Taylor. There will be
+less puff and less ostentation. The reputation of the latter was caused
+not by their merit but by their time. Fifty years ago people believed
+in metre, and it is plain that Coleridge (Southey may be added, for
+that matter) believed in it also; the people in Bristol said that these
+two were wonderful men, because they had written wonderfully small
+verses;—and such is human vanity, that both for a time accepted the
+creed. In Coleridge, who had large speculative sense, the hallucination
+was not permanent—there are many traces that he rated his Juvenilia at
+their value; but poor Southey, who lived with domestic women, actually
+died in the delusion that his early works were perfect, except that he
+tried to ‘amend’ the energy out of Joan of Arc, which was the only good
+thing in it. His wife did not doubt that he had produced stupendous
+works. Why, then, should he? But experience has now shown that a certain
+metrical facility, and a pleasure in the metrical expression of certain
+sentiments, are in youth extremely common. Many years ago, Mr. Moore is
+reported to have remarked to Sir Walter Scott, that hardly a magazine
+was then published, which did not contain verses that would have made a
+sensation when they were young men. ‘Confound it, Tom,’ was the reply,
+‘what luck it was _we_ were born before all these fellows.’ And though
+neither Moore nor Scott are to be confounded with the nameless and
+industrious versifiers of the present day, yet it must be allowed that
+they owed to their time and their position—to the small quantity of
+rhyme in the market of the moment, and the extravagant appreciation of
+their early productions—much of that popular encouragement which induced
+them to labour upon more excellent compositions and to train themselves
+to write what they will be remembered by. But, dismissing these
+considerations, and returning to the minor poems of S. T. Coleridge,
+although we fearlessly assert that it is impossible for any sane man to
+set any value on—say the Religious Musings—an absurd attempt to versify
+an abstract theory, or the essay on the Pixies, who had more fun in
+them than the reader of it could suspect—it still is indisputable that
+scattered here and there through these poems, there are lines about
+himself (lines, as he said in later life, ‘in which the subjective object
+views itself subjectivo-objectively,’) which rank high in that form of
+art. Of this kind are the Tombless Epitaph, for example, or the lines,—
+
+    ‘To me hath Heaven with bounteous hand assigned
+    Energic Reason and a shaping mind,
+    The daring ken of truth; the Patriot’s part,
+    And Pity’s sigh, that breathes the gentle heart;
+    Sloth-jaundiced all! and from my graspless hand
+    Drop friendship’s priceless pearls, like hour-glass sand.
+    I weep, yet stoop not! the faint anguish flows,
+    A dreamy pang in morning’s fev’rish doze;’
+
+and so on. In fact, it would appear that the tendency to, and the faculty
+for self-delineation are very closely connected with the dreaminess
+of disposition and impotence of character which we spoke of just now.
+Persons very subject to these can grasp no external object, comprehend
+no external being; they can do no external thing, and therefore they are
+left to themselves. Their own character is the only one which they can
+view as a whole, or depict as a reality; of every other they may have
+glimpses, and acute glimpses, like the vivid truthfulness of particular
+dreams; but no settled appreciation, no connected development, no regular
+sequence whereby they may be exhibited on paper or conceived in the
+imagination. If other qualities are supposed to be identical, those will
+be most egotistical who only know themselves; the people who talk most of
+themselves will be those who talk best.
+
+In the execution of minor verses, we think we could show that Hartley
+should have the praise of surpassing his father; but nevertheless it
+would be absurd, on a general view, to compare the two men. Samuel
+Taylor was so much bigger; what there was in his son was equally good,
+perhaps, but then there was not much of it; outwardly and inwardly he was
+essentially little. In poetry, for example, the father has produced two
+longish poems, which have worked themselves right down to the extreme
+depths of the popular memory, and stay there very firmly, in part from
+their strangeness, but in part from their power. Of Hartley, nothing
+of this kind is to be found—he could not write connectedly; he wanted
+steadiness of purpose, or efficiency of will, to write so voluntarily;
+and his genius did not, involuntarily, and out of its unseen workings,
+present him with continuous creations; on the contrary, his mind teemed
+with little fancies, and a new one came before the first had attained any
+enormous magnitude. As his brother observed, he wanted ‘back thought.’
+‘On what plan, Mr. Coleridge, are you arranging your books?’ inquired
+a lady. ‘Plan, madam? I have no plan: at first I had a principle; but
+then I had another, and now I do not know.’ The same contrast between
+the ‘shaping mind’ of the father, and the gentle and minute genius of
+the son, is said to have been very plain in their conversation. That of
+Samuel was continuous, diffused, comprehensive.
+
+    ‘Strongly it bears us along in swelling and limitless motion,
+    Nothing before and nothing behind, but the sky and the ocean.’
+
+‘Great talker, certainly,’ said Hazlitt, ‘_if_ you will let him start
+from no _data_, and come to no conclusion.’ The talk of Hartley, on the
+contrary, though continuous in time, was detached in meaning; stating
+hints and observations on particular subjects; glancing lightly from side
+to side, but throwing no intense light on any, and exhausting none. It
+flowed gently over small doubts and pleasant difficulties, rippling for a
+minute sometimes into bombast, but lightly recovering and falling quietly
+in ‘melody back.’
+
+By way, it is likely, of compensation to Hartley for this great
+deficiency in what his father imagined to be his own _forte_,—the power
+of conceiving a whole,—Hartley possessed, in a considerable degree,
+a species of sensibility to which the former was nearly a stranger.
+‘The mind of S. T. Coleridge,’ says one who had every means of knowing
+and observing, ‘was not in the least under the influence of external
+objects.’ Except in the writings written during daily and confidential
+intimacy with Wordsworth (an exception that may be obviously accounted
+for), no trace can perhaps be found of any new image or metaphor from
+natural scenery. There is some story too of his going for the first time
+to York, and by the Minster, and never looking up at it. But Hartley’s
+poems exhibit a great sensibility to a certain aspect of exterior nature,
+and great fanciful power of presenting that aspect in the most charming
+and attractive forms. It is likely that the London boyhood of the elder
+Coleridge was,—added to a strong abstractedness which was born with
+him,—a powerful cause in bringing about the curious mental fact, that
+a great poet, so susceptible to every other species of refining and
+delightful feeling, should have been utterly destitute of any perception
+of beauty in landscape or nature. We must not forget that S. T. Coleridge
+was a blue-coat boy,—what do any of them know about fields? And
+similarly, we require in Hartley’s case, before we can quite estimate his
+appreciation of nature, to consider his position, his circumstances, and
+especially his time.
+
+Now it came to pass in those days that William Wordsworth went up into
+the hills. It has been attempted in recent years to establish that the
+object of his life was to teach Anglicanism. A whole life of him has been
+written by an official gentleman, with the apparent view of establishing
+that the great poet was a believer in rood-lofts, an idolator of piscinæ.
+But this is not capable of rational demonstration. Wordsworth, like
+Coleridge, began life as a heretic, and as the shrewd Pope unfallaciously
+said, ‘once a heretic, always a heretic.’ Sound men are sound from the
+first; safe men are safe from the beginning, and Wordsworth began wrong.
+His real reason for going to live in the mountains was certainly in part
+sacred, but it was not in the least Tractarian:—
+
+    ‘For he with many feelings, many thoughts,
+    Made up a meditative joy, and found
+    Religious meanings in the forms of nature.’
+
+His whole soul was absorbed in the one idea, the one feeling, the one
+thought, of the sacredness of hills.
+
+                  ‘Early had he learned
+    To reverence the volume that displays
+    The mystery, the life which cannot die;
+    But in the mountains did he _feel_ his faith.
+    All things responsive to the writing, there
+    Breathed immortality, revolving life,
+    And greatness still revolving; infinite;
+    There littleness was not.
+    ...
+                      —In the after-day
+    Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
+    And ’mid the hollow depths of naked crags,
+    He sate, and e’en in their fixed lineaments
+    Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
+    Or by creative feeling overborne,
+    Or by predominance of thought oppressed,
+    E’en in their fixed and steady lineaments
+    He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
+    Expression ever varying!
+    ...
+                      A sense sublime
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,
+    Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
+    And the round ocean and the living air
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
+    A motion and a spirit that impels
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
+    And rolls through all things.’
+
+The defect of this religion is, that it is too abstract for the
+practical, and too bare for the musing. The worship of sensuous
+beauty—the southern religion—is of all sentiments the one most deficient
+in his writings. His poetry hardly even gives the charm, the entire
+charm, of the scenery in which he lived. The lighter parts are little
+noticed: the rugged parts protrude. The bare waste, the folding hill,
+the rough lake, Helvellyn with a brooding mist, Ulswater in a grey day:
+these are his subjects. He took a personal interest in the corners of
+the universe. There is a print of Rembrandt said to represent a piece of
+the Campagna, a mere waste, with a stump and a man, and under is written
+‘Tacet et loquitur;’ and thousands will pass the old print-shop where
+it hangs, and yet have a taste for paintings, and colours, and oils:
+but some fanciful students, some lonely stragglers, some long-haired
+enthusiasts, by chance will come, one by one, and look, and look, and
+be hardly able to take their eyes from the fascination, so massive is
+the shade, so still the conception, so firm the execution. Thus is it
+with Wordsworth and his poetry. _Tacet et loquitur._ Fashion apart, the
+million won’t read it. Why should they?—they could not understand it.
+Don’t put them out,—let them buy, and sell, and die;—but idle students,
+and enthusiastic wanderers, and solitary thinkers, will read, and read,
+and read, while their lives and their occupations hold. In truth,
+his works are the Scriptures of the intellectual life; for that same
+searching, and finding, and penetrating power which the real Scripture
+exercises on those engaged, as are the mass of men, in practical
+occupations and domestic ties, do his works exercise on the meditative,
+the solitary, and the young.
+
+    ‘His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
+    The silence that is in the starry sky,
+    The sleep that is among the lonely hills.’
+
+And he had more than others,
+
+                    ‘That blessed mood,
+    In which the burthen of the mystery,
+    In which the heavy and the weary weight
+    Of all this unintelligible world
+    Is lightened: that serene and blessed mood
+    In which the affections gently lead us on,
+    Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
+    And even the motion of our human blood
+    Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
+    In body, and become a living soul;
+    While with an eye made quiet by the power
+    Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
+    We see into the life of things.’
+
+And therefore he has had a whole host of sacred imitators. Mr. Keble,
+for example, has translated him for women. He has himself told us that
+he owed to Wordsworth the tendency _ad sanctiora_, which is the mark of
+his own writings; and in fact he has but adapted the tone and habit of
+reverence, which his master applied to common objects and the course of
+the seasons, to sacred objects and the course of the ecclesiastical
+year,—diffusing a mist of sentiment and devotion altogether delicious
+to a gentle and timid devotee. Hartley Coleridge is another translator.
+He has applied to the sensuous beauties and seductive parts of external
+nature the same _cultus_ which Wordsworth applied to the bare and the
+abstract. It is—
+
+    ‘That fair beauty which no eye can see,
+    Of that sweet music which no ear can measure.’
+
+It is, as it were, female beauty in wood and water; it is Rydal Water on
+a shining day; it is the gloss of the world with the knowledge that it is
+gloss: the sense of beauty, as in some women, with the feeling that yet
+it is hardly theirs:—
+
+    ‘The vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
+    Green Ida never deemed the nurse of Jove,
+    Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
+    Had idly murmured to the idle air;
+    The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
+    In Delphi’s cell and old Trophonius’ cave,
+    And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
+    Had never blended with the sweet despair
+    Of Sappho’s death-song,—if the sight inspired
+    Saw only what the visual organs show;
+    If heaven-born phantasy no more required
+    Than what within the sphere of sense may grow.
+    The beauty to perceive of earthly things,
+    The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.
+
+And he knew it himself: he has sketched the essence of his works:—
+
+    ‘Whither is gone the wisdom and the power,
+    That ancient sages scattered with the notes
+    Of thought-suggesting lyres? The music floats
+    In the void air; e’en at this breathing hour,
+    In every cell and every blooming bower,
+    The sweetness of old lays is hovering still;
+    But the strong soul, the self-constraining will,
+    The rugged root that bare the winsome flower,
+    Is weak and withered. Were we like the Fays
+    That sweetly nestle in the fox-glove bells,
+    Or lurk and murmur in the rose-lipped shells,
+    Which Neptune to the earth for quit-rent pays;
+    Then might our pretty modern Philomels
+    Sustain our spirits with their roundelays.’
+
+We had more to say of Hartley: we were to show that his Prometheus was
+defective; that its style had no Greek severity, no defined outline; that
+he was a critic as well as a poet, though in a small detached way, and
+what is odd enough, that he could criticise in rhyme. We were to make
+plain how his heart was in the right place, how his love affairs were
+hopeless, how he was misled by his friends; but our time is done and
+our space is full, and these topics must ‘go without day’ of returning.
+We may end as we began. There are some that are bold and strong and
+incessant and energetic and hard, and to these is the world’s glory;
+and some are timid and meek and impotent and cowardly and rejected and
+obscure. ‘One man esteemeth one day above another, another esteemeth
+every day alike.’ And so of Hartley, whom few regarded; he had a
+resource, the stillness of thought, the gentleness of musing, the peace
+of nature.
+
+    ‘To his side the fallow deer
+    Came and rested without fear;
+    The eagle, lord of land and sea,
+    Stooped down to pay him fealty;
+    And both the undying fish that swim,
+    In Bowscale-tarn did wait on him;
+    The pair were servants of his eye,
+    In their immortality;
+    And glancing, gleaming, dark or bright,
+    Moved to and fro for his delight.
+    He knew the rocks which Angels haunt
+    Upon the mountains visitant.
+    He hath kenned them taking wing,
+    And into caves where Fairies sing
+    He hath entered; and been told
+    By voices how men lived of old.
+    Among the heavens his eye can see
+    The face of thing that is to be,
+    And if that men report him right
+    His tongue could whisper words of might.
+    —Now another day is come,
+    Fitter hope and nobler doom,
+    He hath thrown aside his crook,
+    And hath buried deep his book.’
+
+    ‘And now the streams may sing for others’ pleasure,
+    The hills sleep on in their eternity.’
+
+He is gone from among them.
+
+
+
+
+_PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY._[26]
+
+(1856.)
+
+
+After the long biography of Moore, it is half a comfort to think of a
+poet as to whom our information is but scanty. The few intimates of
+Shelley seem inclined to go to their graves without telling in accurate
+detail the curious circumstances of his life. We are left to be content
+with vain ‘prefaces’ and the circumstantial details of a remarkable
+blunderer. We know something, however;—we know enough to check our
+inferences from his writings; in some moods it is pleasant not to have
+them disturbed by long volumes of memoirs and anecdotes.
+
+One peculiarity of Shelley’s writing makes it natural that at times
+we should not care to have, that at times we should wish for, a full
+biography. No writer has left so clear an image of himself in his
+writings; when we remember them as a whole, we seem to want no more.
+No writer, on the other hand, has left so many little allusions which
+we should be glad to have explained, which the patient patriarch would
+not perhaps have endured that anyone should comprehend while he did
+not. The reason is, that Shelley has combined the use of the two great
+modes by which writers leave with their readers the image of themselves.
+There is the art of self-delineation. Some authors try in imagination
+to get outside themselves—to contemplate their character as a fact, and
+to describe it and the movement of their own actions as external forms
+and images. Scarcely any one has done this as often as Shelley. There
+is hardly one of his longer works which does not contain a finished
+picture of himself in some point or under some circumstances. Again, some
+writers, almost or quite unconsciously, by a special instinct of style,
+give an idea of themselves. This is not peculiar to literary men; it is
+quite as remarkable among men of action. There are people in the world
+who cannot write the commonest letter on the commonest affair of business
+without giving a just idea of themselves. The Duke of Wellington is an
+example which at once occurs of this. You may read a despatch of his
+about bullocks and horseshoe-nails; and yet you will feel an interest—a
+great interest, because somehow among the words seems to lurk the mind of
+a great general. Shelley has this peculiarity also. Every line of his has
+a personal impress, an unconscious inimitable manner. And the two modes
+in which he gives an idea of himself concur. In every delineation we see
+the same simple intense being. As mythology found a Naiad in the course
+of every limpid stream, so through each eager line our fancy sees the
+same panting image of sculptured purity.
+
+Shelley is probably the most remarkable instance of the pure impulsive
+character,—to comprehend which requires a little detail. Some men are
+born under the law: their whole life is a continued struggle between
+the lower principles of their nature and the higher. These are what are
+called men of principle; each of their best actions is a distinct choice
+between conflicting motives. One propension would bear them here; another
+there; a third would hold them still: into the midst the living will
+goes forth in its power, and selects whichever it holds to be best. The
+habitual supremacy of conscience in such men gives them an idea that
+they only exert their will when they do right; when they do wrong they
+seem to ‘let their nature go;’ they say that ‘they are hurried away:’
+but, in fact, there is commonly an act of will in both cases;—only it is
+weaker when they act ill, because in passably good men, if the better
+principles are reasonably strong, they conquer; it is only when very
+faint that they are vanquished. Yet the case is evidently not always so;
+sometimes the wrong principle is of itself and of set purpose definitely
+chosen: the better one is consciously put down. The very existence of
+divided natures is a conflict. This is no new description of human
+nature. For eighteen hundred years Christendom has been amazed at the
+description in St. Paul of the law of his members warring against the
+law of his mind. Expressions most unlike in language, but not dissimilar
+in meaning, are to be found in some of the most familiar passages of
+Aristotle.
+
+In extreme contrast to this is the nature which has no struggle. It
+is possible to conceive a character in which but one impulse is ever
+felt—in which the whole being, as with a single breeze, is carried in
+a single direction. The only exercise of the will in such a being is
+in aiding and carrying out the dictates of the single propensity. And
+this is something. There are many of our powers and faculties only in
+a subordinate degree under the control of the emotions; the intellect
+itself in many moments requires to be bent to defined attention by
+compulsion of the will; no mere intensity of desire will thrust it on
+its tasks. But of what in most men is the characteristic action of the
+will—namely, self-control—such natures are hardly in want. An ultimate
+case could be imagined in which they would not need it at all. They
+have no lower desires to pull down, for they have no higher ones which
+come into collision with them; the very words ‘lower’ and ‘higher,’
+involving the contemporaneous action and collision of two impulses, are
+inapplicable to them; there is no strife; all their soul impels them in
+a single line. This may be a quality of the highest character: indeed in
+the highest character it will certainly be found; no one will question
+that the whole nature of the holiest being tends to what is holy without
+let, struggle, or strife—it would be impiety to doubt it. Yet this
+same quality may certainly be found in a lower—a much lower—mind than
+the highest. A level may be of any elevation; the absence of intestine
+commotion may arise from a sluggish dulness to eager aspirations; the
+one impulse which is felt may be any impulse whatever. If the idea were
+completely exemplified, one would instinctively say, that a being with
+so single a mind could hardly belong to human nature. Temptation is the
+mark of our life; we can hardly divest ourselves of the idea that it is
+indivisible from our character. As it was said of solitude, so it may be
+said of the sole dominion of a single impulse, ‘Whoso is devoted to it
+would seem to be either a beast or a god.’
+
+Completely realised on earth this idea will never be; but approximations
+may be found, and one of the closest of those approximations is Shelley.
+We fancy his mind placed in the light of thought, with pure subtle
+fancies playing to and fro. On a sudden an impulse arises; it is alone,
+and has nothing to contend with; it cramps the intellect, pushes aside
+the fancies, constrains the nature; it bolts forward into action.
+Such a character is an extreme puzzle to external observers. From the
+occasionality of its impulses it will often seem silly; from their
+singularity, strange; from their intensity, fanatical. It is absurdest
+in the more trifling matters. There is a legend of Shelley, during an
+early visit to London, flying along the street, catching sight of a new
+microscope, buying it in a moment; pawning it the instant afterwards
+to relieve some one in the same street in distress. The trait may be
+exaggerated, but it is characteristic. It shows the sudden irruption of
+his impulses, their abrupt force and curious purity.
+
+The predominant impulse in Shelley from a very early age was ‘a passion
+for reforming mankind.’ Mr. Newman has told us in his Letters from the
+East how much he and his half-missionary associates were annoyed at being
+called ‘young people trying to convert the world.’ In a strange land,
+ignorant of the language, beside a recognised religion, in the midst
+of an immemorial society, the aim, though in a sense theirs, seemed
+ridiculous when ascribed to them. Shelley would not have felt this at
+all. No society, however organised, would have been too strong for him
+to attack. He would not have paused. The impulse was upon him. He would
+have been ready to preach that mankind were to be ‘free, equal, pure,
+and wise,’—in favour of ‘justice, and truth, and time, and the world’s
+natural sphere,’—in the Ottoman Empire, or to the Czar, or to George III.
+Such truths were independent of time and place and circumstance; some
+time or other, something, or somebody (his faith was a little vague),
+would most certainly intervene to establish them. It was this placid
+undoubting confidence which irritated the positive and sceptical mind of
+Hazlitt. ‘The author of the “Prometheus Unbound,”’ he tells us, ‘has a
+fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a maggot in his brain, a hectic
+flutter in his speech, which mark out the philosophic fanatic. He is
+sanguine-complexioned and shrill-voiced. As is often observable in the
+case of religious enthusiasts, there is a slenderness of constitutional
+stamina, which renders the flesh no match for the spirit. His bending,
+flexible form appears to take no strong hold of things, does not grapple
+with the world about him, but slides from it like a river—
+
+    ‘And in its liquid texture mortal wound
+    Receives no more than can the fluid air.’
+
+The shock of accident, the weight of authority, make no impression on
+his opinions, which retire like a feather, or rise from the encounter
+unhurt, through their own buoyancy. He is clogged by no dull system of
+realities, no earth-bound feelings, no rooted prejudices, by nothing that
+belongs to the mighty trunk and hard husk of nature and habit; but is
+drawn up by irresistible levity to the regions of mere speculation and
+fancy, to the sphere of air and fire, where his delighted spirit floats
+in ‘seas of pearl and clouds of amber.’ There is no _caput mortuum_ of
+worn-out threadbare experience to serve as ballast to his mind; it is
+all volatile, intellectual salt-of-tartar, that refuses to combine its
+evanescent, inflammable essence with anything solid or anything lasting.
+Bubbles are to him the only realities:—touch them, and they vanish.
+Curiosity is the only proper category of his mind; and though a man in
+knowledge, he is a child in feeling.’ And so on with vituperation. No two
+characters could, indeed, be found more opposite than the open, eager,
+buoyant poet, and the dark, threatening, unbelieving critic.
+
+It is difficult to say how far such a tendency under some circumstances
+might not have carried Shelley into positions most alien to an essential
+benevolence. It is most dangerous to be possessed with an idea. Dr.
+Arnold used to say that he had studied the life of Robespierre with the
+greatest personal benefit. No personal purity is a protection against
+insatiable zeal; it almost acts in the opposite direction. The less a man
+is conscious of inferior motives, the more likely is he to fancy that he
+is doing God service. There is no difficulty in imagining Shelley cast by
+the accident of fortune into the Paris of the Revolution; hurried on by
+its ideas, undoubting in its hopes, wild with its excitement, going forth
+in the name of freedom conquering and to conquer;—and who can think that
+he would have been scrupulous how he attained such an end? It was in him
+to have walked towards it over seas of blood. One could almost identify
+him with St. Just, the ‘fair-haired republican.’
+
+On another and a more generally interesting topic, Shelley advanced a
+theory which amounts to a deification of impulse. ‘Love,’ he tells us,
+‘is inevitably consequent upon the perception of loveliness. Love withers
+under constraint; its very essence is liberty; it is compatible neither
+with obedience, jealousy, nor fear; it is there most pure, perfect,
+and unlimited, where its votaries live in confidence, equality, and
+unreserve.... A husband and wife ought to continue united only so long as
+they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for
+one moment after the decay of their affection would be a most intolerable
+tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration. How odious an usurpation
+of the right of private judgment should that law be considered, which
+should make the ties of friendship indissoluble, in spite of the
+caprices, the inconstancy, the fallibility, of the human mind! And by so
+much would the fetters of love be heavier and more unendurable than those
+of friendship, as love is more vehement and capricious, more dependent
+on those delicate peculiarities of imagination, and less capable of
+reduction to the ostensible merits of the object.’ This passage, no
+doubt, is from an early and crude essay, one of the notes to ‘Queen Mab;’
+and there are many indications, in his latter years, that though he might
+hold in theory that ‘constancy has nothing virtuous in itself,’ yet in
+practice he shrank from breaking a tie hallowed by years of fidelity and
+sympathy. But, though his conduct was doubtless higher than his creed,
+there is no evidence that his creed was ever changed. The whole tone
+of his works is on the other side. The ‘Epipsychidion’ could not have
+been written by a man who attached a moral value to constancy of mind.
+And the whole doctrine is most expressive of his character. A quivering
+sensibility endured only the essence of the most refined love. It is
+intelligible, that one who bowed in a moment to every desire should have
+attached a kind of consecration to the most pure and eager of human
+passions.
+
+The evidence of Shelley’s poems confirms this impression of him. The
+characters which he delineates have all this same kind of pure impulse.
+The reforming impulse is especially felt. In almost every one of his
+works there is some character, of whom all we know is, that he or she
+had this passionate disposition to reform mankind. We know nothing else
+about them, and they are all the same. Laon, in the ‘Revolt of Islam,’
+does not differ at all from Lionel, in ‘Rosalind and Helen.’ Laon differs
+from Cythna, in the former poem, only as male from female. Lionel is
+delineated, though not with Shelley’s greatest felicity, in a single
+passage:—
+
+    ‘Yet through those dungeon-walls there came
+    Thy thrilling light, O liberty!
+    And as the meteor’s midnight flame
+    Startles the dreamer, sunlight truth
+    Flashed on his visionary youth,
+    And filled him, not with love, but faith,
+    And hope, and courage, mute in death;
+    For love and life in him were twins,
+    Born at one birth: in every other
+    First life, then love its course begins,
+    Though they be children of one mother:
+    And so through this dark world they fleet
+    Divided, till in death they meet.
+    But he loved all things ever. Then
+    He passed amid the strife of men,
+    And stood at the throne of armed power
+    Pleading for a world of woe:
+    Secure as one on a rock-built tower
+    O’er the wrecks which the surge trails to and fro.
+    ’Mid the passions wild of human-kind
+    He stood, like a spirit calming them;
+    For, it was said, his words could bind
+    Like music the lulled crowd, and stem
+    That torrent of unquiet dream
+    Which mortals truth and reason deem,
+    But is revenge, and fear, and pride.
+    Joyous he was, and hope and peace
+    On all who heard him did abide,
+    Raining like dew from his sweet talk,
+    As, where the evening star may walk
+    Along the brink of the gloomy seas,
+    Liquid mists of splendour quiver.’
+
+Such is the description of all his reformers in calm. In times of
+excitement, they all burst forth—
+
+    ‘Fear not the tyrants shall rule for ever,
+    Or the priests of the bloody faith;
+    They stand on the brink of that mighty river
+    Whose waves they have tainted with death;
+    It is fed from the depths of a thousand dells,
+    Around them it foams, and rages, and swells:
+    And their swords and their sceptres I floating see,
+    Like wrecks in the surge of eternity.’
+
+In his more didactic poems it is the same. All the world is evil, and
+will be evil, until some unknown conqueror shall appear—a teacher
+by rhapsody and a conqueror by words—who shall at once reform all
+evil. Mathematicians place great reliance on the unknown symbol,
+great X. Shelley did more; he expected it would take life and reform
+our race. Such impersonations are, of course, not real men; they are
+mere incarnations of a desire. Another passion, which no man has ever
+felt more strongly than Shelley—the desire to penetrate the mysteries
+of existence (by Hazlitt profanely called curiosity)—is depicted in
+‘Alastor’ as the sole passion of the only person in the poem:—
+
+    ‘By solemn vision and bright silver dream
+    His infancy was nurtured. Every sight
+    And sound from the vast earth and ambient air
+    Sent to his heart its choicest impulses.
+    The fountains of divine philosophy
+    Fled not his thirsting lips; and all of great,
+    Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past
+    In truth or fable consecrates, he felt
+    And knew. When early youth had past, he left
+    His cold fireside and alienated home
+    To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands.
+    Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness
+    Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought
+    With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men,
+    His rest and food.’
+
+He is cheered on his way by a beautiful dream, and the search to find
+it again mingles with the shadowy quest. It is remarkable how great
+is the superiority of the personification in ‘Alastor,’ though one of
+his earliest writings, over the reforming abstractions of his other
+works. The reason is, its far greater closeness to reality. The one
+is a description of what he was; the other of what he desired to be.
+Shelley had nothing of the magic influence, the large insight, the bold
+strength, the permeating eloquence, which fit a man for a practical
+reformer: but he had, in perhaps an unequalled and unfortunate measure,
+the famine of the intellect—the daily insatiable craving after the
+highest truth which is the passion of ‘Alastor.’ So completely did he
+feel it, that the introductory lines of the poem almost seem to identify
+him with the hero; at least they express sentiments which would have been
+exactly dramatic in his mouth:—
+
+    ‘Mother of this unfathomable world!
+    Favour my solemn song; for I have loved
+    Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
+    Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
+    And my heart ever gazes on the depth
+    Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
+    In charnels and on coffins, where black Death
+    Keeps records of the trophies won from thee,
+    Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
+    Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
+    Thy messenger, to render up the tale
+    Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
+    When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness;
+    Like an inspired and desperate alchymist,
+    Staking his very life on some dark hope,
+    Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
+    With my most innocent love; until strange tears,
+    Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
+    Such magic as compels the charmed night
+    To render up thy charge ... and though ne’er yet
+    Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
+    Enough from incommunicable dream,
+    And twilight phantasms and deep noonday thought,
+    Has shone within me, that serenely now,
+    And moveless (as a long-forgotten lyre,
+    Suspended in the solitary dome
+    Of some mysterious and deserted fane),
+    I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
+    May modulate with murmurs of the air,
+    And motions of the forests and the sea,
+    And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
+    Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.’
+
+The accompaniments are fanciful; but the essential passion was his own.
+
+These two forms of abstract personification exhaust all which can be
+considered characters among Shelley’s poems—one poem excepted. Of course,
+all his works contain ‘Spirits,’ ‘Phantasms,’ ‘Dream No. 1,’ and ‘Fairy
+No. 3;’ but these do not belong to this world. The higher air seems never
+to have been favourable to the production of marked character; with
+almost all poets the inhabitants of it are prone to a shadowy thinness:
+in Shelley, the habit of frequenting mountain-tops has reduced them to
+evanescent mists of lyrical energy. One poem of Shelley’s, however, has
+two beings of another order; creations which, if not absolutely dramatic
+characters of the first class—not beings whom we know better than we know
+ourselves—are nevertheless very high specimens of the second; persons who
+seem like vivid recollections from our intimate experience. In this case
+the dramatic execution is so good, that it is difficult to say why the
+results are not quite of the first rank. One reason of this is, perhaps,
+their extreme simplicity. Our imaginations, warned by consciousness and
+outward experience of the wonderful complexity of human nature, refuse
+to credit the existence of beings, all whose actions are unmodified
+consequences of a single principle. These two characters are Beatrice
+Cenci and her father Count Cenci. In most of Shelley’s poems—he died
+under thirty—there is an extreme suspicion of aged persons. In actual
+life he had plainly encountered many old gentlemen who had no belief in
+the complete and philosophical reformation of mankind. There is, indeed,
+an old hermit in the ‘Revolt of Islam’ who is praised (Captain Medwin
+identifies him with a Dr. Some-one who was kind to Shelley at Eton); but
+in general the old persons in his poems are persons whose authority it is
+desirable to disprove:—
+
+            ‘Old age, with its gray hair
+    And wrinkled legends of unworthy things
+    And icy sneers, is naught.’
+
+The less its influence, he evidently believes, the better. Not
+unnaturally, therefore, he selected for a tragedy a horrible subject
+from Italian story, in which an old man, accomplished in this world’s
+learning, renowned for the ‘cynic sneer of o’er experienced sin,’ is the
+principal evil agent. The character of Count Cenci is that of a man who
+of set principle does evil for evil’s sake. He loves ‘the sight of agony:’
+
+    ‘All men delight in sensual luxury;
+    All men enjoy revenge; and most exult
+    Over the tortures they can never feel,
+    Flattering their secret peace with others’ pain:
+    But I delight in nothing else.’
+
+If he regrets his age, it is from the failing ability to do evil:
+
+    ‘True, I was happier than I am while yet
+    Manhood remained to act the thing I thought;
+    While lust was sweeter than revenge: and now
+    Invention palls.’
+
+It is this that makes him contemplate the violation of his daughter:
+
+            ‘There yet remains a deed to act,
+    Whose horror might make sharp an appetite
+    More dull than mine.’
+
+Shelley, though an habitual student of Plato—the greatest modern writer
+who has taken great pleasure in his writings—never seems to have read
+any treatise of Aristotle; otherwise he would certainly seem to have
+derived from that great writer the idea of the ἀκόλαστος; yet in reality
+the idea is as natural to Shelley as any man—more likely to occur to
+him than to most. Children think that everybody who is bad is very bad.
+Their simple eager disposition only understands the doing what they wish
+to do; they do not refine: if they hear of a man doing evil, they think
+he wishes to do it,—that he has a special impulse to do evil, as they
+have to do what they do. Something like this was the case with Shelley.
+His mind, impulsive and childlike, could not imagine the struggling kind
+of character—either those which struggle with their lower nature and
+conquer, or those which struggle and are vanquished—either the ἐγκρατής
+or the ἀκρατής of the old thinker; but he could comprehend that which
+is in reality far worse than either, the being who wishes to commit sin
+because it is sin, who is as it were possessed with a demon hurrying
+him out, hot and passionate, to vice and crime. The innocent child is
+whirled away by one impulse; the passionate reformer by another; the
+essential criminal, if such a being be possible, by a third. They are
+all beings, according to one division, of the same class. An imaginative
+mind like Shelley’s, belonging to the second of these types, naturally
+is prone in some moods to embody itself under the forms of the third. It
+is, as it were, the antithesis to itself.—Equally simple is the other
+character—that of Beatrice. Even before her violation, by a graphic touch
+of art, she is described as absorbed, or beginning to be absorbed, in the
+consciousness of her wrongs;
+
+      ‘_Beatrice._ As I have said, speak to me not of love.
+    Had you a dispensation, I have not;
+    Nor will I leave this home of misery
+    Whilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle lady
+    To whom I owe life and these virtuous thoughts,
+    Must suffer what I still have strength to share.
+    Alas, Orsino! all the love that once
+    I felt for you is turned to bitter pain.
+    Ours was a youthful contract, which you first
+    Broke by assuming vows no Pope will loose:
+    And yet I love you still, but holily,
+    Even as a sister or a spirit might;
+    And so I swear a cold fidelity.’
+
+After her violation, her whole being is absorbed by one thought,—how and
+by what subtle vengeance she can expiate the memory of her shame. These
+are all the characters in Shelley; an impulsive unity is of the essence
+of them all.
+
+The same characteristic of Shelley’s temperament produced also most
+marked effects on his speculative opinions. The peculiarity of his
+creed early brought him into opposition to the world. His education
+seems to have been principally directed by his father, of whom the only
+description which has reached us is not favourable. Sir Timothy Shelley,
+according to Captain Medwin, was an illiterate country gentleman of an
+extinct race; he had been at Oxford, where he learned nothing, had made
+the grand tour, from which he brought back ‘a smattering of bad French
+and a bad picture of an eruption at Vesuvius.’ He had the air of the
+old school, and the habit of throwing it off which distinguished that
+school. Lord Chesterfield himself was not easier on matters of morality.
+He used to tell his son that he would provide for natural children
+_ad infinitum_, but would never forgive his making a _mésalliance_.
+On religion his opinions were very lax. He, indeed, ‘required his
+servants,’ we are told, ‘to attend church,’ and even on rare occasions,
+with superhuman virtue, attended himself; but there, as with others of
+that generation, his religion ended. He doubtless did not feel that any
+more could be required of him. He was not consciously insincere; but he
+did not in the least realise the opposition between the religion which
+he professed and the conduct which he pursued. Such a person was not
+likely to influence a morbidly sincere imaginative nature in favour
+of the doctrines of the Church of England. Shelley went from Eton,
+where he had been singular, to Oxford, where he was more so. He was a
+fair classical scholar. But his real mind was given to out-of-school
+knowledge. He had written a novel; he had studied chemistry; when
+pressed in argument, he used to ask, ‘What, then, does Condorcet say
+upon the subject?’ This was not exactly the youth for the University of
+Oxford in the year 1810. A distinguished pupil of that University once
+observed to us, ‘The use of the University of Oxford is, that no one
+can over-read themselves there. The appetite for knowledge is repressed.
+A blight is thrown over the ingenuous mind, &c.’ And possibly it may be
+so; considering how small a space literary knowledge fills in the busy
+English world, it may not be without its advantages that any mind prone
+to bookish enthusiasm should be taught by the dryness of its appointed
+studies, the want of sympathy of its teachers, and a rough contact with
+average English youth, that studious enthusiasm must be its own reward;
+that in this country it will meet with little other; that it will not
+be encouraged in high places. Such discipline may, however, be carried
+too far. A very enthusiastic mind may possibly by it be turned in upon
+itself. This was the case with Shelley. When he first came up to Oxford
+physics were his favourite pursuit. On chemistry, especially, he used
+to be eloquent. ‘The galvanic battery,’ said he, ‘is a new engine. It
+has been used hitherto to an insignificant extent: yet it has worked
+wonders already. What will not an extraordinary combination of troughs
+of colossal magnitude, a well-arranged system of hundreds of metallic
+plates, effect?’ Nature, however, like the world, discourages a wild
+enthusiasm. ‘His chemical operations seemed to an unskilful observer
+to promise nothing but disasters. He had blown himself up at Eton. He
+had inadvertently swallowed some mineral poison, which he declared had
+seriously injured his health, and from the effects of which he should
+never recover. His hands, his clothes, his books, and his furniture,
+were stained and covered by medical acids,’ and so on. Disgusted with
+these and other failures, he abandoned physics for metaphysics. He rushed
+head-long into the form of philosophy then popular. It is not likely
+that he ever read Locke; and it is easy to imagine the dismay with which
+the philosopher would have regarded so ‘heady and skittish’ a disciple:
+but he continually invoked Locke as an authority, and was really guided
+by the French expositions of him then popular. Hume, of course, was
+not without his influence. With such teachers only to control him, an
+excitable poet rushed in a moment to materialism, and thence to atheism.
+Deriving any instruction from the University, was, according to him,
+absurd; he wished to convert the University. He issued a kind of thesis,
+stating by way of interrogatory all the difficulties of the subject;
+called it the ‘necessity of atheism,’ and sent it to the professors,
+heads of houses, and several bishops. The theistic belief of his college
+was equal to the occasion. ‘It was a fine spring morning on Lady Day in
+the year 1811, when,’ says a fellow-student, ‘I went to Shelley’s rooms.
+He was absent; but before I had collected our books, he rushed in. He
+was terribly agitated. I anxiously inquired what had happened. “I am
+expelled.” He then explained that he had been summoned before the Master
+and some of the Fellows; that as he was unable to deny the authorship of
+the essay, he had been expelled and ordered to quit the college the next
+morning at latest.’ He had wished to be put on his trial more regularly,
+and stated to the Master that England was ‘a free country;’ but without
+effect. He was obliged to leave Oxford: his father was very angry; ‘if he
+had broken the Master’s windows, one could have understood it:’ but to be
+expelled for publishing a _book_ seemed an error incorrigible, because
+incomprehensible.
+
+These details at once illustrate Shelley’s temperament, and enable us to
+show that the peculiarity of his opinions arose out of that temperament.
+He was placed in circumstances which left his eager mind quite free. Of
+his father we have already spoken: there was no one else to exercise a
+subduing or guiding influence over him; nor would his mind have naturally
+been one extremely easy to influence. Through life he followed very much
+his own bent and his own thoughts. His most intimate associates exercised
+very little control over his belief. He followed his nature; and that
+nature was in a singular degree destitute of certain elements which most
+materially guide ordinary men. It seems most likely that a person prone
+to isolated impulse will be defective in the sensation of conscience.
+There is scarcely room for it. When, as in common conflicting
+characters, the whole nature is daily and hourly in a perpetual struggle,
+the faculty which decides what elements in that nature are to have the
+supremacy is daily and hourly appealed to. Passions are contending; life
+is a discipline; there is a reference every moment to the directory
+of the discipline—the order-book of the passions. In temperaments not
+exposed to the ordinary struggle there is no such necessity. Their
+impulse guides them; they have little temptation; are scarcely under the
+law; have hardly occasion to consult the statute-book. In consequence,
+simple and beautiful as such minds often are, they are deficient in the
+sensation of duty; have no haunting idea of right or wrong; show an easy
+_abandon_ in place of a severe self-scrutiny. At first it might seem
+that such minds lose little; they are exempted from the consciousness of
+a code to whose provisions they need little access. But such would be
+the conclusion only from a superficial view of human nature. The whole
+of our inmost faith is a series of intuitions; and experience seems
+to show that the intuitions of conscience are the beginning of that
+series. Childhood has little which can be called a religion; the shows
+of this world, the play of its lights and shadows, suffice. It is in
+the collision of our nature, which occurs in youth, that the first real
+sensation of faith is felt. Conscience is often then morbidly acute; a
+flush passes over the youthful mind; the guiding instinct is keen and
+strong, like the passions with which it contends. At the first struggle
+of our nature commences our religion. Childhood will utter the words; in
+early manhood, when we become half-unwilling to utter them, they begin to
+have a meaning. The result of history is similar. The whole of religion
+rests on a faith that the universe is solely ruled by an almighty and
+all-perfect Being. This strengthens with the moral cultivation, and grows
+with the improvement of mankind. It is the assumed axiom of the creed
+of Christendom; and all that is really highest in our race may have the
+degree of its excellence tested by the degree of the belief in it. But
+experience shows that the belief only grows very gradually. We see at
+various times, and now, vast outlying nations in whom the conviction of
+morality—the consciousness of a law—is but weak; and there the belief in
+an all-perfect God is half-forgotten, faint, and meagre. It exists as
+something between a tradition and a speculation; but it does not come
+forth on the solid earth; it has no place in the business and bosoms
+of men; it is thrust out of view even when we look upwards by fancied
+idols and dreams of the stars in their courses. Consider the state of
+the Jewish, as compared with the better part of the Pagan world of
+old. On the one side we see civilisation, commerce, the arts, a great
+excellence in all the exterior of man’s life; a sort of morality sound
+and sensible, placing the good of man in a balanced moderation within
+and good looks without;—in a combination of considerate good sense, with
+the _air_ of aristocratic, or, as it was said, ‘godlike’ refinement.
+We see, in a word, civilisation, and the ethics of civilisation; the
+first polished, the other elaborated and perfected. But this is all;
+we do not see faith. We see in some quarters rather a horror of the
+_curiosus deus_ interfering, controlling, watching,—never letting things
+alone,—disturbing the quiet of the world with punishment and the fear
+of punishment. The Jewish side of the picture is different. We see a
+people who have perhaps an inaptitude for independent civilisation, who
+in secular pursuits have only been assistants and attendants on other
+nations during the whole history of mankind. These have no equable,
+beautiful morality like the others; but instead a gnawing, abiding,
+depressing—one might say, a slavish—ceremonial, excessive sense of law
+and duty. This nation has faith. By a link not logical, but ethical,
+this intense, eating, abiding supremacy of conscience is connected
+with a deep daily sense of a watchful, governing, and jealous God. And
+from the people of the law arises the gospel. The sense of duty, when
+awakened, awakens not only the religion of the law, but in the end the
+other religious intuitions which lie round about it. The faith of
+Christendom has arisen not from a great people, but from ‘the least of
+all people,’—from the people whose anxious legalism was a noted contrast
+to the easy, impulsive life of pagan nations. In modern language,
+conscience is the _converting_ intuition,—that which turns men from the
+world without to that within,—from the things which are seen to the
+realities which are not seen. In a character like Shelley’s, where this
+haunting, abiding, oppressive moral feeling is wanting or defective, the
+religious belief in an Almighty God which springs out of it is likely to
+be defective likewise.
+
+In Shelley’s case this deficiency was aggravated by what may be called
+the abstract character of his intellect. We have shown that no character
+except his own, and characters most strictly allied to his own, are
+delineated in his works. The tendency of his mind was rather to personify
+isolated qualities or impulses—equality, liberty, revenge, and so on—than
+to create out of separate parts or passions the single conception of an
+entire character. This is, properly speaking, the mythological tendency.
+All early nations show this marked disposition to conceive of separate
+forces and qualities as a kind of semi-persons; that is, not true
+actual persons with distinct characters, but beings who guide certain
+influences, and of whom all we know is that they guide those influences.
+Shelley evinces a remarkable tendency to deal with mythology in this
+simple and elementary form. Other poets have breathed into mythology
+a modern life; have been attracted by those parts which seem to have
+a religious meaning, and have enlarged that meaning while studying to
+embody it. With Shelley it is otherwise; the parts of mythology by which
+he is attracted are the bare parts—the simple stories which Dr. Johnson
+found so tedious:—
+
+        ‘Arethusa arose
+        From her couch of snows
+    In the Acroceraunian mountains.
+        From cloud and from crag,
+        With many a jag,
+    Shepherding her bright fountains,
+        She leapt down the rocks
+        With her rainbow locks
+    Streaming among the streams;
+        Her steps paved with green
+        The downward ravine,
+    Which slopes to the western gleams;
+        And gliding and springing,
+        She went ever singing,
+    In murmurs as soft as sleep;
+        The earth seemed to love her,
+        And heaven smiled above her,
+    As she lingered towards the deep.
+        Then Alpheus bold,
+        On his glacier cold,
+    With his trident the mountains strook,’
+            &c. &c.
+
+Arethusa and Alpheus are not characters: they are only the spirits of
+the fountain and the stream. When not writing on topics connected with
+ancient mythology, Shelley shows the same bent. ‘The Cloud,’ and the
+‘Skylark,’ are more like mythology—have more of the impulse by which
+the populace, if we may so say, of the external world was first fancied
+into existence—than any other modern poems. There is, indeed, no habit
+of mind more remote from our solid and matter-of-fact existence; none
+which was once powerful, of which the present traces are so rare. In
+truth, Shelley’s imagination achieved all it could with the materials
+before it. The materials for the creative faculty must be provided by
+the receptive faculty. Before a man can imagine what will seem to be
+realities, he must be familiar with what are realities. The memory
+of Shelley had no heaped-up ‘store of life,’ no vast accumulation of
+familiar characters. His intellect did not tend to the strong grasp of
+realities; its taste was rather for the subtle refining of theories,
+the distilling of exquisite abstractions. His imagination personified
+what his understanding presented to it. It had nothing else to do. He
+displayed the same tendency of mind—sometimes negatively and sometimes
+positively—in his professedly religious inquiries. His belief went
+through three stages—first, materialism, then a sort of Nihilism, then
+a sort of Platonism. In neither of them is the rule of the universe
+ascribed to a character: in the first and last it is ascribed to animated
+abstractions; in the second there is no universe at all. In neither of
+them is there any strong grasp of fact. The writings of the first period
+are clearly influenced by, and modelled on, Lucretius. He held the same
+abstract theory of nature—sometimes of half-personified atoms, moving
+hither and thither of themselves—at other times of a general pervading
+spirit of nature, holding the same relation to nature, as a visible
+object, that Arethusa the goddess bears to Arethusa the stream:
+
+          ‘The magic car moved on.
+          As they approached their goal
+      The coursers seemed to gather speed:
+    The sea no longer was distinguished; earth
+      Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere:
+          The sun’s unclouded orb
+          Rolled through the black concave;
+          Its rays of rapid light
+    Parted around the chariot’s swifter course,
+      And fell like ocean’s feathery spray
+          Dashed from the boiling surge
+          Before a vessel’s prow.
+
+          The magic car moved on.
+          Earth’s distant orb appeared
+    The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens:
+        Whilst round the chariot’s way
+        Innumerable systems rolled,
+        And countless spheres diffused
+        An ever-varying glory.
+      It was a sight of wonder: some
+      Were horned like the crescent moon;
+      Some shed a mild and silver beam
+      Like Hesperus o’er the western sea;
+      Some dash’d athwart with trains of flame,
+      Like worlds to death and ruin driven;
+    Some shone like stars, and, as the chariot passed,
+          Bedimmed all other light.
+
+          Spirit of Nature! here,
+      In this interminable wilderness
+      Of worlds, at whose immensity
+        Even soaring fancy staggers,—
+        Here is thy fitting temple.
+          Yet not the lightest leaf
+      That quivers to the passing breeze
+          Is less instinct with thee:
+          Yet not the meanest worm
+    That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
+      Less shares thy eternal breath.
+          Spirit of Nature! thou,
+      Imperishable as this glorious scene,—
+          Here is thy fitting temple.’
+
+And he copied not only the opinions of Lucretius, but also his tone.
+Nothing is more remarkable than that two poets of the first rank should
+have felt a bounding joy in the possession of opinions which, if true,
+ought, one would think, to move an excitable nature to the keenest and
+deepest melancholy. That this life is all; that there is no God, but only
+atoms and a moulding breath; are singular doctrines to be accepted with
+joy: they only could have been so accepted by wild minds bursting with
+imperious energy, knowing of no law, ‘wreaking thoughts upon expression’
+of which they knew neither the meaning nor the result. From this stage
+Shelley’s mind passed to another; but not immediately to one of greater
+belief. On the contrary, it was the doctrine of Hume which was called
+in to expel the doctrine of Epicurus. His previous teachers had taught
+him that there was nothing except matter: the Scotch sceptic met him at
+that point with the question—Is matter certain? Hume, as is well known,
+adopted the negative part from the theory of materialism and the theory
+of immaterialism, but rejected the positive side of both. He held, or
+professed to hold, that there was no substantial thing, either matter or
+mind; but only ‘sensations and impressions’ flying about the universe,
+inhering in nothing and going nowhere. These, he said, were the only
+subjects of consciousness; all you felt was your feeling, and all your
+thought was your thought; the rest was only hypothesis. The notion
+that there was any ‘_you_’ at all was a theory generally current among
+mankind, but not, unless proved, to be accepted by the philosopher.
+This doctrine, though little agreeable to the world in general, has an
+excellence in the eyes of youthful disputants; it is a doctrine which
+no one will admit, and which no one can disprove. Shelley accordingly
+accepted it; indeed it was a better description of his universe than
+of most people’s; his mind was filled with a swarm of ideas, fancies,
+thoughts, streaming on without his volition, without plan or order. He
+might be pardoned for fancying that they were all; he could not see the
+outward world for them; their giddy passage occupied him till he forgot
+himself. He has put down the theory in its barest form: ‘The most refined
+abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life which, though startling
+to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which the habitual sense of its
+repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were,
+the painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that I am one
+of those who am unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those
+philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived.’ And
+again: ‘The view of life presented by the most refined deductions of the
+intellectual philosophy is that of unity. Nothing exists but as it is
+perceived. The difference is merely nominal between those two classes of
+thought which are vulgarly distinguished by the names of ideas and of
+external objects. Pursuing the same thread of reasoning, the existence
+of distinct individual minds, similar to that which is employed in
+now questioning its own nature, is likewise found to be a delusion.
+The words, _I_, _you_, _they_, are not signs of any actual difference
+subsisting between the assemblage of thoughts thus indicated, but are
+merely marks employed to denote the different modifications of the one
+mind. Let it not be supposed that this doctrine conducts to the monstrous
+presumption that I, the person who now write and think, am that one
+mind. I am but a portion of it. The words, _I_, and _you_, and _they_,
+are grammatical devices invented simply for arrangement, and totally
+devoid of the intense and exclusive sense usually attached to them. It
+is difficult to find terms adequate to express so subtle a conception as
+that to which the intellectual philosophy has conducted us. We are on
+that verge where words abandon us; and what wonder if we grow dizzy to
+look down the dark abyss of how little we know!’ On his wild nerves these
+speculations produced a great effect. Their thin acuteness excited his
+intellect; their blank result appalled his imagination. He was obliged to
+pause in the last fragment of one of his metaphysical papers, ‘dizzy from
+thrilling horror.’ In this state of mind he began to study Plato; and it
+is probable that in the whole library of philosophy there is no writer
+so suitable to such a reader. A common modern author, believing in mind
+and matter, he would have put aside at once as loose and popular. He was
+attracted by a writer who, like himself, in some sense did not believe
+in either—who supplied him with subtle realities different from either,
+at once to be extracted by his intellect and to be glorified by his
+imagination. The theory of Plato, that the all-apparent phenomena were
+unreal, he believed already; he had a craving to believe in something
+noble, beautiful, and difficult to understand; he was ready, therefore,
+to accept the rest of that theory, and to believe that these passing
+phenomena were imperfect types and resemblances—imperfect incarnations,
+so to speak—of certain immovable, eternal, archetypal realities. All
+his later writings are coloured by that theory, though in some passages
+the remains of the philosophy of the senses with which he commenced
+appear in odd proximity to the philosophy of abstractions with which he
+concluded. There is, perhaps, no allusion in Shelley to the _Phædrus_;
+but no one can doubt which of Plato’s ideas would be most attractive to
+the nature we have described. The most valuable part of Plato he did
+not comprehend. There is in Shelley none of that unceasing reference to
+ethical consciousness and ethical religion which has for centuries placed
+Plato first among the preparatory preceptors of Christianity. The general
+doctrine is that
+
+    ‘The one remains, the many change and pass;
+    Heaven’s light for ever shines, earth’s shadows fly;
+    Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
+    Stains the white radiance of eternity,
+    Until death tramples it to fragments.’
+
+The particular worship of the poet is paid to that one spirit whose
+
+                              ‘Plastic stress
+    Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there
+    All new successions to the forms they wear;
+    Torturing th’ unwilling dross that checks its flight
+    To its own likeness, as each mass may bear;
+    And bursting in its beauty and its might
+    From trees, and beasts, and men, into the heaven’s light.’
+
+It is evident that not even in this, the highest form of creed to which
+he ever clearly attained, is there any such distinct conception of a
+character as is essential to a real religion. The conception of God is
+not to be framed out of a single attribute. Shelley has changed the
+‘idea’ of beauty into a spirit, and this probably for the purposes of
+poetry; he has given it life and animal motion; but he has done no more;
+the ‘spirit’ has no will, and no virtue: it is animated, but unholy;
+alive, but unmoral: it is an object of intense admiration; it is not an
+object of worship.
+
+We have ascribed this quality of Shelley’s writings to an abstract
+intellect; and in part, no doubt, correctly. Shelley had, probably by
+nature, such an intellect; it was self-enclosed, self-absorbed, teeming
+with singular ideas, remote from character and life; but so involved is
+human nature, that this tendency to abstraction, which we have spoken of
+as aggravating the consequences of his simple impulsive temperament,
+was itself aggravated by that temperament. It is a received opinion in
+metaphysics, that the idea of personality is identical with the idea of
+will. A distinguished French writer has accurately expressed this: ‘Le
+pouvoir,’ says M. Jouffroy, ‘que l’homme a de s’emparer de ses capacités
+naturelles et de les diriger fait de lui une _personne_; et c’est parce
+que les _choses_ n’exercent pas ce pouvoir en elles-mêmes, qu’elles ne
+sont que des choses. Telle est la véritable différence qui distingue
+les choses des personnes. Toutes les natures possibles sont douées de
+certaines capacités; mais les unes out reçu par-dessus les autres le
+privilège de se saisir d’elles-mêmes et de se gouverner: celles-là sont
+les personnes. Les autres en ont été privées, en sorte qu’elles n’ont
+point de part à ce qui se fait en elles: celles-là sont les choses.
+Leurs capacités ne s’en développent pas moins, mais c’est exclusivement
+selon les lois auxquelles Dieu les a soumises. C’est Dieu qui gouverne
+en elles; il est la personne des choses, comme l’ouvrier est la personne
+de la montre. Ici la personne est hors de l’être; dans le sein même des
+choses, comme dans le sein de la montre, la personne ne se rencontre pas;
+on ne trouve qu’une série de capacités qui se meuvent aveuglément, sans
+que la nature qui en est douée sache même ce qu’elles font. Aussi ne
+peut-on demander compte aux choses de ce qui se fait en elles; il faut
+s’adresser à Dieu: comme on s’adresse à l’ouvrier et non à la montre,
+quand la montre va mal.’ And if this theory be true—and doubtless it is
+an approximation to the truth—it is evident that a mind ordinarily moved
+by simple impulse will have little distinct consciousness of personality.
+While thrust forward by such impulse, it is a mere instrument. Outward
+things set it in motion. It goes where they bid; it exerts no will upon
+them; it is, to speak expressively, a mere conducting thing. When such
+a mind is free from such impulse, there is even less will; thoughts,
+feelings, ideas, emotions, pass before it in a sort of dream. For the
+time it is a mere perceiving thing. In neither case is there a trace
+of voluntary character. If we want a reason for anything, ‘il faut
+s’adresser à Dieu.’
+
+Shelley’s political opinions were likewise the effervescence of his
+peculiar nature. The love of liberty is peculiarly natural to the simple
+impulsive mind. It feels irritated at the idea of a law; it fancies it
+does not need it: it really needs it less than other minds. Government
+seems absurd—society an incubus. It has hardly patience to estimate
+particular institutions: it wants to begin again—to make a _tabula rasa_
+of all which men have created or devised; for they seem to have been
+constructed on a false system, for an object it does not understand. On
+this _tabula rasa_ Shelley’s abstract imagination proceeded to set up
+arbitrary monstrosities of ‘equality’ and ‘love,’ which never will be
+realised among the children of men.
+
+Such a mind is clearly driven to self-delineation. Nature, no doubt, in
+some sense remains to it. A dreamy mind—a mind occupied intensely with
+its own thoughts—will often have a peculiarly intense apprehension of
+anything which by the hard collision of the world it has been forced to
+observe. The scene stands out alone in the memory; is a refreshment from
+hot thoughts; grows with the distance of years. A mind like Shelley’s,
+deeply susceptible to all things beautiful, has many pictures and images
+shining in its recollection which it recurs to, and which it is ever
+striving to delineate. Indeed, in such minds it is rather the picture in
+their mind which they describe than the original object; the ‘ideation,’
+as some harsh metaphysicians call it, rather than the reality. A certain
+dream-light is diffused over it; a wavering touch, as of interfering
+fancy or fading recollection. The landscape has not the hues of the
+real world; it is modified in the _camera obscura_ of the self-enclosed
+intelligence. Nor can such a mind long endure the cold process of
+external delineation. Its own hot thoughts rush in; its favourite topic
+is itself and them. Shelley, indeed, as we observed before, carries this
+to an extent which no poet probably ever equalled. He described not only
+his character but his circumstances. We know that this is so in a large
+number of passages; if his poems were commented on by some one thoroughly
+familiar with the events of his life, we should doubtless find that it
+was so in many more. On one strange and painful scene his fancy was
+continually dwelling. In a gentle moment we have a dirge—
+
+    ‘The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
+    The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
+                    And the year
+    On the earth her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves, dead
+                    Is lying.
+                Come months, come away,
+                From November to May,
+                In your saddest array;
+                Follow the bier
+                Of the dead cold year,
+    And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.
+
+    ‘The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling,
+    The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling;
+                    For the year;
+    The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
+                    To his dwelling.
+                Come, months, come away;
+                Put on white, black, and gray;
+                Let your light sisters play—
+                Ye, follow the bier
+                Of the dead cold year,
+    And make her grave green with tear on tear.’
+
+In a frenzied mood he breaks forth into wildness:
+
+    ‘She is still, she is cold
+            On the bridal couch;
+    One step to the white deathbed,
+            And one to the bier,
+    And one to the charnel—and one, O, where?
+            The dark arrow fled
+            In the noon.
+    Ere the sun through heaven once more has roll’d,
+    The rats in her heart
+    Will have made their nest,
+    And the worms be alive in her golden hair;
+    While the spirit that guides the sun
+    Sits throned in his flaming chair,
+            She shall sleep.’
+
+There is no doubt that these and a hundred other similar passages allude
+to the death of his first wife; as melancholy a story as ever shivered
+the nerves of an excitable being. The facts are hardly known to us, but
+they are something like these: In very early youth Shelley had formed
+a half-fanciful attachment to a cousin, a Miss Harriet Grove, who is
+said to have been attractive, and to whom, certainly, his fancy often
+went back in later and distant years. How deep the feeling was on either
+side we do not know; she seems to have taken an interest in the hot
+singular dreams which occupied his mind—except only where her image might
+intrude—from which one might conjecture that she took unusual interest in
+him; she even wrote some chapters, or parts of some, in one of his boyish
+novels, and her parents doubtless thought the ‘Rosicrucian’ could be
+endured, as Shelley was the heir to land and a baronetcy. His expulsion
+from Oxford altered all this. Probably he had always among his friends
+been thought ‘a singular young man,’ and they had waited in perplexity
+to see if the oddness would turn to unusual good or unusual evil. His
+atheistic treatise and its results seemed to show clearly the latter, and
+all communication with Miss Grove was instantly forbidden him. What she
+felt on the subject is not told us; probably some theistic and undreaming
+lover intervened, for she married in a short time. The despair of an
+excitable poet at being deprived of his mistress at the same moment that
+he was abandoned by his family, and in a measure by society, may be
+fancied, though it cannot be known. Captain Medwin observes: ‘Shelley,
+on this trying occasion, had the courage to live, in order that he might
+labour for one great object—the advancement of the human race, and the
+amelioration of society; and strengthened himself in a resolution to
+devote his energies to this ultimate end, being prepared to endure every
+obloquy, to make every sacrifice for its accomplishment: and would,’
+such is the Captain’s English, ‘if necessary, have died in the cause.’
+It does not appear, however, that disappointed love took solely the very
+unusual form of philanthropy. By chance, whether with or without leave
+does not appear, he went to see his second sister, who was at school
+at a place called Balham Hill, near London; and, while walking in the
+garden with her, ‘a Miss Westbrook passed them.’ She was a ‘handsome
+blonde young lady, nearly sixteen;’ and Shelley was much struck. He found
+out that her name was ‘Harriett,’—as he, after his marriage, anxiously
+expresses it, with two t’s, ‘Harriett;’ and he fell in love at once. She
+had the name of his first love; ‘fairer, though yet the same.’ After his
+manner, he wrote to her immediately. He was in the habit of doing this to
+people who interested him, either in his own or under an assumed name:
+and once, Captain Medwin says, carried on a long correspondence with
+Mrs. Hemans, then Miss Browne, under his (the captain’s) name; but which
+he, the deponent, was not permitted to peruse. In Miss Westbrook’s case
+the correspondence had a more serious consequence. Of her character we
+can only guess a little. She was, we think, an ordinary blooming young
+lady of sixteen. Shelley was an extraordinary young man of nineteen,
+rather handsome, very animated, and expressing his admiration a little
+intensely. He was doubtless much the most aristocratic person she had
+ever spoken to; for her father was a retired innkeeper, and Shelley had
+always the air of a man of birth. There is a vision, too, of an elder
+sister, who made ‘Harriett dear’ very uncomfortable. On the whole, the
+result may be guessed. At the end of August 1811, we do not know the
+precise day, they were married at Gretna Green. Jests may be made on it;
+but it was no laughing matter in the life of the wife or the husband. Of
+the lady’s disposition and mind we know nothing, except from Shelley;
+a medium which must, under the circumstances, be thought a distorting
+one. We should conclude that she was capable of making many people happy,
+though not of making Shelley happy. There is an ordinance of nature at
+which men of genius are perpetually fretting, but which does more good
+than many laws of the universe which they praise: it is, that ordinary
+women ordinarily prefer ordinary men. ‘Genius,’ as Hazlitt would have
+said, ‘puts them out.’ It is so strange; it does not come into the room
+as usual; it says ‘such things:’ once it forgot to brush its hair. The
+common female mind prefers usual tastes, settled manners, customary
+conversation, defined and practical pursuits. And it is a great good that
+it should be so. Nature has no wiser instinct. The average woman suits
+the average man; good health, easy cheerfulness, common charms, suffice.
+If Miss Westbrook had married an every-day person—a gentleman, suppose,
+in the tallow line—she would have been happy, and have made him happy.
+Her mind could have understood his life; her society would have been a
+gentle relief from unodoriferous pursuits. She had nothing in common
+with Shelley. His mind was full of eager thoughts, wild dreams, singular
+aspirations. The most delicate tact would probably have often failed, the
+nicest sensibility would have been jarred, affection would have erred,
+in dealing with such a being. A very peculiar character was required, to
+enter into such a rare union of curious qualities. Some eccentric men of
+genius have, indeed, felt in the habitual tact and serene nothingness of
+ordinary women, a kind of trust and calm. They have admired an instinct
+of the world which they had not—a repose of mind they could not share.
+But this is commonly in later years. A boy of twenty thinks he knows
+the world; he is too proud and happy in his own eager and shifting
+thoughts, to wish to contrast them with repose. The commonplaceness of
+life goads him: placid society irritates him. Bread is an incumbrance;
+upholstery tedious: he craves excitement; he wishes to reform mankind.
+You cannot convince him it is right to sew, in a world so full of sorrow
+and evil. Shelley was in this state; he hurried to and fro over England,
+pursuing theories, and absorbed in plans. He was deep in metaphysics;
+had subtle disproofs of all religion; wrote several poems, which would
+have been a puzzle to a very clever young lady. There were pecuniary
+difficulties besides: neither of the families had approved of the match,
+and neither were inclined to support the household. Altogether, no one
+can be surprised that in less than three years the hasty union ended
+in a ‘separation by mutual consent.’ The wonder is that it lasted so
+long.—What her conduct was after the separation, is not very clear: there
+were ‘reports’ about her at Bath—perhaps a loquacious place. She was not
+twenty, probably handsome, and not improbably giddy: being quite without
+evidence, we cannot judge what was rumour and what was truth. Shelley
+has not left us in similar doubt. After a year or two he travelled
+abroad with Mary, afterwards the second Mrs. Shelley, the daughter of
+Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin—names most celebrated in those
+times, and even now known for their anti-matrimonial speculations. Of
+their ‘six weeks’ tour’ abroad, in the year 1816, a record remains, and
+should be read by any persons who wish to learn what travelling was in
+its infancy. It was the year when the Continent was first thrown open
+to English travellers; and few probably adopted such singular means of
+locomotion as Shelley and his companions. First they tried walking,
+and had a very small ass to carry their portmanteau; then they tried a
+mule; then a _fiacre_, which drove away from them; afterwards they came
+to a raft. It was not, however, an unamusing journey. At an ugly and
+out-of-the-way château, near Brunen, Shelley began a novel, to be called
+‘The Assassins,’ which he never finished—probably never continued—after
+his return; but which still remains, and is one of the most curious
+and characteristic specimens of his prose style. It was a refreshing
+intellectual tour; one of the most pleasant rambles of his life. On
+his return he was met by painful intelligence. His wife had destroyed
+herself. Of her state of mind we have again no evidence. She is said to
+have been deeply affected by the ‘reports’ to which we have alluded;
+but whatever it was, Shelley felt himself greatly to blame. He had been
+instrumental in first dividing her from her family; had connected himself
+with her in a wild contract, from which neither could ever be set free;
+if he had not crossed her path, she might have been happy in her own way
+and in her own sphere. All this preyed upon his mind, and it is said he
+became mad; and whether or not his horror and pain went the length of
+actual frenzy, they doubtless approached that border-line of suffering
+excitement which divides the most melancholy form of sanity from the
+most melancholy form of insanity. In several poems he seems to delineate
+himself in the guise of a maniac:
+
+                              ‘“Of his sad history
+    I know but this,” said Maddalo; “he came
+    To Venice a dejected man, and fame
+    Said he was wealthy, or he had been so.
+    Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;
+    But he was ever talking in such sort
+    As you do,—but more sadly: he seem’d hurt,
+    Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,
+    To hear but of the oppression of the strong,
+    Or those absurd deceits (I think with you
+    In some respects, you know) which carry through
+    The excellent impostors of this earth
+    When they outface detection. He had worth,
+    Poor fellow! but a humourist in his way.”—
+
+    —“Alas, what drove him mad?”
+
+                              “I cannot say:
+    A lady came with him from France; and when
+    She left him and returned, he wander’d then
+    About yon lonely isles of desert sand
+    Till he grew wild. He had no cash nor land
+    Remaining:—the police had brought him here—
+    Some fancy took him, and he would not bear
+    Removal; so I fitted up for him
+    Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim;
+    And sent him busts, and books, and urns for flowers,
+    Which had adorned his life in happier hours,
+    And instruments of music. You may guess,
+    A stranger could do little more or less
+    For one so gentle and unfortunate—
+    And those are his sweet strains, which charm the weight
+    From madmen’s chains, and make this hell appear
+    A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.”
+
+        “Nay, this was kind of you,—he had no claim,
+    As the world says.”
+
+                        “None but the very same,
+    Which I on all mankind, were I, as he,
+    Fall’n to such deep reverse. His melody
+    Is interrupted; now we hear the din
+    Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin;
+    Let us now visit him: after this strain
+    He ever communes with himself again,
+    And sees and hears not any.”
+
+                                        Having said
+    These words, we called the keeper: and he led
+    To an apartment opening on the sea—
+    There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully
+    Near a piano, his pale fingers twined
+    One with the other; and the ooze and wind
+    Rushed through an open casement, and did sway
+    His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray:
+    His head was leaning on a music-book,
+    And he was muttering; and his lean limbs shook;
+    His lips were pressed against a folded leaf,
+    In hue too beautiful for health, and grief
+    Smiled in their motions as they lay apart,
+    As one who wrought from his own fervid heart
+    The eloquence of passion: soon he raised
+    His sad meek face, and eyes lustrous and glazed,
+    And spoke,—sometimes as one who wrote and thought
+    His words might move some heart that heeded not,
+    If sent to distant lands;—and then as one
+    Reproaching deeds never to be undone,
+    With wondering self-compassion; then his speech
+    Was lost in grief, and then his words came each
+    Unmodulated and expressionless,—
+    But that from one jarred accent you might guess
+    It was despair made them so uniform:
+    And all the while the loud and gusty storm
+    Hissed through the window; and we stood behind,
+    Stealing his accents from the envious wind,
+    Unseen. I yet remember what he said
+    Distinctly—such impression his words made.’
+
+And casual illustrations—unconscious metaphors, showing a terrible
+familiarity—are borrowed from insanity in his subsequent works.
+
+This strange story is in various ways deeply illustrative of his
+character. It shows how the impulsive temperament, not definitely
+intending evil, is hurried forward, so to say, _over_ actions and crimes
+which would seem to indicate deep depravity—which would do so in ordinary
+human nature, but which do not indicate in it anything like the same
+degree of guilt. Driven by singular passion across a tainted region, it
+retains no taint; on a sudden it passes through evil, but preserves its
+purity. So curious is this character, that a record of its actions may
+read like a libel on its life.
+
+To some the story may also suggest whether Shelley’s nature was one of
+those most adapted for love in its highest form. It is impossible to
+deny that he loved with a great intensity; yet it was with a certain
+narrowness, and therefore a certain fitfulness. Possibly a somewhat
+wider nature, taking hold of other characters at more points,—fascinated
+as intensely, but more variously.—stirred as deeply, but through more
+complicated emotions,—is requisite for the highest and most lasting
+feeling. Passion, to be enduring, must be many-sided. Eager and narrow
+emotions urge like the gadfly of the poet: but they pass away; they are
+single; there is nothing to revive them. Various as human nature must
+be the passion which absorbs that nature into itself. Shelley’s mode
+of delineating women has a corresponding peculiarity. They are well
+described; but they are described under only one aspect. Every one of his
+poems almost has a lady whose arms are white, whose mind is sympathising,
+and whose soul is beautiful. She has many names—Cythna, Asia, Emily; but
+these are only external disguises; she is indubitably the same person,
+for her character never varies. No character can be simpler. She is
+described as the ideal object of love in its most simple and elemental
+form; the pure object of the essential passion. She is a being to be
+loved in a single moment, with eager eyes and gasping breath; but you
+feel that in that moment you have seen the whole. There is nothing to
+come to afterwards. The fascination is intense, but uniform. There is not
+the ever-varying grace, the ever-changing expression of the unchanging
+charm, that alone can attract for all time the shifting moods of a
+various and mutable nature.
+
+The works of Shelley lie in a confused state, like the _disjecta membra_
+of the poet of our boyhood. They are in the strictest sense ‘remains.’
+It is absurd to expect from a man who died at thirty a long work of
+perfected excellence. All which at so early an age can be expected are
+fine fragments, casual expressions of single inspirations. Of these
+Shelley has written some that are nearly, and one or two perhaps that
+are quite, perfect. But he has not done more. It would have been better
+if he had not attempted so much. He would have done well to have heeded
+Goethe’s caution to Eckerman: ‘Beware of attempting a large work. If you
+have a great work in your head, nothing else thrives near it, all other
+thoughts are repelled, and the pleasantness of life itself is for the
+time lost. What exertion and expenditure of mental force are required
+to arrange and round off a great whole; and then what powers, and what
+a tranquil undisturbed situation in life, to express it with the proper
+fluency! If you have erred as to the whole, all your toil is lost; and
+further, if, in treating so extensive a subject, you are not perfectly
+master of your material in the details, the whole will be defective,
+and censure will be incurred.’ Shelley did not know this. He was ever
+labouring at long poems: but he has scarcely left one which, as a whole,
+is worthy of him; you can point to none and say, This is Shelley. Even
+had he lived to an age of riper capacity, it may be doubted if a being
+so discontinuous, so easily hurried to and fro, would have possessed
+the settled, undeviating self-devotion that are necessary to a long and
+perfect composition. He had not, like Goethe, the cool shrewdness to
+watch for inspiration.
+
+His success, as we have said, is in fragments; and the best of those
+fragments are lyrical. The very same isolation and suddenness of impulse
+which rendered him unfit for the composition of great works, rendered him
+peculiarly fit to pour forth on a sudden the intense essence of peculiar
+feeling ‘in profuse strains of unpremeditated art.’ Lord Macaulay has
+said that the words ‘bard’ and ‘inspiration,’ generally so meaningless
+when applied to modern poets, have a meaning when applied to Shelley.
+An idea, an emotion grew upon his brain his breast heaved, his frame
+shook, his nerves quivered with the ‘harmonious madness’ of imaginative
+concentration. ‘Poetry,’ he himself tells us, ‘is not, like reasoning,
+a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man
+cannot say, “I will compose poetry.” The greatest poet even cannot say
+it; for the mind in creation is as a fading coal, which some invisible
+influence, like an inconstant wind, awakens to transitory brightness;
+this power arises from within, like the colour of a flower which fades
+and changes as it is developed, and the conscious portions of our nature
+are unprophetic either of its approach or its departure.... Poetry is the
+record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.
+We are aware of evanescent visitations of thought and feeling sometimes
+associated with place or person, sometimes regarding our own mind alone,
+and always arising unforeseen and departing unbidden, but elevating and
+delightful beyond all expression: so that even in the desire and the
+regret they leave, there cannot but be pleasure, participating as it does
+in the nature of its object. It is as it were the interpenetration of a
+diviner nature through our own; but its footsteps are like those of a
+wind over the sea, which the coming calm erases, and whose traces remain
+only, as on the wrinkled sand which paves it.’ In verse, Shelley has
+compared the skylark to a poet; we may turn back the description on his
+own art and his own mind:
+
+          ‘Keen as are the arrows
+            Of that silver sphere,
+          Whose intense lamp narrows
+            In the white dawn clear,
+    Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
+
+          All the earth and air
+            With thy voice is loud,
+          As, when night is bare,
+            From one lonely cloud
+    The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
+
+          What thou art we know not;
+            What is most like thee?
+          From rainbow-clouds there flow not
+            Drops so bright to see,
+    As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
+
+    ...
+
+          Like a high-born maiden
+            In a palace-tower,
+          Soothing her love-laden
+            Soul in secret hour
+    With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower.
+
+          Like a glow-worm golden
+            In a dell of dew,
+          Scattering unbeholden
+            Its aërial hue
+    Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.
+
+          Like a rose embowered
+            In its own green leaves,
+          By warm winds deflowered,
+            Till the scent it gives
+    Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves.
+
+          Sound of vernal showers
+            On the twinkling grass,
+          Rain-awakened flowers,
+            All that ever was
+    Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.’
+
+In most poets unearthly beings are introduced to express peculiar removed
+essences of lyrical rapture; but they are generally failures. Lord Byron
+tried this kind of composition in ‘Manfred,’ and the result is an evident
+failure. In Shelley, such singing solitary beings are almost uniformly
+successful; while writing, his mind really for the moment was in the
+state in which theirs is supposed always to be. He loved attenuated ideas
+and abstracted excitement. In expressing their nature he had but to set
+free his own.
+
+Human nature is not, however, long equal to this sustained effort of
+remote excitement. The impulse fails, imagination fades, inspiration dies
+away. With the skylark it is well:
+
+          ‘With thy clear keen joyance
+            Languor cannot be:
+          Shadow of annoyance
+            Never came near thee:
+    Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.’
+
+But in unsoaring human nature languor comes, fatigue palls, melancholy
+oppresses, melody dies away. The universe is not all blue sky; there
+is the thick fog and the heavy earth. ‘The world,’ says Mr. Emerson,
+‘is mundane.’ A creeping sense of weight is part of the most aspiring
+nature. To the most thrilling rapture succeeds despondency, perhaps
+pain. To Shelley this was peculiarly natural. His dreams of reform,
+of a world which was to be, called up the imaginative ecstasy: his
+soul bounded forward into the future; but it is not possible even to
+the most abstracted and excited mind to place its happiness in the
+expected realisation of impossible schemes, and yet not occasionally be
+uncertain of those schemes. The rigid frame of society, the heavy heap
+of traditional institutions, the solid slowness of ordinary humanity,
+depress the aspiring fancy. ‘Since our fathers fell asleep, all things
+continue as they were from the beginning.’ Occasionally we must think of
+our fathers. No man can always dream of ever altering all which is. It
+is characteristic of Shelley, that at the end of his most rapturous and
+sanguine lyrics there intrudes the cold consciousness of this world. So
+with his Grecian dreams:—
+
+    ‘A brighter Hellas rears its mountains
+      From waves serener far;
+    A new Peneus rolls its fountains
+      Against the morning-star.
+    Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep
+    Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep.
+
+    A loftier Argo cleaves the main,
+      Fraught with a later prize;
+    Another Orpheus sings again,
+      And loves, and weeps, and dies:
+    A new Ulysses leaves once more
+    Calypso for his native shore.’
+
+But he ends:
+
+    ‘O, cease! must hate and death return?
+    Cease! must men kill and die?
+    Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
+      Of bitter prophecy.
+    The world is weary of the past—
+    O, might it die or rest at last!’
+
+In many of his poems the failing of the feeling is as beautiful as its
+short moment of hope and buoyancy.
+
+The excellence of Shelley does not, however, extend equally over the
+whole domain of lyrical poetry. That species of art may be divided—not
+perhaps with the accuracy of science, but with enough for the rough
+purposes of popular criticism—into the human and the abstract. The sphere
+of the former is of course the actual life, passions, and actions of
+real men,—such are the war-songs of rude nations especially; in that
+early age there is no subject for art but natural life and primitive
+passion. At a later time, when from the deposit of the _débris_ of a
+hundred philosophies, a large number of half-personified abstractions
+are part of the familiar thoughts and language of all mankind, there
+are new objects to excite the feelings,—we might even say there are
+new feelings to be excited; the rough substance of original passion
+is sublimated and attenuated till we hardly recognise its identity.
+Ordinarily and in most minds the emotion loses in this process its
+intensity or much of it; but this is not universal. In some peculiar
+minds it is possible to find an almost dizzy intensity of excitement
+called forth by some fancied abstraction, remote altogether from the
+eyes and senses of men. The love-lyric in its simplest form is probably
+the most intense expression of primitive passion; yet not in those
+lyrics where such intensity is the greatest,—in those of Burns, for
+example,—is the passion so dizzy, bewildering, and bewildered, as in the
+‘Epipsychidion’ of Shelley, the passion of which never came into the real
+world at all, was only a fiction founded on fact, and was wholly—and even
+Shelley felt it—inconsistent with the inevitable conditions of ordinary
+existence. In this point of view, and especially also taking account of
+his peculiar religious opinions, it is remarkable that Shelley should
+have taken extreme delight in the Bible as a composition. He is the least
+biblical of poets. The whole, inevitable, essential conditions of real
+life—the whole of its plain, natural joys and sorrows—are described in
+the Jewish literature as they are described nowhere else. Very often
+they are assumed rather than delineated; and the brief assumption is
+more effective than the most elaborate description. There is none of the
+delicate sentiment and enhancing sympathy which a modern writer would
+think necessary; the inexorable facts are dwelt on with a stern humanity,
+which recognises human feeling though intent on something above it. Of
+all modern poets, Wordsworth shares the most in this peculiarity; perhaps
+he is the only recent one who has it at all. He knew the hills beneath
+whose shade ‘the generations are prepared:’
+
+                ‘Much did he see of men,
+    Their passions and their feelings: chiefly those
+    Essential and eternal in the heart,
+    That mid the simple form of rural life
+    Exist more simple in their elements,
+    And speak a plainer language.’
+
+Shelley has nothing of this. The essential feelings he hoped to change;
+the eternal facts he struggled to remove. Nothing in human life to him
+was inevitable or fixed; he fancied he could alter it all. His sphere
+is the ‘unconditioned;’ he floats away into an imaginary Elysium or
+an expected Utopia; beautiful and excellent, of course, but having
+nothing in common with the absolute laws of the present world. Even in
+the description of mere nature the difference may be noted. Wordsworth
+describes the earth as we know it, with all its peculiarities; where
+there are moors and hills, where the lichen grows, where the slate-rock
+juts out. Shelley describes the universe. He rushes away among the stars;
+this earth is an assortment of imagery, he uses it to deck some unknown
+planet. He scorns ‘the smallest light that twinkles in the heavens.’ His
+theme is the vast, the infinite, the immeasurable. He is not of our home,
+nor homely; he describes not our world, but that which is common to all
+worlds—the Platonic idea of a world. Where it can, his genius soars from
+the concrete and real into the unknown, the indefinite, and the void.
+
+Shelley’s success in the abstract lyric would prepare us for expecting
+that he would fail in attempts at eloquence. The mind which bursts
+forward of itself into the inane, is not likely to be eminent in the
+composed adjustments of measured persuasion. A voluntary self-control is
+necessary to the orator: even when he declaims, he must only let himself
+go; a keen will must be ready, a wakeful attention at hand, to see that
+he does not say a word by which his audience will not be touched. The
+eloquence of ‘Queen Mab’ is of that unpersuasive kind which is admired in
+the earliest youth, when things and life are unknown, when all that is
+intelligible is the sound of words.
+
+Lord Macaulay, in a passage to which we have referred already, speaks
+of Shelley as having, more than any other poet, many of the qualities
+of the great old masters; two of these he has especially. In the first
+place, his imagination is classical rather than romantic,—we should,
+perhaps, apologise for using words which have been used so often, but
+which hardly convey even now a clear and distinct meaning; yet they seem
+the best for conveying a distinction of this sort. When we attempt to
+distinguish the imagination from the fancy, we find that they are often
+related as a beginning to an ending. On a sudden we do not know how a
+new image, form, idea, occurs to our minds; sometimes it is borne in
+upon us with a flash, sometimes we seem unawares to stumble upon it, and
+find it as if it had long been there: in either case the involuntary,
+unanticipated appearance of this new thought or image is a primitive
+fact which we cannot analyse or account for. We say it originated in
+our imagination or creative faculty: but this is a mere expression of
+the completeness of our ignorance; we could only define the imagination
+as the faculty which produces such effects; we know nothing of it
+or its constitution. Again, on this original idea a large number of
+accessory and auxiliary ideas seem to grow or accumulate insensibly,
+casually, and without our intentional effort; the bare primitive form
+attracts a clothing of delicate materials—an adornment not altering its
+essences, but enhancing its effect. This we call the work of the fancy.
+An exquisite delicacy in appropriating fitting accessories is as much
+the characteristic excellence of a fanciful mind, as the possession
+of large, simple, bold ideas is of an imaginative one. The last is
+immediate; the first comes minute by minute. The distinction is like what
+one fancies between sculpture and painting. If we look at a delicate
+statue—a Venus or Juno—it does not suggest any slow elaborate process
+by which its expression was chiselled and its limbs refined; it seems
+a simple fact; we look, and require no account of it; it exists. The
+greatest painting suggests, not only a creative act, but a decorative
+process: day by day there was something new; we could watch the tints
+laid on, the dresses tinged, the perspective growing and growing. There
+is something statuesque about the imagination; there is the gradual
+complexity of painting in the most exquisite productions of the fancy.
+When we speak of this distinction, we seem almost to be speaking of the
+distinction between ancient and modern literature. The characteristic of
+the classical literature is the simplicity with which the imagination
+appears in it; that of modern literature is the profusion with which the
+most various adornments of the accessory fancy are thrown and lavished
+upon it. Perhaps nowhere is this more conspicuous than in the modern
+treatment of antique subjects. One of the most essentially modern of
+recent poets—Keats,—has an ‘Ode to a Grecian Urn:’ it begins—
+
+    ‘Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness!
+      Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
+    Sylvan historian! who canst thus express
+      A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
+    What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
+      Of deities or mortals, or of both,
+    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
+      What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
+    What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
+      What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy!’
+
+No ancient poet would have dreamed of writing thus. There would have
+been no indistinct shadowy warmth, no breath of surrounding beauty:
+his delineation would have been cold, distinct, chiselled like the urn
+itself. The use which such a poet as Keats makes of ancient mythology is
+exactly similar. He owes his fame to the inexplicable art with which he
+has breathed a soft tint over the marble forms of gods and goddesses,
+enhancing their beauty without impairing their chasteness. The naked
+kind of imagination is not peculiar to a mythological age. The growth of
+civilisation, at least in Greece, rather increased than diminished the
+imaginative bareness of the poetical art. It seems to attain its height
+in Sophocles. If we examine any of his greater passages, a principal
+beauty is their reserved simplicity. A modern reader almost necessarily
+uses them as materials for fancy: we are too used to little circumstance
+to be able to do without it. Take the passage in which Œdipus contrasts
+the conduct of his sons with that of his daughters:
+
+    ὦ πάντ’ ἐκείνω τοῖς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ νόμοις
+    φύσιν κατεικασθέντε καὶ βίου τροφάς.
+    ἐκεῖ γὰρ οἱ μὲν ἄρσενες κατὰ στέγας
+    θακοῦσιν ἱστουργοῦντες, αἱ δὲ σύννομοι
+    τἄξω βίου τροφεῖα πορσύνουσ’ ἀεί.
+    σφῷν δ’, ὦ τέκν’, οὓς μὲν εἰκὸς ἦν πονεῖν τάδε,
+    κατ’ οἶκον οἰκουροῦσιν ὥστε παρθένοι,
+    σφὼ δ’ ἀντ’ ἐκείνων τἀμὰ δυστήνου κακὰ
+    ὑπερπονεῖτον. ἡ μέν ἐξ ὅτου νέας
+    τροφῆς ἔληξε καὶ κατίσχυσεν δέμας,
+    ἀεὶ μεθ’ ἡμῶν δύσμορος πλανωμένη
+    γερονταγωγεῖ, πολλὰ μὲν κατ’ ἀγρίαν
+    ὕλην ἄσιτος νηλίπους τ’ ἀλωμένη,
+    πολλοῖσι δ’ ὄμβροις ἡλίου τε καύμασι
+    μοχθοῦσα τλήμων, δεύτερ’ ἡγεῖται τὰ τῆς
+    οἴκοι διαίτης, εἰ πατὴρ τροφὴν ἔχοι.
+
+What a contrast to the ravings of Lear! What a world of detail
+Shakespeare would have put into the passage! What talk of ‘sulphurous and
+thought-executing fires,’ ‘simulars of virtue,’ ‘pent-up guilts,’ and
+‘the thick rotundity of the world!’ Decorum is the principal thing in
+Sophocles. The conception of Œdipus is not
+
+    ‘Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow weeds,
+    With harlocks, hemlock, nettle, and cuckoo-flowers.’
+
+There are no ‘idle weeds’ among the ‘sustaining corn.’ The conception of
+Lear is that of an old gnarled oak, gaunt and quivering in the stormy
+sky, with old leaves and withered branches tossing in the air, and
+all the complex growth of a hundred years creaking and nodding to its
+fall. That of Œdipus is the peak of Teneriffe, as we fancied it in our
+childhood, by itself and snowy, above among the stormy clouds, heedless
+of the angry winds and the desolate waves,—single, ascending, and alone.
+Or, to change the metaphor to one derived from an art where the same
+qualities of mind have produced kindred effects, ancient poetry is
+like a Grecian temple, with pure form and rising columns,—created, one
+fancies, by a single effort of an originative nature: modern literature
+seems to have sprung from the involved brain of a Gothic architect,
+and resembles a huge cathedral—the work of the perpetual industry of
+centuries—complicated and infinite in details; but by their choice
+and elaboration producing an effect of unity which is not inferior to
+that of the other, and is heightened by the multiplicity through which
+it is conveyed. And it is this warmth of circumstance—this profusion
+of interesting detail—which has caused the name ‘romantic’ to be
+perseveringly applied to modern literature.
+
+We need only to open Shelley, to show how essentially classical in its
+highest efforts his art is. Indeed, although nothing can be further
+removed from the staple topics of the classical writers than the abstract
+lyric, yet their treatment is nearly essential to it. We have said, its
+sphere is in what the Germans call the unconditioned—in the unknown,
+immeasurable, and untrodden. It follows from this that we cannot know
+much about it. We cannot know detail in tracts we have never visited;
+the infinite has no form; the immeasurable no outline: that which is
+common to all worlds is simple. There is therefore no scope for the
+accessory fancy. With a single soaring effort imagination may reach her
+end; if she fail, no fancy can help her; if she succeed, there will
+be no petty accumulations of insensible circumstance in a region far
+above all things. Shelley’s excellence in the abstract lyric is almost
+another phrase for the simplicity of his impulsive imagination.—He shows
+it on other subjects also. We have spoken of his bare treatment of the
+ancient mythology. It is the same with his treatment of nature. In the
+description of the celestial regions quoted before—one of the most
+characteristic passages in his writings—the details are few, the air
+thin, the lights distinct. We are conscious of an essential difference
+if we compare the ‘Ode to the Nightingale,’ in Keats, for instance—such
+verses as
+
+    ‘I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
+      Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs:
+    But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet
+      Wherewith the seasonable month endows
+    The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild,
+      White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine,
+        Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves,
+              And mid-May’s eldest child,
+      The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
+        The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
+
+    Darkling I listen; and for many a time
+      I have been half in love with easeful Death,
+    Called him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
+      To take into the air my quiet breath:
+    Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
+      To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
+        While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
+              In such an ecstasy.
+      Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain—
+        To thy high requiem become a sod.’
+
+—with the conclusion of the ode ‘To a Skylark’—
+
+            ‘Yet if we could scorn
+              Hate, and pride, and fear;
+            If we were things born
+              Not to shed a tear,
+    I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
+
+            Better than all measures
+              Of delightful sound,
+            Better than all treasures
+              That in books are found,
+    Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
+
+            Teach me half the gladness
+              That thy brain must know;
+            Such harmonious madness
+              From my lips would flow,
+    The world should listen then, as I am listening now.’
+
+We can hear that the poetry of Keats is a rich, composite, voluptuous
+harmony; that of Shelley a clear single ring of penetrating melody.
+
+Of course, however, this criticism requires limitation. There is an
+obvious sense in which Shelley is a fanciful, as contra-distinguished
+from an imaginative poet. These words, being invented for the popular
+expression of differences which can be remarked without narrow
+inspection, are apt to mislead us when we apply them to the exact results
+of a near and critical analysis. Besides the use of the word ‘fancy’ to
+denote the power which adorns and amplifies the product of the primitive
+imagination, we also employ it to denote the weaker exercise of the
+faculty which itself creates those elementary products. We use the word
+‘imaginative’ only for strong, vast, imposing, interesting conceptions:
+we use the word ‘fanciful’ when we have to speak of smaller and weaker
+creations, which amaze us less at the moment and affect us more slightly
+afterwards. Of course, metaphysically speaking, it is not likely that
+there will be found to be any distinction; the faculty which creates the
+most attractive ideas is doubtless the same as that which creates the
+less attractive. Common language marks the distinction, because common
+people are impressed by the contrast between what affects them much and
+what affects them little; but it is no evidence of the entire difference
+of the latent agencies. Speech, as usual, refers to sensations, and not
+to occult causes. Of fancies of this sort Shelley is full: whole poems—as
+the ‘Witch of Atlas’—are composed of nothing else. Living a good deal in,
+and writing a great deal about, the abstract world, it was inevitable
+that he should often deal in fine subtleties, affecting very little the
+concrete hearts of real men. Many pages of his are, in consequence,
+nearly unintelligible, even to good critics of common poetry. The air
+is too rarefied for hardy and healthy lungs: these like, as Lord Bacon
+expressed it, ‘to work upon stuff.’ From his habitual choice of slight
+and airy subjects, Shelley may be called a fanciful, as opposed to an
+imaginative, poet; from his bare delineations of great objects, his keen
+expression of distinct impulses, he should be termed an imaginative,
+rather than a fanciful one.
+
+Some of this odd combination of qualities Shelley doubtless owed to
+the structure of his senses. By one of those singular results which
+constantly meet us in metaphysical inquiry, the imagination and fancy are
+singularly influenced by the bodily sensibility. One might have fancied
+that the faculty by which the soul soars into the infinite, and sees
+what it cannot see with the eye of the body, would have been peculiarly
+independent of that body. But the reverse is the case. Vividness of
+sensation seems required to awaken, delicacy to define, copiousness to
+enrich, the visionary faculty. A large experience proves that a being
+who is blind to this world will be blind to the other; that a coarse
+expectation of what is not seen will follow from a coarse perception of
+what is seen. Shelley’s sensibility was vivid but peculiar. Hazlitt used
+to say, ‘he had seen him; and did not like his looks.’ He had the thin
+keen excitement of the fanatic student; not the broad, natural, energy
+which Hazlitt expected from a poet. The diffused life of genial enjoyment
+which was common to Scott and to Shakespeare, was quite out of his way.
+Like Mr. Emerson, he would have wondered they could be content with a
+‘mean and jocular life.’ In consequence, there is no varied imagery from
+human life in his poetry. He was an abstract student, anxious about
+deep philosophies; and he had not that settled, contemplative, allotted
+acquaintance with external nature which is so curious in Milton, the
+greatest of studious poets. The exact opposite, however, to Shelley, in
+the nature of his sensibility, is Keats. That great poet used to pepper
+his tongue, ‘to enjoy in all its grandeur the cool flavour of delicious
+claret.’ When you know it, you seem to read it in his poetry. There is
+the same luxurious sentiment; the same poise on fine sensation. Shelley
+was the reverse of this; he was a waterdrinker; his verse runs quick
+and chill, like a pure crystal stream. The sensibility of Keats was
+attracted too by the spectacle of the universe; he could not keep his
+eye from seeing, or his ears from hearing, the glories of it. All the
+beautiful objects of nature reappear by name in his poetry. On the other
+hand, the abstract idea of beauty is for ever celebrated in Shelley; it
+haunted his soul. But it was independent of special things; it was the
+general surface of beauty which lies upon all things. It was the smile of
+the universe and the expression of the world; it was not the vision of
+a land of corn and wine. The nerves of Shelley quivered at the idea of
+loveliness; but no coarse sensation obtruded particular objects upon him.
+He was left to himself with books and reflection.
+
+So far, indeed, from Shelley having a peculiar tendency to dwell on and
+prolong the sensation of pleasure, he has a perverse tendency to draw out
+into lingering keenness the torture of agony. Of his common recurrence
+to the dizzy pain of mania we have formerly spoken; but this is not the
+only pain. The nightshade is commoner in his poems than the daisy. The
+nerve is ever laid bare; as often as it touches the open air of the real
+world, it quivers with subtle pain. The high intellectual impulses which
+animated him are too incorporeal for human nature; they begin in buoyant
+joy, they end in eager suffering.
+
+In style, said Mr. Wordsworth—in workmanship, we think his expression
+was—Shelley is one of the best of us. This too, we think, was the second
+of the peculiarities to which Lord Macaulay referred when he said that
+Shelley had, more than any recent poet, some of the qualities of the
+great old masters. The peculiarity of his style is its intellectuality;
+and this strikes us the more from its contrast with his impulsiveness.
+He had something of this in life. Hurried away by sudden desires, as
+he was in his choice of ends, we are struck with a certain comparative
+measure and adjustment in his choice of means. So in his writings; over
+the most intense excitement, the grandest objects, the keenest agony,
+the most buoyant joy, he throws an air of subtle mind. His language is
+minutely and acutely searching; at the dizziest height of meaning the
+keenness of the words is greatest. As in mania, so in his descriptions
+of it, the acuteness of the mind seems to survive the mind itself.
+It was from Plato and Sophocles, doubtless, that he gained the last
+perfection in preserving the accuracy of the intellect when treating of
+the objects of the imagination; but in its essence it was a peculiarity
+of his own nature. As it was the instinct of Byron to give in glaring
+words the gross phenomena of evident objects, so it was that of Shelley
+to refine the most inscrutable with the curious nicety of an attenuating
+metaphysician. In the wildest of ecstasies his self-anatomising intellect
+is equal to itself.
+
+There is much more which might be said, and which ought to be said, of
+Shelley; but our limits are reached. We have not attempted a complete
+criticism; we have only aimed to show how some of the peculiarities of
+his works and life may be traced to the peculiarity of his nature.
+
+
+
+
+_SHAKESPEARE—THE MAN._[27]
+
+(1853.)
+
+
+The greatest of English poets, it is often said, is but a name. ‘No
+letter of his writing, no record of his conversation, no character of
+him drawn with any fulness by a contemporary,’ have been extracted by
+antiquaries from the piles of rubbish which they have sifted. Yet of
+no person is there a clearer picture in the popular fancy. You seem to
+have known Shakespeare—to have seen Shakespeare—to have been friends
+with Shakespeare. We would attempt a slight delineation of the popular
+idea which has been formed, not from loose tradition or remote research;
+not from what some one says some one else said that the poet said, but
+from data, which are at least undoubted, from the sure testimony of his
+certain works.
+
+Some extreme sceptics, we know, doubt whether it is possible to deduce
+anything as to an author’s character from his works. Yet surely people
+do not keep a tame steam-engine to write their books; and if those books
+were really written by a man, he must have been a man who could write
+them; he must have had the thoughts which they express, have acquired the
+knowledge they contain, have possessed the style in which we read them.
+The difficulty is a defect of the critics. A person who knows nothing of
+an author he has read, will not know much of an author whom he has seen.
+
+First of all, it may be said, that Shakespeare’s works could only be
+produced by a first-rate imagination working on a first-rate experience.
+It is often difficult to make out whether the author of a poetic
+creation is drawing from fancy, or drawing from experience; but for art
+on a certain scale, the two must concur. Out of nothing, nothing can
+be created. Some plastic power is required, however great may be the
+material. And when such a work as ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Othello,’ still more, when
+both of them and others not unequal have been created by a single mind,
+it may be fairly said, that not only a great imagination, but a full
+conversancy with the world was necessary to their production. The whole
+powers of man under the most favourable circumstances, are not too great
+for such an effort. We may assume that Shakespeare had a great experience.
+
+To a great experience one thing is essential, an experiencing nature.
+It is not enough to have opportunity, it is essential to feel it. Some
+occasions come to all men; but to many they are of little use, and to
+some they are none. What, for example, has experience done for the
+distinguished Frenchman, the name of whose essay is prefixed to this
+paper. M. Guizot is the same man that he was in 1820, or, we believe as
+he was in 1814. Take up one of his lectures, published before he was
+a practical statesman; you will be struck with the width of view, the
+amplitude and the solidity of the reflections; you will be amazed that
+a mere literary teacher could produce anything so wise; but take up
+afterwards an essay published since his fall—and you will be amazed to
+find no more. Napoleon the First is come and gone—the Bourbons of the old
+_régime_ have come and gone—the Bourbons of the new _régime_ have had
+their turn. M. Guizot has been first minister of a citizen king; he has
+led a great party; he has pronounced many a great _discours_ that was
+well received by the second elective assembly in the world. But there
+is no trace of this in his writings. No one would guess from them that
+their author had ever left the professor’s chair. It is the same, we
+are told, with small matters: when M. Guizot walks the street, he seems
+to see nothing; the head is thrown back, the eye fixed, and the mouth
+working. His mind is no doubt at work, but it is not stirred by what is
+external. Perhaps it is the internal activity of mind that overmasters
+the perceptive power. Anyhow there might have been an _émeute_ in the
+street and he would not have known it; there have been revolutions in his
+life and he is scarcely the wiser. Among the most frivolous and fickle of
+civilised nations he is alone. They pass from the game of war to the game
+of peace, from the game of science to the game of art, from the game of
+liberty to the game of slavery, from the game of slavery to the game of
+licence; he stands like a schoolmaster in the play-ground, without sport
+and without pleasure, firm and sullen, slow and awful.
+
+A man of this sort is a curious mental phenomenon. He appears to get
+early—perhaps to be born with, a kind of dry schedule or catalogue of the
+universe; he has a ledger in his head, and has a title to which he can
+refer any transaction; nothing puzzles him, nothing comes amiss to him,
+but he is not in the least the wiser for anything. Like the book-keeper,
+he has his heads of account, and he knows them, but he is no wiser for
+the particular items. After a busy day, and after a slow day, after a
+few entries, and after many, his knowledge is exactly the same: take his
+opinion of Baron Rothschild, he will say, ‘Yes, he keeps an account with
+us;’ of Humphrey Brown, ‘Yes, we have that account, too.’ Just so with
+the class of minds which we are speaking of, and in greater matters. Very
+early in life they come to a certain and considerable acquaintance with
+the world; they learn very quickly all they can learn, and naturally
+they never, in any way, learn any more. Mr. Pitt is, in this country,
+the type of the character. Mr. Alison, in a well-known passage, makes it
+a matter of wonder that he was fit to be a Chancellor of the Exchequer
+at twenty-three, and it _is_ a great wonder. But it is to be remembered
+that he was no more fit at forty-three. As somebody said, he did not
+grow, he was cast. Experience taught him nothing, and he did not believe
+that he had anything to learn. The habit of mind in smaller degrees is
+not very rare, and might be illustrated without end. Hazlitt tells a
+story of West, the painter, that is in point: When some one asked him if
+he had ever been to Greece, he answered, ‘No, I have read a descriptive
+catalogue of the principal objects in that country, and I believe I am as
+well conversant with them as if I had visited it.’ No doubt he was just
+as well conversant, and so would be any _doctrinaire_.
+
+But Shakespeare was not a man of this sort. If he walked down a street,
+he knew what was in that street. His mind did not form in early life
+a classified list of all the objects in the universe, and learn no
+more about the universe ever after. From a certain fine sensibility of
+nature, it is plain that he took a keen interest not only in the general
+and coarse outlines of objects, but in their minutest particulars and
+gentlest gradations. You may open Shakespeare and find the clearest
+proofs of this; take the following:—
+
+    ‘When last the young Orlando parted from you,
+    He left a promise to return again
+    Within an hour; and, pacing through the forest,
+    Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,
+    Lo, what befel! he threw his eye aside,
+    And, mark, what object did present itself!
+    Under an oak, whose boughs were moss’d with age,
+    And high top bald with dry antiquity,
+    A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,
+    Lay sleeping on his back: about his neck
+    A green and gilded snake had wreath’d itself,
+    Who with her head, nimble in threats, approach’d
+    The opening of his mouth; but suddenly
+    Seeing Orlando, it unlink’d itself,
+    And with indented glides did slip away
+    Into a bush: under which bush’s shade
+    A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,
+    Lay crouching, head on ground, with cat-like watch,
+    When that the sleeping man should stir; for ’tis
+    The royal disposition of that beast,
+    To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead:
+    This seen,’ &c. &c.
+
+Or the more celebrated description of the hunt:—
+
+    ‘And when thou hast on foot the purblind hare,
+    Mark the poor wretch, to overshoot his troubles,
+    How he outruns the wind, and with what care
+    He cranks and crosses, with a thousand doubles:
+    The many musits through the which he goes
+    Are like a labyrinth to amaze his foes.
+
+    ‘Sometimes he runs among a flock of sheep,
+    To make the cunning hounds mistake their smell,
+    And sometime where earth-delving conies keep,
+    To stop the loud pursuers in their yell;
+    And sometime sorteth with a herd of deer;
+    Danger deviseth shifts; wit waits on fear:
+
+    ‘For there his smell with others being mingled,
+    The hot scent-snuffing hounds are driven to doubt,
+    Ceasing their clamorous cry, till they have singled,
+    With much ado, the cold fault cleanly out;
+    Then do they spend their mouths: Echo replies,
+    As if another chase were in the skies.
+
+    ‘By this, poor Wat, far off, upon a hill,
+    Stands on his hinder legs with listening ear,
+    To hearken if his foes pursue him still;
+    Anon their loud alarums he doth hear;
+    And now his grief may be compared well
+    To one sore sick that hears the passing bell.
+
+    ‘Then thou shalt see the dew-bedabbled wretch
+    Turn and return, indenting with the way;
+    Each envious briar his weary legs doth scratch,
+    Each shadow makes him stop, each murmur stay:
+    For misery is trodden on by many,
+    And being low, never relieved by any.’
+
+It is absurd, by the way, to say we know _nothing_ about the man who
+wrote that; we know that he had been after a hare. It is idle to allege
+that mere imagination would tell him that a hare is apt to run among a
+flock of sheep, or that its so doing disconcerts the scent of hounds.
+But no single citation really represents the power of the argument. Set
+descriptions may be manufactured to order, and it does not follow that
+even the most accurate or successful of them was really the result of a
+thorough and habitual knowledge of the object. A man who knows little
+of Nature may write one excellent delineation, as a poor man may have
+one bright guinea. Real opulence consists in having many. What truly
+indicates excellent knowledge, is the habit of constant, sudden, and
+almost unconscious allusion, which implies familiarity, for it can
+arise from that alone,—and this very species of incidental, casual,
+and perpetual reference to ‘the mighty world of eye and ear,’ is the
+particular characteristic of Shakespeare.
+
+In this respect Shakespeare had the advantage of one whom, in many
+points, he much resembled—Sir Walter Scott. For a great poet, the
+organisation of the latter was very blunt; he had no sense of smell,
+little sense of taste, almost no ear for music (he knew a few, perhaps
+three, Scotch tunes, which he avowed that he had learnt in sixty years,
+by hard labour and mental association), and not much turn for the minutiæ
+of nature in any way. The effect of this may be seen in some of the best
+descriptive passages of his poetry, and we will not deny that it does
+(although proceeding from a sensuous defect), in a certain degree, add
+to their popularity. He deals with the main outlines and great points of
+nature, never attends to any others, and in this respect he suits the
+comprehension and knowledge of many who know only those essential and
+considerable outlines. Young people, especially, who like big things, are
+taken with Scott, and bored by Wordsworth, who knew too much. And after
+all, the two poets are in proper harmony, each with his own scenery. Of
+all beautiful scenery the Scotch is the roughest and barest, as the
+English is the most complex and cultivated. What a difference is there
+between the minute and finished delicacy of Rydal Water and the rough
+simplicity of Loch Katrine. It is the beauty of civilisation beside the
+beauty of barbarism. Scott has himself pointed out the effect of this on
+arts and artists.
+
+    ‘Or see yon weather-beaten hind,
+    Whose sluggish herds before him wind,
+    Whose tattered plaid and rugged cheek
+    His Northern clime and kindred speak;
+    Through England’s laughing meads he goes,
+    And England’s wealth around him flows;
+    Ask if it would content him well,
+    At ease in those gay plains to dwell,
+    Where hedgerows spread a verdant screen,
+    And spires and forests intervene,
+    And the neat cottage peeps between?
+    No, not for these would he exchange
+    His dark Lochaber’s boundless range,
+    Not for fair Devon’s meads forsake
+    Ben Nevis grey and Garry’s lake.’
+
+    ‘Thus while I ape the measures wild
+    Of tales that charmed me yet a child,
+    Rude though they be, still, with the chime,
+    Return the thoughts of early time;
+    And feelings roused in life’s first day,
+    Glow in the line and prompt the lay.
+    Then rise those crags, that mountain tower,
+    Which charmed my fancy’s wakening hour.
+    Though no broad river swept along,
+    To claim perchance heroic song;
+    Though sighed no groves in summer gale,
+    To prompt of love a softer tale;
+    Though scarce a puny streamlet’s speed
+    Claimed homage from a shepherd’s reed,
+    Yet was poetic impulse given
+    By the green hill and clear blue heaven.
+    It was a barren scene and wild,
+    Where naked cliffs were rudely piled,
+    But ever and anon between,
+    Lay velvet tufts of loveliest green;
+    And well the lonely infant knew
+    Recesses where the wallflower grew,
+    And honeysuckle loved to crawl
+    Up the low crag and ruined wall.
+    ...
+    From me, thus nurtured, dost thou ask
+    The classic poet’s well-conned task?
+    Nay, Erskine, nay—On the wild hill
+    Let the wild heathbell flourish still;
+    Cherish the tulip, prune the vine,
+    But freely let the woodbine twine,
+    And leave untrimmed the eglantine.
+    Nay, my friend, nay—Since oft thy praise
+    Hath given fresh vigour to my lays,
+    Since oft thy judgment could refine
+    My flattened thought or cumbrous line,
+    Still kind, as is thy wont, attend,
+    And in the minstrel spare the friend.
+    Though wild as cloud, as stream, as gale,
+    Flow forth, flow unrestrained, my tale.’
+
+And this is wise, for there is beauty in the North as well as in the
+South. Only it is to be remembered that the beauty of the Trosachs is the
+result of but a few elements—say birch and brushwood, rough hills and
+narrow dells, much heather and many stones—while the beauty of England
+is one thing in one district and one in another; is here the combination
+of one set of qualities, and there the harmony of opposite ones, and is
+everywhere made up of many details and delicate refinements; all which
+require an exquisite delicacy of perceptive organisation, a seeing eye, a
+minutely hearing ear. Scott’s is the strong admiration of a rough mind;
+Shakespeare’s, the nice minuteness of a susceptible one.
+
+A perfectly poetic appreciation of nature contains two elements,—a
+knowledge of facts, and a sensibility to charms. Everybody who may have
+to speak to some naturalists will be well aware how widely the two may
+be separated. He will have seen that a man may study butterflies and
+forget that they are beautiful, or be perfect in the ‘Lunar theory’
+without knowing what most people mean by the moon. Generally such people
+prefer the stupid parts of nature—worms and Cochin-China fowls. But
+Shakespeare was not obtuse. The lines—
+
+                    ‘Daffodils
+    That come before the swallow dares, and take
+    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
+    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
+    Or Cytherea’s breath,’
+
+seem to show that he knew those feelings of youth, to which beauty is
+more than a religion.
+
+In his mode of delineating natural objects Shakespeare is curiously
+opposed to Milton. The latter, who was still by temperament, and a
+schoolmaster by trade, selects a beautiful object, puts it straight out
+before him and his readers, and accumulates upon it all the learned
+imagery of a thousand years; Shakespeare glances at it and says something
+of his own. It is not our intention to say that, as a describer of the
+external world, Milton is inferior; in _set_ description we rather think
+that he is the better. We only wish to contrast the mode in which the
+delineation is effected. The one is like an artist who dashes off any
+number of picturesque sketches at any moment; the other like a man who
+has lived at Rome, has undergone a thorough training, and by deliberate
+and conscious effort, after a long study of the best masters, can produce
+a few great pictures. Milton, accordingly, as has been often remarked,
+is careful in the choice of his subjects; he knows too well the value of
+his labour to be very ready to squander it; Shakespeare, on the contrary,
+describes anything that comes to hand, for he is prepared for it
+whatever it may be, and what he paints he paints without effort. Compare
+any passage from Shakespeare—for example, those quoted before—and the
+following passage from Milton:—
+
+    ‘Southward through Eden went a river large,
+    Nor changed its course, but through the shaggy hill
+    Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown
+    That mountain as his garden mould, high raised
+    Upon the rapid current, which through veins
+    Of porous earth, with kindly thirst up-drawn
+    Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
+    Watered the garden; thence united fell
+    Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
+    Which from its darksome passage now appears:
+    And now divided into four main streams
+    Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
+    And country, whereof here needs no account;
+    But rather to tell how,—if art could tell,—
+    How from that sapphire fount the crispèd brooks,
+    Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
+    With mazy error under pendant shades
+    Ran nectar, visiting each plant; and fed
+    Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice art
+    In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
+    Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
+    Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
+    The open field, and where the unpierced shade
+    Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus was this place
+    A happy rural seat of various view;
+    Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm;
+    Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
+    Hung amiable (Hesperian fables true,
+    If true, here only), and of delicious taste:
+    Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
+    Grazing the tender herb, were interposed:
+    Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap
+    Of some irriguous valley spread her store;
+    Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.’
+
+Why, you could draw a map of it. It is _not_ ‘Nature boon,’ but ‘nice
+art in beds and curious knots;’ it is exactly the old (and excellent)
+style of artificial gardening, by which any place can be turned into trim
+hedgerows, and stiff borders, and comfortable shades; but there are no
+straight lines in nature or Shakespeare. Perhaps the contrast may be
+accounted for by the way in which the two poets acquired their knowledge
+of scenes and scenery. We think we demonstrated before that Shakespeare
+was a sportsman, but if there be still a sceptic or a dissentient, let
+him read the following remarks on dogs:—
+
+    My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
+    So flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung
+    With ears that sweep away the morning dew,
+    Crook-kneed and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls;
+    Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
+    Each under each. A cry more tunable
+    Was never holloa’d to nor cheered with horn
+    In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly.’
+
+‘Judge when you hear.’ It is evident that the man who wrote this was
+a judge of dogs, was an out-of-door sporting man, full of natural
+sensibility, not defective in ‘daintiness of ear,’ and above all things,
+apt to cast on Nature random, sportive, half-boyish glances, which reveal
+so much, and bequeath such abiding knowledge. Milton, on the contrary,
+went out to see nature. He left a narrow cell, and the intense study
+which was his ‘portion in this life,’ to take a slow, careful, and
+reflective walk. In his treatise on education he has given us his notion
+of the way in which young people should be familiarised with natural
+objects. ‘But,’ he remarks, ‘to return to our institute; besides these
+constant exercises at home, there is another opportunity of gaining
+pleasure from pleasure itself abroad; in those vernal seasons of the
+year when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness
+against nature, not to go out and see her riches and partake in her
+rejoicing in heaven and earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to
+them of studying much in these, after two or three years, that they have
+well laid their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and
+staid guides, to all quarters of the land; learning and observing all
+places of strength, all commodities of building and of soil, for towns
+and tillage, harbours and ports of trade. Sometimes taking sea as far as
+our navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge
+of sailing and of sea-fight.’ Fancy ‘the prudent and staid guides.’ What
+a machinery for making pedants. Perhaps Shakespeare would have known
+that the conversation would be in this sort:—‘I say, Shallow, that mare
+is going in the knees. She has never been the same since you larked her
+over the fivebar, while Moleyes was talking clay and agriculture. I do
+not hate Latin so much, but I hate “argillaceous earth;” and what use is
+_that_ to a fellow in the Guards, _I_ should like to know?’ Shakespeare
+had himself this sort of boyish buoyancy. He was not ‘one of the staid
+guides.’ We might further illustrate it. Yet this would be tedious
+enough, and we prefer to go on and show what we mean by an experiencing
+nature in relation to men and women, just as we have striven to indicate
+what it is in relation to horses and hares.
+
+The reason why so few good books are written, is that so few people
+that can write know anything. In general an author has always lived in
+a room, has read books, has cultivated science, is acquainted with the
+style and sentiments of the best authors, but he is out of the way of
+employing his own eyes and ears. He has nothing to hear and nothing to
+see. His life is a vacuum. The mental habits of Robert Southey, which
+about a year ago were so extensively praised in the public journals,
+are the type of literary existence, just as the praise bestowed on them
+shows the admiration excited by them among literary people. He wrote
+poetry (as if anybody could) before breakfast; he read during breakfast.
+He wrote history until dinner; he corrected proof sheets between dinner
+and tea; he wrote an essay for the ‘Quarterly’ afterwards; and after
+supper by way of relaxation composed the ‘Doctor’—a lengthy and elaborate
+jest. Now, what can anyone think of such a life—except how clearly it
+shows that the habits best fitted for communicating information, formed
+with the best care, and daily regulated by the best motives, are exactly
+the habits which are likely to afford a man the least information to
+communicate. Southey had no events, no experiences. His wife kept house
+and allowed him pocket-money, just as if he had been a German professor
+devoted to accents, tobacco, and the dates of Horace’s amours. And it
+is pitiable to think that so meritorious a life was only made endurable
+by a painful delusion. He thought that day by day, and hour by hour,
+he was accumulating stores for the instruction and entertainment of a
+long posterity. His epics were to be in the hands of all men, and his
+history of Brazil the ‘Herodotus of the South American Republics.’ As if
+his epics were not already dead, and as if the people who now cheat at
+Valparaiso care a _real_ who it was that cheated those before them. Yet
+it was only by a conviction like this that an industrious and caligraphic
+man (for such was Robert Southey), who might have earned money as a
+clerk, worked all his days for half a clerk’s wages, at occupation much
+duller and more laborious. The critic in the ‘Vicar of Wakefield’ lays
+down that you should _always_ say that the picture would have been better
+if the painter had taken more pains; but in the case of the practised
+literary man, you should often enough say that the writings would have
+been much better if the writer had taken less pains. He says he has
+devoted his life to the subject—the reply is, ‘Then you have taken the
+best way to prevent your making anything of it.’ Instead of reading
+studiously what Burgersdicius and Ænœsidemus said men were, you should
+have gone out yourself, and seen (if you can see) what they are.
+
+After all, the original way of writing books may turn out to be the best.
+The first author, it is plain, could not have taken anything from books,
+since there were no books for him to copy from; he looked at things for
+himself. Anyhow the modern system fails, for where are the amusing books
+from voracious students and habitual writers? Not that we mean exactly
+to say that an author’s hard reading is the cause of his writing that
+which is hard to read. This would be near the truth, but not quite the
+truth. The two are concomitant effects of a certain defective nature.
+Slow men read well, but write ill. The abstracted habit, the want of
+keen exterior interests, the aloofness of mind from what is next it, all
+tend to make a man feel an exciting curiosity and interest about remote
+literary events, the toils of scholastic logicians, and the petty feuds
+of Argos and Lacedæmon; but they also tend to make a man very unable to
+explain and elucidate those exploits for the benefit of his fellows.
+What separates the author from his readers, will make it proportionably
+difficult for him to explain himself to them. Secluded habits do not tend
+to eloquence; and the indifferent apathy which is so common in studious
+persons is exceedingly unfavourable to the liveliness of narration and
+illustration which is needed for excellence in even the simpler sorts of
+writing. Moreover, in general, it will perhaps be found, that persons
+devoted to mere literature commonly become devoted to mere idleness.
+They wish to produce a great work, but they find they cannot. Having
+relinquished everything to devote themselves to this, they conclude on
+trial that this is impossible. They wish to write, but nothing occurs
+to them. Therefore they write nothing, and they do nothing. As has been
+said, they have nothing to do. Their life has no events, unless they are
+very poor. With any decent means of subsistence, they have nothing to
+rouse them from an indolent and musing dream. A merchant must meet his
+bills, or he is civilly dead and uncivilly remembered. But a student may
+know nothing of time and be too lazy to wind up his watch. In the retired
+citizen’s journal in Addison’s _Spectator_, we have the type of this way
+of spending the time:—Mem. Morning 8 to 9, ‘Went into the parlour and
+tied on my shoe-buckles.’ This is the sort of life for which studious men
+commonly relinquish the pursuits of business and the society of their
+fellows.
+
+Yet all literary men are not tedious, neither are they all slow. One
+great example even these most tedious times have luckily given us, to
+show us what may be done by a really great man even now, the same who
+before served as an illustration—Sir Walter Scott. In his lifetime
+people denied he was a poet, but nobody said that he was not ‘the best
+fellow’ in Scotland—perhaps that was not much—or that he had not more
+wise joviality, more living talk, more graphic humour, than any man in
+Great Britain. ‘Wherever we went,’ said Mr. Wordsworth, ‘we found his
+name acted as an _open sesame_, and I believe that in the character of
+the _sheriff’s_ friends, we might have counted on a hearty welcome under
+any roof in the border country.’ Never neglect to talk to people with
+whom you are casually thrown, was his precept, and he exemplified the
+maxim himself. ‘I believe,’ observes his biographer, ‘that Scott has
+somewhere expressed in print his satisfaction, that amid all the changes
+of our manners, the ancient freedom of personal intercourse may still be
+indulged between a master and an _out-of-door_ servant; but in truth he
+kept by the old fashion, even with domestic servants, to an extent which
+I have hardly ever seen practised by any other gentleman. He conversed
+with his coachman if he sat by him, as he often did, on the box—with his
+footman, if he chanced to be in the rumble. Indeed, he did not confine
+his humanity to his own people; any steady-going servant of a friend of
+his was soon considered as a sort of friend too, and was sure to have a
+kind little colloquy to himself at coming or going.’ ‘Sir Walter speaks
+to every man as if he was his blood relation,’ was the expressive comment
+of one of these dependents. It was in this way that he acquired the great
+knowledge of various kinds of men, which is so clear and conspicuous
+in his writings; nor could that knowledge have been acquired on easier
+terms, or in any other way. No man could describe the character of
+Dandie Dinmont, without having been in Lidderdale. Whatever has been
+once in a book may be put into a book again; but an original character,
+taken at first hand from the sheepwalks and from nature, must be seen in
+order to be known. A man, to be able to describe—indeed, to be able to
+know—various people in life, must be able at sight to comprehend their
+essential features, to know how they shade one into another, to see how
+they diversify the common uniformity of civilised life. Nor does this
+involve simply intellectual or even imaginative prerequisites, still
+less will it be facilitated by exquisite senses or subtle fancy. What is
+wanted is, to be able to appreciate mere clay—which mere mind never will.
+If you will describe the people,—nay, if you will write for the people,
+you must be one of the people. You must have led their life, and must
+wish to lead their life. However strong in any poet may be the higher
+qualities of abstract thought or conceiving fancy, unless he can actually
+sympathise with those around him, he can never describe those around
+him. Any attempt to produce a likeness of what is not really _liked_ by
+the person who is describing it, will end in the creation of what may
+be correct, but is not living—of what may be artistic, but is likewise
+artificial.
+
+Perhaps this is the defect of the works of the greatest dramatic
+genius of recent times—Goethe. His works are too much in the nature of
+literary studies; the mind is often deeply impressed by them, but one
+doubts if the author was. He saw them as he saw the houses of Weimar
+and the plants in the act of metamorphosis. He had a clear perception
+of their fixed condition and their successive transitions, but he did
+not really (if we may so speak) comprehend their motive power. So to
+say, he appreciated their life, but not their liveliness. Niebuhr, as is
+well known, compared the most elaborate of Goethe’s works—the novel of
+Wilhelm Meister—to a menagerie of tame animals, meaning thereby, as we
+believe, to express much the same distinction. He felt that there was a
+deficiency in mere vigour and rude energy. We have a long train and no
+engine—a great accumulation of excellent matter, arranged and ordered
+with masterly skill, but not animated with over-buoyant and unbounded
+play. And we trace this not to a defect in imaginative power, a defect
+which it would be a simple absurdity to impute to Goethe, but to the
+tone of his character and the habits of his mind. He moved hither and
+thither through life, but he was always a man apart. He mixed with
+unnumbered kinds of men, with courts and academies, students and women,
+camps and artists, but everywhere he was with them yet not of them. In
+every scene he was there, and he made it clear that he was there with
+a reserve and as a stranger. He went there _to experience_. As a man
+of universal culture and well skilled in the order and classification
+of human life, the fact of any one class or order being beyond his
+reach or comprehension seemed an absurdity, and it was an absurdity.
+He thought that he was equal to moving in any description of society,
+and he was equal to it; but then on that exact account he was absorbed
+in none. There were none of surpassing and immeasurably preponderating
+captivation. No scene and no subject were to him what Scotland and Scotch
+nature were to Sir Walter Scott. ‘If I did not see the heather once a
+year, I should die,’ said the latter; but Goethe would have lived without
+it, and it would not have cost him much trouble. In every one of Scott’s
+novels there is always the spirit of the old moss trooper—the flavour of
+the ancient border; there is the intense sympathy which enters into the
+most living moments of the most living characters—the lively energy which
+_becomes_ the energy of the most vigorous persons delineated. Marmion was
+‘written’ while he was galloping on horseback. It reads as if it were so.
+
+Now it appears that Shakespeare not only had that various commerce with,
+and experience of men, which was common both to Goethe and to Scott, but
+also that he agrees with the latter rather than with the former in the
+kind and species of that experience. He was not merely with men, but of
+men; he was not a ‘thing apart,’ with a clear intuition of what was in
+those around him; he had in his own nature the germs and tendencies of
+the very elements that he described. He knew what was in man, for he felt
+it in himself. Throughout all his writings you see an amazing sympathy
+with common people, rather an excessive tendency to dwell on the common
+features of ordinary lives. You feel that common people could have
+been cut out of him, but not without his feeling it; for it would have
+deprived him of a very favourite subject—of a portion of his ideas to
+which he habitually recurred.
+
+    ‘_Leon._ What would you with me, honest neighbour?
+
+    _Dog._ Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you, that
+    decerns you nearly.
+
+    _Leon._ Brief, I pray you; for you see ’tis a busy time with me.
+
+    _Dog._ Marry, this it is, sir.
+
+    _Verg._ Yes, in truth it is, sir.
+
+    _Leon._ What is it, my good friends?
+
+    _Dog._ Goodman Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter:
+    an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt, as, God help,
+    I would desire they were; but, in faith, honest as the skin
+    between his brows.
+
+    _Verg._ Yes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living,
+    that is an old man, and no honester than I.
+
+    _Dog._ Comparisons are odorous:—_palabras_, neighbour Verges.
+
+    _Leon._ Neighbours, you are tedious.
+
+    _Dog._ It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor
+    duke’s officers; but, truly, for mine own part, if I were as
+    tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of
+    your worship.
+
+    ...
+
+    _Leon._ I would fain know what you have to say.
+
+    _Verg._ Marry, sir, our watch to-night, excepting your
+    worship’s presence, have ta’en a couple of as arrant knaves as
+    any in Messina.
+
+    _Dog._ A good old man, sir; he will be talking; as they say,
+    When the age is in, the wit is out; God help us! it is a world
+    to see!—Well said, i’faith, neighbour Verges:—well, God’s a
+    good man; an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind:—An
+    honest soul, i’faith, sir; by my troth he is, as ever broke
+    bread; but God is to be worshipped: All men are not alike;
+    alas, good neighbour!
+
+    _Leon._ Indeed, neighbour, he comes too far short of you.
+
+    _Dog._ Gifts that God gives,’—&c. &c.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    ‘_Stafford._ Ay, sir.
+
+    _Cade._ By her he had two children at one birth.
+
+    _Staff._ That’s false.
+
+    _Cade._ Ay, there’s the question; but, I say,’tis true:
+    The elder of them, being put to nurse,
+    Was by a beggar-woman stol’n away:
+    And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,
+    Became a bricklayer, when he came to age;
+    His son am I; deny it, if you can.
+
+    _Dick._ Nay, ’tis too true; therefore he shall be king.
+
+    _Smith._ Sir, he made a chimney in my father’s house, and the
+    bricks are alive at this day to testify it; therefore, deny it
+    not.’
+
+Shakespeare was too wise not to know that for most of the purposes of
+human life stupidity is a most valuable element. He had nothing of
+the impatience which sharp logical narrow minds habitually feel when
+they come across those who do not apprehend their quick and precise
+deductions. No doubt he talked to the stupid players, to the stupid
+door-keeper, to the property man, who considers paste jewels ‘very
+preferable, besides the expense’—talked with the stupid apprentices of
+stupid Fleet Street, and had much pleasure in ascertaining what was
+their notion of ‘King Lear.’ In his comprehensive mind it was enough if
+every man hitched well into his own place in human life. If every one
+were logical and literary, how would there be scavengers, or watchmen,
+or caulkers, or coopers? Narrow minds will be subdued to what they ‘work
+in.’ The ‘dyer’s hand’ will not more clearly carry off its tint, nor
+will what is moulded more precisely indicate the confines of the mould.
+A patient sympathy, a kindly fellow-feeling for the narrow intelligence
+necessarily induced by narrow circumstances,—a narrowness which, in some
+degrees, seems to be inevitable, and is perhaps more serviceable than
+most things to the wise conduct of life—this, though quick and half-bred
+minds may despise it, seems to be a necessary constituent in the
+composition of manifold genius. ‘How shall the world be served?’ asks the
+host in Chaucer. We must have cart-horses as well as race-horses, draymen
+as well as poets. It is no bad thing, after all, to be a slow man and to
+have one idea a year. You don’t make a figure, perhaps, in argumentative
+society, which requires a quicker species of thought, but is that the
+worse?
+
+    ‘_Hol._ _Via_, Goodman Dull; thou hast spoken no word all this
+    while.
+
+    _Dull._ Nor understood none neither, sir.
+
+    _Hol._ _Allons_, we will employ thee.
+
+    _Dull._ I’ll make one in a dance or so, or I will play on the
+    tabor to the worthies, and let them dance the hay.
+
+    _Hol._ Most dull, honest Dull, to our sport away.’
+
+And such, we believe, was the notion of Shakespeare.
+
+S. T. Coleridge has a nice criticism which bears on this point. He
+observes that in the narrations of uneducated people in Shakespeare, just
+as in real life, there is a want of prospectiveness and a superfluous
+amount of regressiveness. People of this sort are unable to look a long
+way in front of them, and they wander from the right path. They get on
+too fast with one half, and then the other hopelessly lags. They can
+tell a story exactly as it is told to them (as an animal can go step by
+step where it has been before), but they can’t calculate its bearings
+beforehand, or see how it is to be adapted to those to whom they are
+speaking, nor do they know how much they have thoroughly told and how
+much they have not. ‘I went up the street, then I went down the street;
+no, first went down and then—but you do not follow me; I go before you,
+sir.’ Thence arises the complex style usually adopted by persons not
+used to narration. They tumble into a story and get on as they can. This
+is scarcely the sort of thing which a man could foresee. Of course a
+metaphysician can account for it, and like Coleridge, assure you that
+if he had not observed it, he could have predicted it in a moment; but,
+nevertheless, it is too refined a conclusion to be made out from known
+premises by common reasoning. Doubtless there is some reason why negroes
+have woolly hair (and if you look into a philosophical treatise, you
+will find that the author could have made out that it would be so, if he
+had not, by a mysterious misfortune, known from infancy that it was the
+fact),—still one could never have supposed it oneself. And in the same
+manner, though the profounder critics may explain in a satisfactory and
+refined manner, how the confused and undulating style of narration is
+peculiarly incident to the mere multitude, yet it is most likely that
+Shakespeare derived his acquaintance with it from the fact, from actual
+hearing, and not from what may be the surer, but is the slower process
+of metaphysical deduction. The best passage to illustrate this is that
+in which the nurse gives a statement of Juliet’s age; but it will not
+exactly suit our pages. The following of Mrs. Quickly will suffice:—
+
+    ‘Tilly-fally, Sir John, never tell me; your ancient swaggerer
+    comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tizzick, the
+    Deputy, the other day; and, as he said to me,—it was no longer
+    ago than Wednesday last,—Neighbour Quickly, says he;—Master
+    Dumb, our minister, was by then;—Neighbour Quickly, says he,
+    receive those that are civil; for, saith he, you are in an ill
+    name:—now, he said so, I can tell you whereupon; for, says
+    he, you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore
+    take heed to what guests you receive: Deceive, says he, no
+    swaggering companions.—There comes none here;—you would bless
+    you to hear what he said:—no, I’ll no swaggerers.’
+
+Now, it is quite impossible that this, any more than the political
+reasoning on the parentage of Cade, which was cited before, should have
+been written by one not habitually and sympathisingly conversant with the
+talk of the illogical classes. Shakespeare felt, if we may say so, the
+force of the bad reasoning. He did not, like a sharp logician, angrily
+detect a flaw, and set it down as a fallacy of reference or a fallacy
+of amphibology. This is not the English way, though Dr. Whately’s logic
+has been published so long (and, as he says himself, must now be deemed
+to be irrefutable, since no one has ever offered any refutation of it).
+Yet still people in this country do not like to be committed to distinct
+premises. They like a Chancellor of the Exchequer to say, ‘It has during
+very many years been maintained by the honourable member for Montrose
+that two and two make four, and I am free to say, that I think there is a
+great deal to be said in favour of that opinion; but, without committing
+her Majesty’s Government to that proposition as an abstract sentiment,
+I will go so far as to assume two and two are not sufficient to make
+five, which, with the permission of the House, will be a sufficient basis
+for all the operations which I propose to enter upon during the present
+year.’ We have no doubt Shakespeare reasoned in that way himself. Like
+any other Englishman, when he had a clear course before him, he rather
+liked to shuffle over little hitches in the argument, and on that account
+he had a great sympathy with those who did so too. He would never have
+interrupted Mrs. Quickly; he saw that her mind was going to and fro over
+the subject; he saw that it was coming right, and this was enough for
+him, and will be also enough of this topic for our readers.
+
+We think we have proved that Shakespeare had an enormous specific
+acquaintance with the common people; that this can only be obtained by
+sympathy. It likewise has a further condition.
+
+In spiritedness, the style of Shakespeare is very like to that of Scott.
+The description of a charge of cavalry in Scott reads, as was said
+before, as if it was written on horseback. A play by Shakespeare reads
+as if it were written in a playhouse. The great critics assure you, that
+a theatrical audience must be kept awake, but Shakespeare knew this of
+his own knowledge. When you read him, you feel a sensation of motion,
+a conviction that there is something ‘up,’ a notion that not only is
+something being talked about, but also that something is being done. We
+do not imagine that Shakespeare owed this quality to his being a player,
+but rather that he became a player because he possessed this quality of
+mind. For after, and notwithstanding everything which has, or may be
+said against the theatrical profession, it certainly does require from
+those who pursue it a certain quickness and liveliness of mind. Mimics
+are commonly an elastic sort of persons, and it takes a little levity of
+disposition to enact even the ‘heavy fathers.’ If a boy joins a company
+of strolling players, you may be sure that he is not a ‘good boy;’ he
+may be a trifle foolish, or a thought romantic, but certainly he is not
+slow. And this was in truth the case with Shakespeare. They say, too,
+that in the beginning he was a first-rate link-boy; and the tradition is
+affecting, though we fear it is not quite certain. Anyhow you feel about
+Shakespeare that he could have been a link-boy. In the same way you feel
+he may have been a player. You are sure at once that he could not have
+followed any sedentary kind of life. But wheresoever there was anything
+_acted_ in earnest or in jest, by way of mock representation or by way
+of serious reality, there he found matter for his mind. If anybody could
+have any doubt about the liveliness of Shakespeare, let them consider the
+character of Falstaff. When a man has created _that_ without a capacity
+for laughter, then a blind man may succeed in describing colours. Intense
+animal spirits are the single sentiment (if they be a sentiment) of
+the entire character. If most men were to save up all the gaiety of
+their whole lives, it would come about to the gaiety of one speech in
+Falstaff. A morose man might have amassed many jokes, might have observed
+many details of jovial society, might have conceived a Sir John, marked
+by rotundity of body, but could hardly have imagined what we call his
+rotundity of mind. We mean that the animal spirits of Falstaff give him
+an easy, vague, diffusive sagacity which is peculiar to him. A morose
+man, Iago, for example, may know anything, and is apt to know a good
+deal; but what he knows is generally all in corners. He knows number 1,
+number 2, number 3, and so on, but there is not anything continuous, or
+smooth, or fluent in his knowledge. Persons conversant with the works of
+Hazlitt will know in a minute what we mean. Everything which he observed
+he seemed to observe from a certain soreness of mind; he looked at people
+because they offended him; he had the same vivid notion of them that
+a man has of objects which grate on a wound in his body. But there is
+nothing at all of this in Falstaff; on the contrary, everything pleases
+him, and everything is food for a joke. Cheerfulness and prosperity
+give an easy abounding sagacity of mind which nothing else does give.
+Prosperous people bound easily over all the surface of things which
+their lives present to them; very likely they keep to the surface; there
+are things beneath or above to which they may not penetrate or attain,
+but what is on any part of the surface, that they know well. ‘Lift
+not the painted veil which those who live call life,’ and they do not
+lift it. What is sublime or awful above, what is ‘sightless and drear’
+beneath,—these they may not dream of. Nor is any one piece or corner of
+life so well impressed on them as on minds less happily constituted. It
+is only people who have had a tooth out, that really know the dentist’s
+waiting-room. Yet such people, for the time at least, know nothing but
+that and their tooth. The easy and sympathising friend who accompanies
+them knows everything; hints gently at the contents of the _Times_, and
+would cheer you with Lord Palmerston’s replies. So, on a greater scale,
+the man of painful experience knows but too well what has hurt him, and
+where and why; but the happy have a vague and rounded view of the round
+world, and such was the knowledge of Falstaff.
+
+It is to be observed that these high spirits are not a mere excrescence
+or superficial point in an experiencing nature; on the contrary, they
+seem to be essential, if not to its idea or existence, at least to its
+exercise and employment. How are you to know people without talking to
+them, but how are you to talk to them without tiring yourself? A common
+man is exhausted in half an hour; Scott or Shakespeare could have gone on
+for a whole day. This is, perhaps, peculiarly necessary for a painter of
+English life. The basis of our national character seems to be a certain
+energetic humour, which may be found in full vigour in old Chaucer’s
+time, and in great perfection in at least one of the popular writers
+of this age, and which is, perhaps, most easily described by the name
+of our greatest painter—Hogarth. It is amusing to see how entirely the
+efforts of critics and artists fail to naturalise in England any other
+sort of painting. Their efforts are fruitless; for the people painted are
+not English people: they may be Italians, or Greeks, or Jews, but it is
+quite certain that they are foreigners. We should not fancy that modern
+art ought to resemble the Mediæval. So long as artists attempt the same
+class of paintings as Raphael, they will not only be inferior to Raphael,
+but they will never please, as they might please, the English people.
+What we want is what Hogarth gave us—a representation of ourselves. It
+may be that we are wrong, that we ought to prefer something of the old
+world, some scene in Rome or Athens, some tale from Carmel or Jerusalem;
+but, after all, we do not. These places are, we think, abroad, and had
+their greatness in former times; we wish a copy of what now exists, and
+of what we have seen. London we know, and Manchester we know, but where
+are all these? It is the same with literature, Milton excepted, and even
+Milton can hardly be called a popular writer: all great English writers
+describe English people, and in describing them, they give, as they must
+give, a large comic element; and, speaking generally, this is scarcely
+possible, except in the case of cheerful and easy-living men. There
+is, no doubt, a biting satire, like that of Swift, which has for its
+essence misanthropy. There is the mockery of Voltaire, which is based on
+intellectual contempt; but this is not our English humour—it is not that
+of Shakespeare and Falstaff; ours is the humour of a man who laughs when
+he speaks, of flowing enjoyment, of an experiencing nature.
+
+Yet it would be a great error if we gave anything like an exclusive
+prominence to this aspect of Shakespeare. Thus he appeared to those
+around him—in some degree they knew that he was a cheerful, and humorous,
+and happy man; but of his higher gift they knew less than we. A great
+painter of men must (as has been said) have a faculty of conversing, but
+he must also have a capacity for solitude. There is much of mankind that
+a man can only learn from himself. Behind every man’s external life,
+which he leads in company, there is another which he leads alone, and
+which he carries with him apart. We see but one aspect of our neighbour,
+as we see but one side of the moon; in either case there is also a dark
+half, which is unknown to us. We all come down to dinner, but each has a
+room to himself. And if we would study the internal lives of others, it
+seems essential that we should begin with our own. If we study this our
+_datum_, if we attain to see and feel how this influences and evolves
+itself in our social and (so to say) public life, then it is possible
+that we may find in the lives of others the same or analogous features;
+and if we do not, then at least we may suspect that those who want them
+are deficient likewise in the secret agencies which we feel produce them
+in ourselves. The metaphysicians assert, that people originally picked
+up the idea of the existence of other people in this way. It is orthodox
+doctrine that a baby says: ‘I have a mouth, mamma has a mouth: therefore
+I’m the same species as mamma. I have a nose, papa has a nose, therefore
+papa is the same genus as me.’ But whether or not this ingenious idea
+really does or does not represent the actual process by which we
+originally obtain an acquaintance with the existence of minds analogous
+to our own, it gives unquestionably the process by which we obtain our
+notion of that part of those minds which they never exhibit consciously
+to others, and which only becomes predominant in secresy and solitude and
+to themselves. Now, that Shakespeare has this insight into the musing
+life of man, as well as into his social life, is easy to prove; take, for
+instance, the following passages:—
+
+    ‘This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
+    When dying clouds contend with growing light;
+    What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
+    Can neither call it perfect day nor night.
+    Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea,
+    Forc’d by the tide to combat with the wind;
+    Now sways it that way, like the self-same sea
+    Forc’d to retire by fury of the wind:
+    Sometime, the flood prevails; and then, the wind:
+    Now, one the better; then, another best;
+    Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,
+    Yet neither conqueror, nor conquered;
+    So is the equal poise of this fell war.
+    Here on this molehill will I sit me down.
+    To whom God will, there be the victory!
+    For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,
+    Have chid me from the battle; swearing both
+    They prosper best of all when I am thence.
+    Would I were dead! if God’s good will were so;
+    For what is in this world but grief and woe?
+    Oh God! methinks it were a happy life,
+    To be no better than a homely swain:
+    To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
+    To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
+    Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
+    How many make the hour full complete,
+    How many hours bring about the day,
+    How many days will finish up the year,
+    How many years a mortal man may live.
+    When this is known, then to divide the time:
+    So many hours must I tend my flock;
+    So many hours must I take my rest;
+    So many hours must I contemplate;
+    So many hours must I sport myself;
+    So many days my ewes have been with young;
+    So many weeks ere the poor fools will yean;
+    So many years ere I shall shear the fleece;
+    So minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years,
+    Pass’d over to the end they were created,
+    Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
+    Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!
+    Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
+    To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep,
+    Than doth a rich embroider’d canopy
+    To kings, that fear their subjects’ treachery?
+    O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
+    And to conclude,—the shepherd’s homely curds,
+    His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
+    His wonted sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,
+    All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
+    Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,
+    His viands sparkling in a golden cup,
+    His body couchèd in a curious bed,
+    When care, mistrust, and treason wait on him.’
+
+    ‘A fool, a fool!—I met a fool i’ the forest,
+    A motley fool!—a miserable world;—
+    As I do live by food, I met a fool;
+    Who laid him down and basked him in the sun,
+    And railed on lady Fortune in good terms,
+    In good set terms,—and yet a motley fool.
+    “Good-morrow, fool,” quoth I: “No, sir,” quoth he,
+    “Call me not fool, till heaven hath sent me fortune:”
+    And then he drew a dial from his poke,
+    And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
+    Says, very wisely, “It is ten o’clock:
+    Thus may we see,” quoth he, “how the world wags;
+    ’Tis but an hour ago since it was nine;
+    And after an hour more,’twill be eleven;
+    And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
+    And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot,
+    And thereby hangs a tale.” When I did hear
+    The motley fool thus moral on the time,
+    My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
+    That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
+    And I did laugh, sans intermission,
+    An hour by his dial.’
+
+No slight versatility of mind and pliancy of fancy could pass at will
+from scenes such as these to the ward of Eastcheap and the society
+which heard the chimes at midnight. One of the reasons of the rarity
+of great imaginative works is that in very few cases is this capacity
+for musing solitude combined with that of observing mankind. A certain
+constitutional though latent melancholy is essential to such a nature.
+This is the exceptional characteristic in Shakespeare. All through
+his works you feel you are reading the popular author, the successful
+man; but through them all there is a certain tinge of musing sadness
+pervading, and, as it were, softening their gaiety. Not a trace can
+be found of ‘eating cares’ or narrow and mind-contracting toil, but
+everywhere there is, in addition to shrewd sagacity and buoyant wisdom, a
+refining element of chastening sensibility, which prevents sagacity from
+being rough, and shrewdness from becoming cold. He had an eye for either
+sort of life:—
+
+    ‘Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
+      The hart ungallèd play;
+    For some must watch, and some must sleep,
+      Thus runs the world away.’
+
+In another point also Shakespeare, as he was, must be carefully
+contrasted with the estimate that would be formed of him from such
+delineations as that of Falstaff, and that was doubtless frequently made
+by casual though only by casual frequenters of the Mermaid. It has been
+said that the mind of Shakespeare contained within it the mind of Scott;
+it remains to be observed that it contained also the mind of Keats. For,
+beside the delineation of human life, and beside also the delineation of
+nature, there remains also for the poet a third subject—the delineation
+of _fancies_. Of course, these, be they what they may, are like to, and
+were originally borrowed either from man or from nature—from one or
+from both together. We know but two things in the simple way of direct
+experience, and whatever else we know must be in some mode or manner
+compacted out of them. Yet ‘books are a substantial world, both pure
+and good,’ and so are fancies too. In all countries men have devised to
+themselves a whole series of half-divine creations—mythologies Greek and
+Roman, fairies, angels, beings who may be, for aught we know, but with
+whom, in the meantime, we can attain to no conversation. The most known
+of these mythologies are the Greek, and what is, we suppose, the second
+epoch of the Gothic, the fairies; and it so happens that Shakespeare has
+dealt with them both and in a remarkable manner. We are not, indeed,
+of those critics who profess simple and unqualified admiration for the
+poem of ‘Venus and Adonis.’ It seems intrinsically, as we know it from
+external testimony to have been, a juvenile production, written when
+Shakespeare’s nature might be well expected to be crude and unripened.
+Power is shown, and power of a remarkable kind; but it is not displayed
+in a manner that will please or does please the mass of men. In spite of
+the name of its author, the poem has never been popular—and surely this
+is sufficient. Nevertheless, it is remarkable as a literary exercise, and
+as a treatment of a singular, though unpleasant subject. The fanciful
+class of poems differ from others in being laid, so far as their scene
+goes, in a perfectly unseen world. The type of such productions is
+Keats’s ‘Endymion.’ We mean that it is the type, not as giving the
+abstract perfection of this sort of art, but because it shows and
+embodies both its excellences and defects in a very marked and prominent
+manner. In that poem there are no passions and no actions, there is no
+art and no life; but there is beauty, and that is meant to be enough, and
+to a reader of one-and-twenty it is enough and more. What are exploits
+or speeches? What is Cæsar or Coriolanus? What is a tragedy like Lear,
+or a real view of human life in any kind whatever, to people who do not
+know and do not care what human life is? In early youth it is, perhaps,
+not true that the passions, taken generally, are particularly violent,
+or that the imagination is in any remarkable degree powerful; but it
+is certain that the fancy (which though it be, in the last resort, but
+a weak stroke of that same faculty, which, when it strikes hard, we
+call imagination, may yet for this purpose be looked on as distinct) is
+particularly wakeful, and that the gentler species of passions are more
+absurd than they are afterwards. And the literature of this period of
+human life runs naturally away from the real world; away from the less
+ideal portion of it, from stocks and stones, and aunts and uncles, and
+rests on mere half-embodied sentiments, which in the hands of great poets
+assume a kind of semi-personality, and are, to the distinction between
+things and persons, ‘as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto
+wine.’ The ‘Sonnets’ of Shakespeare belong exactly to the same school
+of poetry. They are not the sort of verses to take any particular hold
+upon the mind permanently and for ever, but at a certain period they take
+too much. For a young man to read in the spring of the year among green
+fields and in gentle air, they are the ideal. As first of April poetry
+they are perfect.
+
+The ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is of another order. If the question
+were to be decided by ‘Venus and Adonis,’ in spite of the unmeasured
+panegyrics of many writers, we should be obliged in equity to hold, that
+as a poet of mere fancy Shakespeare was much inferior to the late Mr.
+Keats and even to meaner men. Moreover, we should have been prepared
+with some refined reasonings to show that it was unlikely that a poet
+with so much hold on reality, in life and nature, both in solitude and
+in society, should have also a similar command over unreality: should
+possess a command not only of flesh and blood, but of the imaginary
+entities which the self-inworking fancy brings forth—impalpable
+conceptions of mere mind: _quædam simulacra miris pallentia modis_ thin
+ideas, which come we know not whence, and are given us we know not why.
+But, unfortunately for this ingenious, if not profound suggestion,
+Shakespeare in fact possessed the very faculty which it tends to prove
+that he would not possess. He could paint Poins and Falstaff, but he
+excelled also in fairy legends. He had such
+
+                    ‘Seething brains;
+    Such shaping fantasies as apprehend
+    More than cool reason ever comprehends.’
+
+As, for example, the idea of Puck, or Queen Mab, of Ariel, or such a
+passage as the following:—
+
+    ‘_Puck._ How now, spirit! whither wander you?
+
+    _Fai._ Over hill, over dale,
+      Thorough bush, thorough briar,
+      Over park, over pale,
+      Thorough flood, thorough fire,
+      I do wander everywhere,
+      Swifter than the moones sphere;
+      And I serve the fairy queen,
+      To dew her orbs upon the green:
+      The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
+      In their gold coats spots you see;
+      Those be rubies, fairy favours,
+      In those freckles live their savours:
+    I must go seek some dew-drops here,
+    And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
+    Farewell, thou lob of spirits, I’ll be gone;
+    Our queen and all our elves come here anon.
+
+    _Puck._ The king doth keep his revels here to-night;
+    Take heed the queen come not within his sight.
+    For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,
+    Because that she, as her attendant, hath
+    A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;
+    She never had so sweet a changeling:
+    And jealous Oberon would have the child
+    Knight of his train, to trace the forests wild:
+    But she, perforce, withholds the lovèd boy,
+    Crowns him with flowers, and makes him all her joy:
+    And now they never meet in grove, or green,
+    By fountain clear, or spangled star-light sheen,
+    But they do square; that all their elves, for fear,
+    Creep into acorn-cups, and hide them there.
+
+    _Fai._ Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
+    Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
+    Call’d Robin Good-fellow: are you not he
+    That fright the maidens of the villagery;
+    Skim milk; and sometimes labour in the quern,
+    And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
+    And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm;
+    Mislead night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?
+    Those that Hobgoblin call you, and sweet Puck,
+    You do their work, and they shall have good luck:
+    Are not you he?
+
+    _Puck._ Thou speak’st aright;
+    I am that merry wanderer of the night.
+    I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
+    When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
+    Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
+    And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
+    In very likeness of a roasted crab;
+    And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob,
+    And on her wither’d dew-lap pour the ale.
+    The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
+    Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
+    Then slip I from beneath, down topples she,
+    And _tailor_ cries, and falls into a cough;
+    And then the whole quire hold their hips, and loffe;
+    And waxen in their mirth, and neeze and swear
+    A merrier hour was never wasted there.—
+    But room, Fairy, here comes Oberon.
+
+    _Fai._ And here my mistress:—Would that he were gone!’
+
+Probably he believed in these things. Why not? Everybody else believed in
+them then. They suit our climate. As the Greek mythology suits the keen
+Attic sky, the fairies, indistinct and half-defined, suit a land of mild
+mists and gentle airs. They confuse the ‘maidens of the villagery;’ they
+are the paganism of the South of England.
+
+Can it be made out what were Shakespeare’s political views? We think it
+certainly can, and that without difficulty. From the English historical
+plays, it distinctly appears that he accepted, like everybody then, the
+Constitution of his country. His lot was not cast in an age of political
+controversy, nor of reform. What was, was from of old. The Wars of the
+Roses had made it very evident how much room there was for the evils
+incident to an hereditary monarchy, for instance, those of a controverted
+succession, and the evils incident to an aristocracy, as want of public
+spirit and audacious selfishness, to arise and continue within the realm
+of England. Yet they had not repelled, and had barely disconcerted our
+conservative ancestors. They had not become Jacobins; they did not
+concur—and history, except in Shakespeare, hardly does justice to them—in
+Jack Cade’s notion that the laws should come out of his mouth, or that
+the commonwealth was to be reformed by interlocutors in this scene.
+
+    ‘_Geo._ I tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier means to dress the
+    Commonwealth, and turn it, and set a new nap on it.
+
+    _John._ So he had need, for ’tis threadbare. Well, I say it was
+    never a merry world in England since gentlemen came up.
+
+    _Geo._ O miserable age! Virtue is not regarded in
+    handycraftsmen.
+
+    _John._ The nobility think scorn to go in leather aprons.
+
+    _Geo._ Nay more: the king’s council are no good workmen.
+
+    _John._ True; and yet it is said, Labour in thy vocation; which
+    is as much as to say, as let the magistrates be labouring men,
+    and therefore should we be magistrates.
+
+    _Geo._ Thou hast hit it, for there is no better sign of a brave
+    mind than a hard hand.
+
+    _John._ I see them! I see them!’
+
+The English people did see them, and know them, and therefore have
+rejected them. An audience which, _bonâ fide_, entered into the merit
+of this scene, would never believe in everybody’s suffrage. They would
+know that there is such a thing as nonsense, and when a man has once
+attained to that deep conception, you may be sure of him ever after. And
+though it would be absurd to say that Shakespeare originated this idea,
+or that the disbelief in simple democracy is owing to his teaching or
+suggestions, yet it may, nevertheless, be truly said, that he shared
+in the peculiar knowledge of men—and also possessed the peculiar
+constitution of mind—which engender this effect. The author of Coriolanus
+never believed in a mob, and did something towards preventing anybody
+else from doing so. But this political idea was not exactly the strongest
+in Shakespeare’s mind. We think he had two other stronger, or as strong.
+First, the feeling of loyalty to the ancient polity of this country—not
+because it was good, but because it existed. In his time, people no more
+thought of the origin of the monarchy than they did of the origin of the
+Mendip Hills. The one had always been there, and so had the other. God
+(such was the common notion) had made both, and one as much as the other.
+Everywhere, in that age, the common modes of political speech assumed
+the existence of certain utterly national institutions, and would have
+been worthless and nonsensical except on that assumption. This national
+habit appears as it ought to appear in our national dramatist. A great
+divine tells us that the Thirty-nine Articles are ‘forms of thought;’
+inevitable conditions of the religious understanding: in politics,
+‘kings, lords, and commons’ are, no doubt, ‘forms of thought,’ to the
+great majority of Englishmen; in these, they live, and beyond these, they
+never move. You can’t reason on the removal (such is the notion) of the
+English Channel, nor St. George’s Channel, nor can you of the English
+Constitution in like manner. It is to most of us, and to the happiest of
+us, a thing immutable, and such, no doubt, it was to Shakespeare, which,
+if any one would have proved, let him refer at random to any page of the
+historical English plays.
+
+The second peculiar tenet which we ascribe to his political creed,
+is a disbelief in the middle classes. We fear he had no opinion of
+traders. In this age, we know, it is held that the keeping of a shop is
+equivalent to a political education. Occasionally, in country villages,
+where the trader sells everything, he is thought to know nothing, and
+has no vote; but in a town where he is a householder (as, indeed, he is
+in the country), and sells only one thing—there we assume that he knows
+everything. And this assumption is in the opinion of some observers
+confirmed by the fact. Sir Walter Scott used to relate, that when, after
+a trip to London, he returned to Tweedside, he always found the people in
+that district knew more of politics than the Cabinet. And so it is with
+the mercantile community in modern times. If you are a Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, it is possible that you may be acquainted with finance; but if
+you sell figs it is certain that you will. Now we nowhere find this laid
+down in Shakespeare. On the contrary, you will generally find that when
+a ‘citizen’ is mentioned, he generally does or says something absurd.
+Shakespeare had a clear perception that it is possible to bribe a class
+as well as an individual, and that personal obscurity is but an insecure
+guarantee for political disinterestedness.
+
+    ‘Moreover, he hath left you all his walks,
+    His private arbours and new-planted orchards
+    On this side Tiber; he hath left them you,
+    And to your heirs for ever: common pleasures,
+    To walk abroad and recreate yourselves.
+    Here was a Cæsar! when comes such another?’
+
+He everywhere speaks in praise of a tempered and ordered and qualified
+polity, in which the pecuniary classes have a certain influence, but no
+more, and shows in every page a keen sensibility to the large views,
+and high-souled energies, the gentle refinements and disinterested
+desires in which those classes are likely to be especially deficient.
+He is particularly the poet of personal nobility, though, throughout
+his writings, there is a sense of freedom, just as Milton is the poet
+of freedom, though with an underlying reference to personal nobility;
+indeed, we might well expect our two poets to combine the appreciation
+of a rude and generous liberty with that of a delicate and refined
+nobleness, since it is the union of these two elements that characterises
+our society and their experience.
+
+There are two things—good-tempered sense and ill-tempered sense. In our
+remarks on the character of Falstaff, we hope we have made it very clear
+that Shakespeare had the former; we think it nearly as certain that he
+possessed the latter also. An instance of this might be taken from that
+contempt for the perspicacity of the _bourgeoisie_ which we have just
+been mentioning. It is within the limits of what may be called malevolent
+sense, to take extreme and habitual pleasure in remarking the foolish
+opinions, the narrow notions, and fallacious deductions which seem to
+cling to the pompous and prosperous man of business. Ask him his opinion
+of the currency question, and he puts ‘bills’ and ‘bullion’ together
+in a sentence, and he does not seem to care what he puts between them.
+But a more proper instance of (what has an odd sound), the malevolence
+of Shakespeare is to be found in the play of ‘Measure for Measure.’ We
+agree with Hazlitt, that this play seems to be written, perhaps more
+than any other, _con amore_, and with a relish; and this seems to be the
+reason why, notwithstanding the unpleasant nature of its plot, and the
+absence of any very attractive character, it is yet one of the plays
+which take hold on the mind most easily and most powerfully. Now the
+entire character of Angelo, which is the expressive feature of the piece,
+is nothing but a successful embodiment of the pleasure, the malevolent
+pleasure, which a warm-blooded and expansive man takes in watching
+the rare, the dangerous and inanimate excesses of the constrained and
+cold-blooded. One seems to see Shakespeare, with his bright eyes and his
+large lips and buoyant face, watching with a pleasant excitement the
+excesses of his thin-lipped and calculating creation, as though they were
+the excesses of a real person. It is the complete picture of a natural
+hypocrite, who does not consciously disguise strong impulses, but whose
+very passions seem of their own accord to have disguised themselves and
+retreated into the recesses of the character, yet only to recur even
+more dangerously when their proper period is expired, when the will is
+cheated into security by their absence, and the world (and, it may be,
+the ‘judicious person’ himself) is impressed with a sure reliance in his
+chilling and remarkable rectitude.
+
+It has, we believe, been doubted whether Shakespeare was a man much
+conversant with the intimate society of women. Of course no one denies
+that he possessed a great knowledge of them—a capital acquaintance with
+their excellences, faults, and foibles; but it has been thought that this
+was the result rather of imagination than of society, of creative fancy
+rather than of perceptive experience. Now that Shakespeare possessed,
+among other singular qualities, a remarkable imaginative knowledge of
+women, is quite certain, for he was acquainted with the soliloquies of
+women. A woman we suppose, like a man, must be alone, in order to speak a
+soliloquy. After the greatest possible intimacy and experience, it must
+still be imagination, or fancy at least, which tells any man what a woman
+thinks of herself and to herself. There will still—get as near the limits
+of confidence or observation as you can—be a space which must be filled
+up from other means. Men can only divine the truth—reserve, indeed, is
+a part of its charm. Seeing, therefore, that Shakespeare had done what
+necessarily and certainly must be done without experience, we were in
+some doubt whether he might not have dispensed with it altogether. A
+grave reviewer cannot know these things. We thought indeed of reasoning
+that since the delineations of women in Shakespeare were admitted to be
+first-rate, it should follow,—at least there was a fair presumption,—that
+no means or aid had been wanting to their production, and that
+consequently we ought, in the absence of distinct evidence, to assume
+that personal intimacy as well as solitary imagination had been concerned
+in their production. And we meant to cite the ‘questions about Octavia,’
+which Lord Byron, who thought he had the means of knowing, declared to be
+‘women all over.’
+
+But all doubt was removed and all conjecture set to rest by the coming
+in of an ably-dressed friend from the external world, who mentioned that
+the language of Shakespeare’s women was essentially female language; that
+there were certain points and peculiarities in the English of cultivated
+English women, which made it a language of itself, which must be heard
+familiarly in order to be known. And he added, ‘except a greater use of
+words of Latin derivation, as was natural in an age when ladies received
+a learned education, a few words not now proper, a few conceits that
+were the fashion of the time, and there is the very same English in the
+women’s speeches in Shakespeare.’ He quoted—
+
+    ‘Think not I love him, though I ask for him;
+    ’Tis but a peevish boy:—yet he talks well;—
+    But what care I for words? yet words do well,
+    When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
+    It is a pretty youth:—not very pretty:—
+    But, sure, he’s proud; and yet his pride becomes him;
+    He’ll make a proper man: The best thing in him
+    Is his complexion; and faster than his tongue
+    Did make offence, his eye did heal it up.
+    He is not tall; yet for his years he’s tall:
+    His leg is but so so: and yet ’tis well.
+    There was a pretty redness in his lip;
+    A little riper and more lusty red
+    Than that mix’d in his cheek; ’twas just the difference
+    Betwixt the constant red, and mingled damask.
+    There be some women, Silvius, had they mark’d him
+    In parcels as I did, would have gone near
+    To fall in love with him: but, for my part,
+    I love him not, nor hate him not; and yet
+    I have more cause to hate him than to love him:
+    For what had he to do to chide at me?
+    He said, my eyes were black, and my hair black,
+    And, now I am remember’d, scorn’d at me:
+    I marvel, why I answer’d not again;
+    But that’s all one;’
+
+and the passage of Perdita’s cited before about the daffodils that—
+
+                        ‘take
+    The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
+    But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
+    Or Cytherea’s breath;’
+
+and said that these were conclusive. But we have not, ourselves, heard
+young ladies converse in that manner.
+
+Perhaps it is in his power of delineating women, that Shakespeare
+contrasts most strikingly with the greatest master of the art of
+dialogue in antiquity—we mean Plato. It will, no doubt, be said that the
+delineation of women did not fall within Plato’s plan; that men’s life
+was in that age so separate and predominant that it could be delineated
+by itself and apart; and no doubt these remarks are very true. But what
+led Plato to form that plan? What led him to select that peculiar
+argumentative aspect of life, in which the masculine element is in so
+high a degree superior? We believe that he did it because he felt that
+he could paint that kind of scene much better than he could paint any
+other. If a person will consider the sort of conversation that was held
+in the cool summer morning, when Socrates was knocked up early to talk
+definitions and philosophy with Protagoras, he will feel, not only
+that women would fancy such dialogues to be certainly stupid, and very
+possibly to be without meaning, but also that the side of character
+which is there presented is one from which not only the feminine but
+even the epicene element is nearly if not perfectly excluded. It is
+the intellect surveying and delineating intellectual characteristics.
+We have a dialogue of thinking faculties; the character of every man
+is delineated by showing us, not his mode of action or feeling, but
+his mode of thinking, alone and by itself. The pure mind, purged of
+all passion and affection, strives to view and describe others in like
+manner; and the singularity is, that the likenesses so taken are so
+good,—that the accurate copying of the merely intellectual effects and
+indications of character gives so true and so firm an impression of the
+whole character,—that a daguerreotype of the mind should almost seem to
+be a delineation of the life. But though in the hand of a consummate
+artist, such a way of representation may in some sense succeed in the
+case of men, it would certainly seem sure to fail in the case of women.
+The mere intellect of a woman is a mere nothing. It originates nothing,
+it transmits nothing, it retains nothing; it has little life of its own,
+and therefore it can hardly be expected to attain any vigour. Of the
+lofty Platonic world of the ideas, which the soul in the old doctrine
+was to arrive at by pure and continuous reasoning, women were never
+expected to know anything. Plato (though Mr. Grote denies that he was a
+practical man) was much too practical for that; he reserved his teaching
+for people whose belief was regulated and induced in some measure by
+abstract investigations; who had an interest in the pure and (as it
+were) geometrical truth itself; who had an intellectual character (apart
+from and accessory to their other character) capable of being viewed as
+a large and substantial existence, Shakespeare’s being, like a woman’s,
+worked as a whole. He was capable of intellectual abstractedness, but
+commonly he was touched with the sense of earth. One thinks of him as
+firmly set on our coarse world of common clay, but from it he could paint
+the moving essence of thoughtful feeling—which is the best refinement
+of the best women. Imogen or Juliet would have thought little of the
+conversation of Gorgias.
+
+On few subjects has more nonsense been written than on the learning of
+Shakespeare. In former times, the established tenet was, that he was
+acquainted with the entire range of the Greek and Latin classics, and
+familiarly resorted to Sophocles and Æschylus as guides and models.
+This creed reposed not so much on any painful or elaborate criticism of
+Shakespeare’s plays, as on one of the _à priori_ assumptions permitted
+to the indolence of the wise old world. It was then considered clear,
+by all critics, that no one could write good English who could not also
+write bad Latin. Questioning scepticism has rejected this axiom, and
+refuted with contemptuous facility the slight attempt which had been made
+to verify this case of it from the evidence of the plays themselves. But
+the new school, not content with showing that Shakespeare was no formed
+or elaborate scholar, propounded the idea that he was quite ignorant,
+just as Mr. Croker ‘demonstrates’ that Napoleon Bonaparte could scarcely
+write or read. The answer is, that Shakespeare wrote his plays, and that
+those plays show not only a very powerful, but also a very cultivated
+mind. A hard student Shakespeare was not, yet he was a happy and pleased
+reader of interesting books. He was a natural reader; when a book was
+dull he put it down, when it looked fascinating he took it up, and the
+consequence is, that he remembered and mastered what he read. Lively
+books, read with lively interest, leave strong and living recollections;
+the instructors, no doubt, say that they ought not to do so, and
+inculcate the necessity of dry reading. Yet the good sense of a busy
+public has practically discovered that what is read easily is recollected
+easily, and what is read with difficulty is remembered with more. It is
+certain that Shakespeare read the novels of his time, for he has founded
+on them the stories of his plays; he read Plutarch, for his words still
+live in the dialogue of the ‘proud Roman’ plays; and it is remarkable
+that Montaigne is the only philosopher that Shakespeare can be proved
+to have read, because he deals more than any other philosopher with the
+first impressions of things which exist. On the other hand, it may be
+doubted if Shakespeare would have perused his commentators. Certainly,
+he would have never read a page of this review, and we go so far as to
+doubt whether he would have been pleased with the admirable discourses of
+M. Guizot, which we ourselves, though ardent admirers of his style and
+ideas, still find it a little difficult to _read_—and what would he have
+thought of the following speculations of an anonymous individual, whose
+notes have been recently published in a fine octavo by Mr. Collier, and,
+according to the periodical essayists, ‘contribute valuable suggestions
+to the illustration of the immortal bard’?
+
+    ‘THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA.
+
+    ‘ACT I. SCENE I.
+
+    ‘P. 92. The reading of the subsequent line has hitherto been
+
+        “’Tis true; for you are over boots in love;”
+
+    but the manuscript corrector of the Folio, 1632, has changed it
+    to
+
+        “’Tis true; _but_ you are over boots in love,”
+
+    which seems more consistent with the course of the dialogue;
+    for Proteus, remarking that Leander had been “more than over
+    shoes in love,” with Hero, Valentine answers, that Proteus was
+    even more deeply in love than Leander. Proteus observes of the
+    fable of Hero and Leander—
+
+        “That’s a deep story of a deeper love,
+        _For_ he was more than over shoes in love.”
+
+    Valentine retorts—
+
+        “’Tis true; _but_ you are over boots in love.”
+
+    _For_ instead of _but_ was perhaps caught by the compositor
+    from the preceding line.’
+
+It is difficult to fancy Shakespeare perusing a volume of such
+annotations, though we allow that we admire them ourselves. As to the
+controversy on his school learning, we have only to say, that though
+the alleged imitations of the Greek tragedians are mere nonsense, yet
+there is clear evidence that Shakespeare received the ordinary grammar
+school education of his time, and that he had derived from the pain
+and suffering of several years, not exactly an acquaintance with Greek
+or Latin, but, like Eton boys, a firm conviction that there are such
+languages.
+
+Another controversy has been raised as to whether Shakespeare was
+religious. In the old editions it is commonly enough laid down that,
+when writing his plays, he had no desire to fill the Globe Theatre,
+but that his intentions were of the following description. ‘In this
+play,’ Cymbeline, ‘Shakespeare has strongly depicted the frailties of
+our nature, and the effect of vicious passions on the human mind. In
+the fate of the Queen we behold the adept in perfidy justly sacrificed
+by the arts she had, with unnatural ambition, prepared for others; and
+in reviewing her death and that of Cloten, we may easily call to mind
+the words of Scripture,’ &c. And of King Lear it is observed with great
+confidence, that Shakespeare, ‘_no doubt_, intended to mark particularly
+the afflicting character of children’s ingratitude to their parents,
+and the conduct of Goneril and Regan to each other; _especially_ in the
+former’s poisoning the latter, and laying hands on _herself_, we are
+taught that those who want gratitude towards their parents (who gave
+them their being, fed them, nurtured them to _man’s_ estate) will not
+scruple to commit more barbarous crimes, and easily to forget that, by
+destroying their body, they destroy their soul also.’ And Dr. Ulrici,
+a very learned and illegible writer, has discovered that in every one
+of his plays Shakespeare had in view the inculcation of the peculiar
+sentiments and doctrines of the Christian religion, and considers the
+‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ to be a specimen of the lay or amateur sermon.
+This is what Dr. Ulrici thinks of Shakespeare; but what would Shakespeare
+have thought of Dr. Ulrici? We believe that ‘_Via_, goodman Dull,’ is
+nearly the remark which the learned professor would have received from
+the poet to whom his very careful treatise is devoted. And yet, without
+prying into the Teutonic mysteries, a gentleman of missionary aptitudes
+might be tempted to remark that in many points Shakespeare is qualified
+to administer a rebuke to people of the prevalent religion. Meeting
+a certain religionist is like striking the corner of a wall. He is
+possessed of a firm and rigid persuasion that you must leave off this and
+that, stop, cry, be anxious, be advised, and, above all things, refrain
+from doing what you like, for nothing is so bad for any one as that. And
+in quite another quarter of the religious hemisphere, we occasionally
+encounter gentlemen who have most likely studied at the feet of Dr.
+Ulrici, or at least of an equivalent Gamaliel, and who, when we, or such
+as we, speaking the language of mortality, remark of a pleasing friend,
+‘Nice fellow, so and so! Good fellow as ever lived!’ reply sternly,
+upon an unsuspecting reviewer, with—‘Sir, is he an _earnest_ man?’ To
+which, in some cases, we are unable to return a sufficient answer. Yet
+Shakespeare, differing, in that respect at least, from the disciples of
+Carlyle, had, we suspect, an objection to grim people, and we fear would
+have liked the society of Mercutio better than that of a dreary divine,
+and preferred Ophelia or ‘that Juliet’ to a female philanthropist of
+sinewy aspect. And, seriously, if this world is not all evil, he who
+has understood and painted it best must probably have some good. If
+the underlying and almighty essence of this world be good, then it is
+likely that the writer who most deeply approached to that essence will be
+himself good. There is a religion of week-days as well as of Sundays,
+of ‘cakes and ale’ as well as of pews and altar cloths. This England lay
+before Shakespeare as it lies before us all, with its green fields, and
+its long hedgerows, and its many trees, and its great towns, and its
+endless hamlets, and its motley society, and its long history, and its
+bold exploits, and its gathering power, and he saw that they were good.
+To him, perhaps, more than to any one else, has it been given to see that
+they were a great unity, a great religious object; that if you could only
+descend to the inner life, to the deep things, to the secret principles
+of its noble vigour, to the essence of character, to what we know of
+Hamlet and seem to fancy of Ophelia, we might, so far as we are capable
+of so doing, understand the nature which God has made. Let us, then,
+think of him not as a teacher of dry dogmas, or a sayer of hard sayings,
+but as
+
+              ‘A priest to us all,
+    Of the wonder and bloom of the world’—
+
+a teacher of the hearts of men and women; one from whom may be learned
+something of that inmost principle that ever modulates
+
+                      ‘With murmurs of the air,
+    And motions of the forests and the sea,
+    And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
+    Of night and day and the deep heart of man.’
+
+We must pause, lest our readers reject us, as the Bishop of Durham the
+poor curate, because he was ‘mystical and confused.’
+
+Yet it must be allowed that Shakespeare was worldly, and the proof of it
+is, that he succeeded in the world. Possibly this is the point on which
+we are most richly indebted to tradition. We see generally indeed in
+Shakespeare’s works the popular author, the successful dramatist; there
+is a life and play in his writings rarely to be found, except in those
+who have had habitual good luck, and who, by the tact of experience,
+feel the minds of their readers at every word, as a good rider feels
+the mouth of his horse. But it would have been difficult quite to make
+out whether the profits so accruing had been profitably invested—whether
+the genius to create such illusions was accompanied with the care and
+judgment necessary to put out their proceeds properly in actual life.
+We could only have said that there was a general impression of entire
+calmness and equability in his principal works, rarely to be found where
+there is much pain, which usually makes gaps in the work and dislocates
+the balance of the mind. But happily here, and here almost alone, we
+are on sure historical ground. The reverential nature of Englishmen has
+carefully preserved what they thought the great excellence of their
+poet—that he made a fortune.[28] It is certain that Shakespeare was
+proprietor of the Globe Theatre—that he made money there, and invested
+the same in land at Stratford-on-Avon, and probably no circumstance
+in his life ever gave him so much pleasure. It was a great thing that
+he, the son of the wool-comber, the poacher, the good-for-nothing, the
+vagabond (for so we fear the phrase went in Shakespeare’s youth), should
+return upon the old scene a substantial man, a person of capital, a
+freeholder, a gentleman to be respected, and over whom even a burgess
+could not affect the least superiority. The great pleasure in life is
+doing what people say you cannot do. Why did Mr. Disraeli take the
+duties of the Exchequer with so much relish? Because people said he was
+a novelist, an _ad captandum_ man, and—_monstrum horrendum!_—a Jew, that
+could not add up. No doubt it pleased his inmost soul to do the work of
+the red-tape people better than those who could do nothing else. And so
+with Shakespeare: it pleased him to be respected by those whom he had
+respected with boyish reverence, but who had rejected the imaginative
+man—on their own ground and in their own subject, by the only title
+which they would regard—in a word, as a moneyed man. We seem to see him
+eying the burgesses with good-humoured fellowship and genial (though
+suppressed and half-unconscious) contempt, drawing out their old stories,
+and acquiescing in their foolish notions, with everything in his head
+and easy sayings upon his tongue,—a full mind and a deep dark eye, that
+played upon an easy scene—now in fanciful solitude, now in cheerful
+society; now occupied with deep thoughts, now, and equally so, with
+trivial recreations, forgetting the dramatist in the man of substance,
+and the poet in the happy companion; beloved and even respected, with a
+hope for every one and a smile for all.
+
+
+
+
+_JOHN MILTON._[29]
+
+(1859.)
+
+
+The ‘Life of Milton,’ by Professor Masson, is a difficulty for the
+critics. It is very laborious, very learned, and in the main, we believe,
+very accurate. It is exceedingly long,—there are 780 pages in this
+volume, and there are to be two volumes more: it touches on very many
+subjects, and each of these has been investigated to the very best of
+the author’s ability. No one can wish to speak with censure of a book on
+which so much genuine labour has been expended; and yet we are bound, as
+true critics, to say that we think it has been composed upon a principle
+that is utterly erroneous. In justice to ourselves we must explain our
+meaning.
+
+There are two methods on which biography may consistently be written.
+The first of these is what we may call the exhaustive method. Every fact
+which is known about the hero may be told us; every thing which he did,
+every thing which he would not do, every thing which other people did to
+him, every thing which other people would not do to him,—may be narrated
+at full length. We may have a complete picture of all the events of his
+life; of all which he underwent, and all which he achieved. We may, as
+Mr. Carlyle expresses it, have a complete account ‘of his effect upon
+the universe, and of the effect of the universe upon him.’ We admit
+that biographies of this species would be very long and generally very
+tedious, we know that the world could not contain very many of them; but
+nevertheless the principle on which they may be written is intelligible.
+
+The second method on which the life of a man may be written is the
+selective. Instead of telling everything, we may choose what we will
+tell. We may select out of the numberless events, from among the
+innumerable actions of his life, those events and those actions which
+exemplify his true character, which prove to us what were the true limits
+of his talents, what was the degree of his deficiencies, which were his
+defects, which his vices,—in a word, we may select the traits and the
+particulars which seem to give us the best idea of the man as he lived
+and as he was. On this side the flood, as Sydney Smith would have said,
+we should have fancied that this was the only practicable principle on
+which biographies can be written about persons of whom many details are
+recorded. For ancient heroes the exhaustive method is possible. All
+that can be known of them is contained in a few short passages of Greek
+and Latin, and it is quite possible to say whatever can be said about
+every one of these: the result would not be unreasonably bulky, though
+it might be dull. But in the case of men who have lived in the thick of
+the crowded modern world, no such course is admissible; overmuch _may_
+be said, and we must choose what we will say. Biographers, however, are
+rarely bold enough to adopt the selective method consistently. They
+have, we suspect, the fear of the critics before their eyes. They do
+not like that it should be said that ‘the work of the learned gentleman
+contains serious omissions: the events of 1562 are not mentioned; those
+of October 1579 are narrated but very cursorily:’ and we fear that in any
+case such remarks will be made. Very learned people are pleased to show
+that they know what is _not_ in the book; sometimes they may hint that
+perhaps the author did not know it, or surely he would have mentioned
+it. But a biographer who wishes to write what most people of cultivation
+will be pleased to read must be courageous enough to face the pain of
+such censures. He must choose, as we have explained, the characteristic
+parts of his subject; and all that he has to take care of besides, is
+so to narrate them that their characteristic elements shall be shown:
+to give such an account of the general career as may make it clear what
+these chosen events really were; to show their respective bearings to one
+another; to delineate what is expressive in such a manner as to make it
+expressive.
+
+This plan of biography is, however, by no means that of Mr. Masson. He
+has no dread of overgrown bulk and overwhelming copiousness. He finds,
+indeed, what we have called the exhaustive method insufficient. He not
+only wishes to narrate in full the life of Milton, but to add those of
+his contemporaries likewise: he seems to wish to tell us not only what
+Milton did, but also what every one else did in Great Britain during
+his lifetime. He intends his book to be not ‘merely a biography of
+Milton, but also in some sort a continuous history of his time.... The
+suggestions of Milton’s life have indeed determined the tracks of these
+historical researches and expositions, sometimes through the literature
+of the period, sometimes through its civil and ecclesiastical politics;
+but the extent to which I have pursued them, and the space which I have
+assigned to them, have been determined by my desire to present, by their
+combination, something like a connected historical view of British
+thought and British society in general prior to the Revolution.’ We need
+not do more than observe that this union of heterogeneous aims must
+always end, as it has in this case, in the production of a work at once
+overgrown and incomplete. A great deal which has only a slight bearing
+on the character of Milton is inserted; much that is necessary to a true
+history of ‘British thought and British society’ is of necessity left
+out. The period of Milton’s life which is included in the published
+volume makes the absurdity especially apparent. In middle life Milton
+was a great controversialist on contemporary topics; and though it would
+not be proper for a biographer to load his pages with a full account
+of all such controversies, yet some notice of the most characteristic
+of them would be expected from him. In this part of Milton’s life some
+reference to public events would be necessary; and we should not severely
+censure a biographer, if the great interest of those events induced him
+to stray a little from his topic. But the first thirty years of Milton’s
+life require a very different treatment. He passed those years in the
+ordinary musings of a studious and meditative youth; it was the period of
+‘Lycidas’ and of ‘Comus;’ he then dreamed the
+
+    ‘Sights which youthful poets dream
+    On summer eve by haunted stream.’
+
+We do not wish to have this part of his life disturbed, to a greater
+extent than may be necessary, with the harshness of public affairs.
+Nor is it necessary that it should be so disturbed. A life of poetic
+retirement requires but little reference to anything except itself. In
+a biography of Mr. Tennyson we should not expect to hear of the Reform
+Bill, or the Corn Laws. Mr. Masson is, however, of a different opinion.
+He thinks it necessary to tell us, not only all which Milton did, but
+every thing also that he might have heard of.
+
+The biography of Mr. Keightley is on a very different scale. He tells
+the story of Milton’s career in about half a small volume. Probably this
+is a little too concise, and the narrative is somewhat dry and bare. It
+is often, however, acute, and is always clear; and even were its defects
+greater than they are, we should think it unseemly to criticise the last
+work of one who has performed so many useful services to literature with
+extreme severity.
+
+The bare outline of Milton’s life is very well known. We have all heard
+that he was born in the latter years of King James, just when Puritanism
+was collecting its strength for the approaching struggle; that his father
+and mother were quiet good people, inclined, but not immoderately, to
+that persuasion; that he went up to Cambridge early, and had some kind of
+dissension with the authorities there; that the course of his youth was
+in a singular degree pure and staid; that in boyhood he was a devourer of
+books, and that he early became, and always remained, a severely studious
+man; that he married, and had difficulties of a peculiar character with
+his first wife; that he wrote on Divorce; that after the death of his
+first wife, he married a second time a lady who died very soon, and a
+third time a person who survived him more than fifty years; that he wrote
+early poems of singular beauty, which we still read; that he travelled
+in Italy, and exhibited his learning in the academies there; that he
+plunged deep in the theological and political controversies of his
+time; that he kept a school, or rather, in our more modern phrase, took
+pupils; that he was a republican of a peculiar kind, and of ‘no church,’
+which Dr. Johnson thought dangerous; that he was Secretary for Foreign
+Languages under the Long Parliament, and retained that office after
+the coup-d’état of Cromwell; that he defended the death of Charles the
+First, and became blind from writing a book in haste upon that subject;
+that after the Restoration he was naturally in a position of some danger
+and much difficulty; that in the midst of that difficulty he wrote
+‘Paradise Lost;’ that he did not fail in heart or hope, but lived for
+fourteen years after the destruction of all for which he had laboured,
+in serene retirement, ‘though fallen on evil days, though fallen on evil
+times;’—all this we have heard from our boyhood. How much is wanting to
+complete the picture—how many traits, both noble and painful, might be
+recovered from the past—we shall never know, till some biographer skilled
+in interpreting the details of human nature shall select this subject for
+his art.
+
+All that we can hope to do in an essay like this is, to throw together
+some miscellaneous remarks on the character of the Puritan poet, and on
+the peculiarities of his works; and if in any part of them we may seem
+to make unusual criticisms, and to be over-ready with depreciation or
+objection, our excuse must be that we wish to paint a likeness, and that
+the harsher features of the subject should have a prominence, even in an
+outline.
+
+There are two kinds of goodness conspicuous in the world, and often
+made the subject of contrast there; for which, however, we seem to want
+exact words, and which we are obliged to describe rather vaguely and
+incompletely. These characters may in one aspect be called the sensuous
+and the ascetic. The character of the first is that which is almost
+personified in the poet-king of Israel, whose actions and whose history
+have been ‘improved’ so often by various writers, that it now seems trite
+even to allude to them. Nevertheless, the particular virtues and the
+particular career of David seem to embody the idea of what may be called
+sensuous goodness far more completely than a living being in general
+comes near to an abstract idea. There may have been shades in the actual
+man which would have modified the resemblance; but in the portrait which
+has been handed down to us, the traits are perfect and the approximation
+exact. The principle of this character is its sensibility to outward
+stimulus; it is moved by all which occurs, stirred by all which happens,
+open to the influences of whatever it sees, hears, or meets with. The
+certain consequence of this mental constitution is a peculiar liability
+to temptation. Men are, according to the divine, ‘put upon their trial
+through the senses.’ It is through the constant suggestions of the outer
+world that our minds are stimulated, that our will has the chance of
+a choice, that moral life becomes possible. The sensibility to this
+external stimulus brings with it, when men have it to excess, an unusual
+access of moral difficulty. Everything acts on them, and everything has
+a chance of turning them aside; the most tempting things act upon them
+very deeply, and their influence, in consequence, is extreme. Naturally,
+therefore, the errors of such men are great. We need not point the moral—
+
+    ‘Dizzied faith and guilt and woe,
+    Loftiest aims by earth defiled,
+    Gleams of wisdom sin-beguiled,
+    Sated power’s tyrannic mood,
+    Counsels shared with men of blood,
+    Sad success, parental tears,
+    And a dreary gift of years.’
+
+But, on the other hand, the excellence of such men has a charm, a kind
+of sensuous sweetness, that is its own. Being conscious of frailty,
+they are tender to the imperfect; being sensitive to this world, they
+sympathise with the world; being familiar with all the moral incidents of
+life, their goodness has a richness and a complication: they fascinate
+their own age, and in their deaths they are ‘not divided’ from the
+love of others. Their peculiar sensibility gives a depth to their
+religion; it is at once deeper and more human than that of other men.
+As their sympathetic knowledge of those whom they have seen is great,
+so it is with their knowledge of Him whom they have not seen; and as is
+their knowledge, so is their love; it is deep, from their nature; rich
+and intimate, from the variety of their experience; chastened by the
+ever-present sense of their weakness and of its consequences.
+
+In extreme opposition to this is the ascetic species of goodness.
+This is not, as is sometimes believed, a self-produced ideal—a simply
+voluntary result of discipline and restraint. Some men have by nature
+what others have to elaborate by effort. Some men have a repulsion from
+the world. All of us have, in some degree, a protective instinct; an
+impulse, that is to say, to start back from what may trouble us, to shun
+what may fascinate us, to avoid what may tempt us. On the moral side of
+human nature this preventive check is occasionally imperious; it holds
+the whole man under its control,—makes him recoil from the world, be
+offended at its amusements, be repelled by its occupations, be scared by
+its sins. The consequences of this tendency, when it is thus in excess,
+upon the character are very great and very singular. It secludes a man in
+a sort of natural monastery; he lives in a kind of moral solitude; and
+the effects of his isolation for good and for evil on his disposition
+are very many. The best result is a singular capacity for meditative
+religion. Being aloof from what is earthly, such persons are shut up with
+what is spiritual; being unstirred by the incidents of time, they are
+alone with the eternal; rejecting this life, they are alone with what
+is beyond. According to the measure of their minds, men of this removed
+and secluded excellence become eminent for a settled and brooding piety,
+for a strong and predominant religion. In human life too, in a thousand
+ways, their isolated excellence is apparent. They walk through the
+whole of it with an abstinence from sense, a zeal of morality, a purity
+of ideal, which other men have not. Their religion has an imaginative
+grandeur, and their life something of an unusual impeccability. And these
+are obviously singular excellences. But the deficiencies to which the
+same character tends are equally singular. In the first place, their
+isolation gives them a certain pride in themselves, and an inevitable
+ignorance of others. They are secluded by their constitutional δαίμων
+from life; they are repelled from the pursuits which others care for;
+they are alarmed at the amusements which others enjoy. In consequence,
+they trust in their own thoughts; they come to magnify both them and
+themselves—for being able to think and to retain them. The greater the
+nature of the man, the greater is this temptation. His thoughts are
+greater, and, in consequence, the greater is his tendency to prize them,
+the more extreme is his tendency to overrate them. This pride, too, goes
+side by side with a want of sympathy. Being aloof from others, such a
+mind is unlike others; and it feels, and sometimes it feels bitterly, its
+own unlikeness. Generally, however, it is too wrapt up in its own exalted
+thoughts to be sensible of the pain of moral isolation; it stands apart
+from others, unknowing and unknown. It is deprived of moral experience
+in two ways,—it is not tempted itself, and it does not comprehend the
+temptations of others. And this defect of moral experience is almost
+certain to produce two effects, one practical and the other speculative.
+When such a man is wrong, he will be apt to believe that he is right.
+If his own judgment err, he will not have the habit of checking it by
+the judgment of others; he will be accustomed to think most men wrong;
+differing from them would be no proof of error, agreeing with them would
+rather be a basis for suspicion. He may, too, be very wrong, for the
+conscience of no man is perfect on all sides. The strangeness of secluded
+excellence will be sometimes deeply shaded by very strange errors. To
+be commonly above others, still more to think yourself above others, is
+to be below them every now and then, and sometimes much below. Again,
+on the speculative side, this defect of moral experience penetrates
+into the distinguishing excellence of the character,—its brooding and
+meditative religion. Those who see life under only one aspect, can see
+religion under only one likewise. This world is needful to interpret
+what is beyond; the seen must explain the unseen. It is from a tried and
+a varied and a troubled moral life that the deepest and truest idea of
+God arises. The ascetic character wants these; therefore in its religion
+there will be a harshness of outline, a bareness, so to say, as well as a
+grandeur. In life we may look for a singular purity; but also, and with
+equal probability, for singular self-confidence, a certain unsympathising
+straitness, and perhaps a few singular errors.
+
+The character of the ascetic, or austere species of goodness, is almost
+exactly embodied in Milton. Men, indeed, are formed on no ideal type.
+Human nature has tendencies too various, and circumstances too complex.
+All men’s characters have sides and aspects not to be comprehended
+in a single definition; but in this case, the extent to which the
+character of the man, as we find it delineated, approaches to the moral
+abstraction which we sketch from theory, is remarkable. The whole being
+of Milton may, in some sort, be summed up in the great commandment
+of the austere character, ‘Reverence thyself.’ We find it expressed
+in almost every one of his singular descriptions of himself,—of those
+striking passages which are scattered through all his works, and which
+add to whatever interest may intrinsically belong to them one of the
+rarest of artistic charms, that of magnanimous autobiography. They have
+been quoted a thousand times, but one of them may perhaps be quoted
+again. ‘I had my time, readers, as others have, who have good learning
+bestowed upon them, to be sent to those places, where the opinion was it
+might be soonest attained; and as the manner is, was not unstudied in
+those authors which are most commended; whereof some were grave orators
+and historians, whose matter methought I loved indeed, but as my age
+then was, so I understood them; others were the smooth elegiac poets,
+whereof the schools are not scarce, whom both for the pleasing sound of
+their numerous writing, which in imitation I found most easy, and most
+agreeable to nature’s part in me, and for their matter, which what it is,
+there be few who know not, I was so allured to read, that no recreation
+came to me better welcome: for that it was then those years with me which
+are excused, though they be least severe, I may be saved the labour to
+remember ye. Whence having observed them to account it the chief glory
+of their wit, in that they were ablest to judge, to praise, and by that
+could esteem themselves worthiest to love those high perfections, which
+under one or other name they took to celebrate, I thought with myself
+by every instinct and presage of nature, which is not wont to be false,
+that what emboldened them to this task, might with such diligence as
+they used embolden me; and that what judgment, wit, or elegance was my
+share, would herein best appear, and best value itself, by how much more
+wisely, and with more love of virtue I should choose (let rude ears be
+absent) the object of not unlike praises: for albeit these thoughts to
+some will seem virtuous and commendable, to others only pardonable, to
+a third sort perhaps idle; yet the mentioning of them now will end in
+serious. Nor blame it, readers, in those years to propose to themselves
+such a reward, as the noblest dispositions above other things in this
+life have sometimes preferred: whereof not to be sensible when good and
+fair in one person meet, argues both a gross and shallow judgment, and
+withal an ungentle and swainish breast. For by the firm settling of these
+persuasions, I became, to my best memory, so much a proficient, that if
+I found those authors any where speaking unworthy things of themselves,
+or unchaste of those names which before they had extolled, this effect
+it wrought with me, from that time forward their art I still applauded,
+but the men I deplored; and above them all, preferred the two famous
+renowners of Beatrice and Laura, who never write but honour of them
+to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts
+without transgression. And long it was not after, when I was confirmed
+in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write
+well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that
+is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things; not
+presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless
+he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is
+praiseworthy.’
+
+It may be fanciful to add, and we may be laughed at, but we believe
+that the self-reverencing propensity was a little aided by his singular
+personal beauty. All the describers of his youth concur in telling us
+that this was very remarkable. Mr. Masson has the following account of
+it:—
+
+    ‘When Milton left Cambridge in July 1632, he was twenty-three
+    years and eight months old. In stature, therefore, at least,
+    he was already whatever he was to be. “In stature,” he says
+    himself at a latter period, when driven to speak on the
+    subject, “I confess I am not tall, but still of what is nearer
+    to middle height than to little: and what if I were of little;
+    of which stature have often been very great men both in peace
+    and war—though why should that be called little which is great
+    enough for virtue?” (“_Staturâ, fateor, non sum procerâ, sed
+    quæ mediocri tamen quàm parvæ propior sit; sed quid si parvâ,
+    quâ et summi sæpe tum pace tum bello viri fuere—quanquam
+    parva cur dicitur, quæ ad virtutem satis magna est?_”) This is
+    precise enough; but we have Aubrey’s words to the same effect:
+    “He was scarce so tall as I am,” says Aubrey; to which, to make
+    it more intelligible, he appends the marginal note:—“_Qu._
+    _Quot_ feet I am high? _Resp._ Of middle stature;”—i.e. Milton
+    was a little under middle height. “He had light brown hair,”
+    continues Aubrey,—putting the word “abrown” (“auburn”) in the
+    margin by way of synonym for “light brown;”—“his complexion
+    exceeding fair; oval face; his eye a dark gray.”’
+
+We are far from accusing Milton of personal vanity. His character was too
+enormous, if we may be allowed so to say, for a fault so petty. But a
+little tinge of excessive self-respect will cling to those who can admire
+themselves. Ugly men are and ought to be ashamed of their existence.
+Milton was not so.
+
+The peculiarities of the austere type of character stand out in Milton
+more remarkably than in other men who partake of it, because of the
+extreme strength of his nature. In reading him this is the first thing
+that strikes us. We seem to have left the little world of ordinary
+writers. The words of some authors are said to have ‘hands and feet;’
+they seem, that is, to have a vigour and animation which only belong to
+things which live and move. Milton’s words have not this animal life.
+There is no rude energy about them. But, on the other hand, they have,
+or seem to have, a soul, a spirit which other words have not. He was
+early aware that what he wrote, ‘by certain vital signs it had,’ was
+such as the world would not ‘willingly let die.’ After two centuries we
+feel the same. There is a solemn and firm music in the lines; a brooding
+sublimity haunts them; the spirit of the great writer moves over the
+face of the page. In life there seems to have been the same peculiar
+strength that his works suggest to us. His moral tenacity is amazing.
+He took his own course, and he kept his own course; and we may trace in
+his defects the same characteristics. ‘Energy and ill-temper,’ some say,
+‘are the same thing;’ and though this is a strong exaggeration, yet there
+is a basis of truth in it. People who labour much will be cross if they
+do not obtain that for which they labour; those who desire vehemently
+will be vexed if they do not obtain that which they desire. As is the
+strength of the impelling tendency, so, other things being equal, is
+the pain which it will experience if it be baffled. Those, too, who are
+set on what is high will be proportionately offended by the intrusion
+of what is low. Accordingly, Milton is described by those who knew him
+as a ‘harsh and choleric man.’ ‘He had,’ we are told, ‘a gravity in his
+temper, not melancholy, or not till the latter part of his life,—not
+sour, not morose, not ill-natured; but a certain severity of mind,
+not condescending to little things;’—and this, although his daughter
+remembered that he was delightful company, the life of conversation,
+and that he was so ‘on account of a flow of subjects and an unaffected
+cheerfulness and civility.’ Doubtless this may have been so when he was
+at ease, and at home. But there are unmistakable traces of the harsher
+tendency in almost all his works.
+
+Some of the peculiarities of the ascetic character were likewise
+augmented by his studious disposition. This began very early in life,
+and continued till the end. ‘My father,’ he says, ‘destined me to the
+study of polite literature, which I embraced with such avidity, that
+from the twelfth year of my age I hardly ever retired to rest from my
+studies till midnight; which was the first source of injury to my eyes,
+to the natural weakness of which were added frequent headaches: all of
+which not retarding my eagerness after knowledge, he took care to have
+me instructed,’ &c. Every page of his works shows the result of this
+education. In spite of the occupations of manhood, and the blindness and
+melancholy of old age, he still continued to have his principal pleasure
+in that ‘studious and select’ reading, which, though often curiously
+transmuted, is perpetually involved in the very texture of his works.
+We need not stay to observe how a habit in itself so austere conduces
+to the development of an austere character. Deep study, especially deep
+study which haunts and rules the imagination, necessarily removes men
+from life, absorbs them in themselves; purifies their conduct, with some
+risk of isolating their sympathies; developes that loftiness of mood
+which is gifted with deep inspirations and indulged with great ideas,
+but which tends in its excess to engender a contempt for others, and a
+self-appreciation which is even more displeasing to them.
+
+These same tendencies were aggravated also by two defects which are
+exceedingly rare in great English authors, and which perhaps Milton
+alone amongst those of the highest class is in a remarkable degree
+chargeable with. We mean a deficiency in humour, and a deficiency in a
+knowledge of plain human nature. Probably when, after the lapse of ages,
+English literature is looked at in its larger features only, and in
+comparison with other literatures which have preceded or which may follow
+it, the critics will lay down that its most striking characteristic
+as a whole is its involution, so to say, in life; the degree to which
+its book-life resembles real life; the extent to which the motives,
+dispositions, and actions of common busy persons are represented in
+a medium which would seem likely to give us peculiarly the ideas of
+secluded, and the tendencies of meditative men. It is but an aspect of
+this fact, that English literature abounds,—some critics will say abounds
+excessively,—with humour. This is in some sense the imaginative element
+of ordinary life,—the relieving charm, partaking at once of contrast and
+similitude, which gives a human and an intellectual interest to the world
+of clowns and cottages, of fields and farmers. The degree to which Milton
+is deficient in this element is conspicuous in every page of his writings
+where its occurrence could be looked for; and if we do not always look
+for it, this is because the subjects of his most remarkable works are
+on a removed elevation, where ordinary life, the world of ‘cakes and
+ale,’ is never thought of and never expected. It is in his dramas, as we
+should expect, that Milton shows this deficiency the most. ‘Citizens’
+never talk in his pages, as they do in Shakespeare. We feel instinctively
+that Milton’s eye had never rested with the same easy pleasure on the
+easy, ordinary, shop-keeping world. Perhaps, such is the complication
+of art, that it is on the most tragic occasions that we feel this want
+the most. It may seem an odd theory, and yet we believe it to be a true
+principle, that catastrophes require a comic element. We appear to feel
+the same principle in life. We may read solemn descriptions of great
+events in history,—say of Lord Strafford’s trial, and of his marvellous
+speech, and his appeal to his ‘saint in heaven;’ but we comprehend
+the whole transaction much better when we learn from Mr. Baillie, the
+eye-witness, that people ate nuts and apples, and talked, and laughed,
+and betted on the great question of acquittal and condemnation. Nor
+is it difficult to understand why this should be so. It seems to be a
+law of the imagination, at least in most men, that it will not bear
+concentration. It is essentially a glancing faculty. It goes and comes,
+and comes and goes, and we hardly know whence or why. But we most of us
+know that when we try to fix it, in a moment it passes away. Accordingly,
+the proper procedure of art is to let it go in such a manner as to ensure
+its coming back again. The force of artistic contrasts effects exactly
+this result. Skilfully-disposed opposites suggest the notion of each
+other. We realise more perfectly and easily the great idea, the tragic
+conception, when we are familiarised with its effects on the minds of
+little people,—with the petty consequences which it causes, as well as
+with the enormous forces from which it comes. The catastrophe of Samson
+Agonistes discloses Milton’s imperfect mastery of this element of effect.
+If ever there was an occasion which admitted its perfect employment,
+it was this. The kind of catastrophe is exactly that which is sure to
+strike, and strike forcibly, the minds of common persons. If their
+observations on the occasion were really given to us, we could scarcely
+avoid something rather comic. The eccentricity, so to speak, of ordinary
+persons, shows itself peculiarly at such times, and they say the queerest
+things. Shakespeare has exemplified this principle most skilfully on
+various occasions: it is the sort of art which is just in his way. His
+imagination always seems to be floating between the contrasts of things;
+and if his mind had a resting-place that it liked, it was this ordinary
+view of extraordinary events. Milton was under the great obligation to
+use this relieving principle of art in the catastrophe of Samson, because
+he has made every effort to heighten the strictly tragic element, which
+requires that relief. His art, always serious, was never more serious.
+His Samson is not the incarnation of physical strength which the popular
+fancy embodies in the character; nor is it the simple and romantic
+character of the Old Testament. On the contrary, Samson has become a
+Puritan: the observations he makes would have done much credit to a
+religious pikeman in Cromwell’s army. In consequence, his death requires
+some lightening touches to make it a properly artistic event. The pomp of
+seriousness becomes too oppressive.
+
+    ‘At length for intermission sake they led him
+    Between the pillars; he his guide requested
+    (For so from such as nearer stood we heard),
+    As over-tired, to let him lean a while
+    With both his arms on those two massy pillars
+    That to the arched roof gave main support.
+    He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson
+    Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined,
+    And eyes fast fix’d, he stood, as one who pray’d,
+    Or some great matter in his mind revolved:
+    At last with head erect thus cry’d aloud,
+    “Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed
+    I have perform’d, as reason was, obeying,
+    Not without wonder or delight beheld:
+    Now of my own accord such other trial
+    I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,
+    As with amaze shall strike all who behold.”
+    This utter’d, straining all his nerves he bow’d,
+    As with the force of winds and waters pent
+    When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
+    With horrible convulsion to and fro.
+    He tugg’d, he shook, till down they came, and drew
+    The whole roof after them, with burst of thunder,
+    Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,—Lords,
+    ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests,
+    Their choice nobility and flower, not only
+    Of this, but each Philistian city round,
+    Met from all parts to solemnise this feast.
+    Samson with these immix’d, inevitably
+    Pull’d down the same destruction on himself;
+    The vulgar only ’scaped who stood without.
+
+    _Chor._ O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious!
+    Living or dying thou hast fulfill’d
+    The work for which thou wast foretold
+    To Israel, and now ly’st victorious
+    Among thy slain self-kill’d,
+    Not willingly, but tangled in the fold
+    Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin’d
+    Thee with thy slaughter’d foes, in number more
+    Than all thy life hath slain before.’
+
+This is grave and fine; but Shakespeare would have done it differently
+and better.
+
+We need not pause to observe how certainly this deficiency in humour
+and in the delineation of ordinary human feeling is connected with a
+recluse, a solitary, and to some extent an unsympathising life. If we
+combine a certain natural aloofness from common men with literary habits
+and an incessantly studious musing, we shall at once see how powerful a
+force is brought to bear on an instinctively austere character, and how
+sure it will be to develope the peculiar tendencies of it, both good and
+evil. It was to no purpose that Milton seems to have practised a sort of
+professional study of life. No man could rank more highly the importance
+to a poet of an intellectual insight into all-important pursuits and
+‘seemly arts.’ But it is not by the mere intellect that we can take in
+the daily occupations of mankind; we must sympathise with them, and see
+them in their human relations. A chimney-sweeper, _quâ_ chimney-sweeper,
+is not very sentimental; it is in himself that he is so interesting.
+
+Milton’s austere character is in some sort the more evident, because he
+possessed in large measure a certain relieving element, in which those
+who are eminent in that character are very deficient. Generally such
+persons have but obtuse senses. We are prone to attribute the purity of
+their conduct to the dullness of their sensations. Milton had no such
+obtuseness. He had every opportunity for knowing the world of eye and
+ear. You cannot open his works without seeing how much he did know of
+it. The austerity of his nature was not caused by the deficiency of his
+senses, but by an excess of the warning instinct. Even when he professed
+to delineate the world of sensuous delight, this instinct shows itself.
+Dr. Johnson thought he could discern melancholy in ‘L’Allegro.’ If he had
+said solitariness, it would have been correct.
+
+The peculiar nature of Milton’s character is very conspicuous in the
+events of his domestic life, and in the views which he took of the great
+public revolutions of his age. We can spare only a very brief space for
+the examination of either of these; but we will endeavour to say a few
+words upon each of them.
+
+The circumstances of Milton’s first marriage are as singular as any in
+the strange series of the loves of the poets. The scene opens with an
+affair of business. Milton’s father, as is well known, was a scrivener—a
+kind of professional money-lender, then well known in London; and having
+been early connected with the vicinity of Oxford, continued afterwards to
+have pecuniary transactions of a certain nature with country gentlemen
+of that neighbourhood. In the course of these he advanced 500_l._ to a
+certain Mr. Richard Powell, a squire of fair landed estate, residing
+at Forest Hill, which is about four miles from the city of Oxford. The
+money was lent on the 11th of June 1627; and a few months afterwards Mr.
+Milton the elder gave 312_l._ of it to his son the poet, who was then a
+youth at college, and made a formal memorandum of the same in the form
+then usual, which still exists. The debt was never wholly discharged;
+for in 1651 we find Milton declaring on oath that he had never received
+more than 180_l._, ‘in part satisfaction of his said just and principal
+debt, with damages for the same and his costs of suit.’ Mr. Keightley
+supposes him to have ‘taken many a ride over to Forest Hill’ after he
+left Cambridge and was living at Horton, which is not very far distant;
+but of course this is only conjecture. We only know that about 1643 ‘he
+took,’ as his nephew relates, ‘a journey into the country, nobody about
+him certainly knowing the reason, or that it was more than a journey of
+recreation. After a month’s stay he returns a married man, who set out a
+bachelor; his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell,
+then a justice of the peace’ for the county of Oxford. The suddenness of
+the event is rather striking; but Philips was at the time one of Milton’s
+pupils, and it is possible that some pains may have been taken to conceal
+the love-affair from the ‘young gentlemen.’ Still, as Philips was
+Milton’s nephew, he was likely to hear such intelligence tolerably early;
+and as he does not seem to have done so, the _dénouement_ was probably
+rather prompt. At any rate, he was certainly married at that time, and
+took his bride home to his house in Aldersgate Street; and there was
+feasting and gaiety according to the usual custom of such events. A
+few weeks after, the lady went home to her friends, in which there was
+of course nothing remarkable; but it is singular that when the natural
+limit of her visit at home was come, she absolutely refused to return to
+her husband. The grounds of so strange a resolution are very difficult
+to ascertain. Political feeling ran very high: old Mr. Powell adhered
+to the side of the king, and Milton to that of the parliament; and this
+might be fancied to have caused an estrangement. But on the other hand,
+these circumstances must have been well known three months before.
+Nothing had happened in that quarter of a year to change very materially
+the position of the two parties in the State. Some other cause for Mrs.
+Milton’s conduct must be looked for. She herself is said to have stated
+that she did not like her husband’s ‘spare diet and hard study.’ No
+doubt, too, she found it dull in London; she had probably always lived
+in the country, and must have been quite unaccustomed to the not very
+pleasant scene in which she found herself. Still, many young ladies have
+married schoolmasters, and many young ladies have gone from Oxfordshire
+to London; and nevertheless, no such dissolution of matrimonial harmony
+is known to have occurred.
+
+The fact we believe to be, that the bride took a dislike to her husband.
+We cannot but have a suspicion that she did not like him before marriage,
+and that pecuniary reasons had their influence. If, however, Mr. Powell
+exerted his paternal influence, it may be admitted that he had unusual
+considerations to advance in favour of the alliance he proposed. It is
+not every father whose creditors are handsome young gentlemen with fair
+incomes. Perhaps it seemed no extreme tyranny to press the young lady a
+little to do that which some others might have done without pressing.
+Still, all this is but hypothesis; our evidence as to the love-affairs of
+the time of King Charles I. is but meagre. But, whatever the feelings of
+Miss Powell may have been, those of Mrs. Milton are exceedingly certain.
+She would not return to her husband; she did not answer his letters; and
+a messenger whom he sent to bring her back was handled rather roughly.
+Unquestionably, she was deeply to blame, by far the most to blame of the
+two. Whatever may be alleged against him, is as nothing compared with her
+offence in leaving him. To defend so startling a course, we must adopt
+views of divorce even more extreme than those which Milton was himself
+driven to inculcate; and whatever Mrs. Milton’s practice may have been,
+it may be fairly conjectured that her principles were strictly orthodox.
+Yet, if she could be examined by a commission to the ghosts, she would
+probably have some palliating circumstances to allege in mitigation
+of judgment. There were, perhaps, peculiarities in Milton’s character
+which a young lady might not improperly dislike. The austere and ascetic
+character is of course far less agreeable to women than the sensuous
+and susceptible. The self-occupation, the pride, the abstraction of the
+former are to the female mind disagreeable; studious habits and unusual
+self-denial seem to it purposeless; lofty enthusiasm, public spirit, the
+solitary pursuit of an elevated ideal, are quite out of its way: they
+rest too little on the visible world to be intelligible, they are too
+little suggested by the daily occurrences of life to seem possible. The
+poet in search of an imaginary phantom has never been successful with
+women; there are innumerable proofs of that; and the ascetic moralist
+is even less interesting. A character combined out of the two—and this
+to some extent was Milton’s—is singularly likely to meet with painful
+failure; with a failure the more painful, that it could never anticipate
+or explain it. Possibly he was absorbed in an austere self-conscious
+excellence; it may never have occurred to him that a lady might prefer
+the trivial detail of daily happiness.
+
+Milton’s own view of the matter he has explained to us in his book on
+divorce; and it is a very odd one. His complaint was that his wife would
+not talk. What he wished in marriage was an ‘intimate and speaking
+help;’ he encountered a ‘mute and spiritless mate.’ One of his principal
+incitements to the ‘pious necessity of divorcing,’ was an unusual
+deficiency in household conversation. A certain loquacity in their
+wives has been the complaint of various eminent men; but his domestic
+affliction was a different one. The ‘ready and reviving associate,’ whom
+he had hoped to have found, appeared to be a ‘co-inhabiting mischief,’
+who was sullen, and perhaps seemed bored and tired. And at times he is
+disposed to cast the blame of his misfortune on the uninstructive nature
+of youthful virtue. The ‘soberest and best-governed men,’ he says, are
+least practised in such affairs, are not very well aware that ‘the
+bashful muteness’ of a young lady ‘may oft-times hide the unliveliness
+and natural sloth which is really unfit for conversation;’ and are rather
+in too great haste to light the nuptial torch: whereas those ‘who have
+lived most loosely, by reason of their bold accustoming, prove most
+successful in their matches; because their wild affections, unsettling
+at will, have been as so many divorces to teach them experience.’ And
+he rather wishes to infer that the virtuous man should, in case of
+mischance, have his resource of divorce likewise.
+
+In truth, Milton’s book on divorce—though only containing principles
+which he continued to believe long after he had any personal reasons
+for wishing to do so—were clearly suggested at first by the unusual
+phenomena of his first marriage. His wife began by not speaking to him,
+and finished by running away from him. Accordingly, like most books which
+spring out of personal circumstances, his treatises on this subject have
+a frankness, and a mastery of detail, which others on the same topic
+sometimes want. He is remarkably free from one peculiarity of modern
+writers on such matters. Several considerate gentlemen are extremely
+anxious for the ‘rights of woman.’ They think that women will benefit by
+removing the bulwarks which the misguided experience of ages has erected
+for their protection. A migratory system of domestic existence might suit
+Madame Dudevant, and a few cases of singular exception; but we cannot
+fancy that it would be, after all, so much to the taste of most ladies
+as the present more permanent system. We have some reminiscence of the
+stories of the wolf and the lamb, when we hear amiable men addressing
+a female auditory (in books, of course) on the advantages of a freer
+‘development.’ We are perhaps wrong, but we cherish an indistinct
+suspicion that an indefinite extension of the power of selection would
+rather tend to the advantage of the sex which more usually chooses.
+But we have no occasion to avow such opinions now. Milton had no such
+modern views. He is frankly and honestly anxious for the rights of
+the man. Of the doctrine that divorce is only permitted for the help
+of wives, he exclaims, ‘Palpably uxorious! who can be ignorant, that
+a woman was created for man, and not man for woman? What an injury is
+it after wedlock to be slighted! what to be contended with in point of
+house-rule who shall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that
+were something reasonable, but out of a female pride! “I suffer not,”
+saith St. Paul, “the woman to usurp authority over the man.” If the
+Apostle could not suffer it,’ he naturally remarks, ‘into what mould is
+he mortified that can?’ He had a sincere desire to preserve men from the
+society of unsocial and unsympathising women; and that was his principal
+idea.
+
+His theory, to a certain extent, partakes of the same notion. The
+following passage contains a perspicuous exposition of it: ‘Moses, Deut.
+xxiv. 1, established a grave and prudent law, full of moral equity, full
+of due consideration towards nature, that cannot be resisted, a law
+consenting with the wisest men and civilest nations; that when a man hath
+married a wife, if it come to pass that he cannot love her by reason of
+some displeasing natural quality or unfitness in her, let him write her
+a bill of divorce. The intent of which law undoubtedly was this, that if
+any good and peaceable man should discover some helpless disagreement
+or dislike, either of mind or body, whereby he could not cheerfully
+perform the duty of a husband without the perpetual dissembling of
+offence and disturbance to his spirit; rather than to live uncomfortably
+and unhappily both to himself and to his wife; rather than to continue
+undertaking a duty, which he could not possibly discharge, he might
+dismiss her, whom he could not tolerably, and so not conscionably,
+retain. And this law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov.
+xxx. 21, 23, testifies to be a good and a necessary law, by granting
+it that “a hated woman” (for so the Hebrew word signifies, rather than
+“odious,” though it come all to one), that “a hated woman, when she
+is married, is a thing that the earth cannot bear.”’ And he complains
+that the civil law of modern states interferes with the ‘domestical
+prerogative of the husband.’
+
+His notion would seem to have been that a husband was bound not to
+dismiss his wife, except for a reason really sufficient; such as a
+thoroughly incompatible temper, an incorrigible ‘muteness,’ and a
+desertion like that of Mrs. Milton. But he scarcely liked to admit that,
+in the use of this power, he should be subject to the correction of
+human tribunals. He thought that the circumstances of each case depended
+upon ‘utterless facts;’ and that it was practically impossible for a
+civil court to decide on a subject so delicate in its essence, and so
+imperceptible in its data. But though amiable men doubtless suffer much
+from the deficiencies of their wives, we should hardly like to intrust
+them, in their own cases, with a jurisdiction so prompt and summary.
+
+We are far from being concerned, however, just now with the doctrine of
+divorce on its intrinsic merits: we were only intending to give such an
+account of Milton’s opinions upon it as might serve to illustrate his
+character. We think we have shown that it is possible there may have
+been, in his domestic relations, a little overweening pride; a tendency
+to overrate the true extent of masculine rights, and to dwell on his
+wife’s duty to be social towards him rather than on his duty to be social
+towards her,—to be rather sullen whenever she was not quite cheerful.
+Still, we are not defending a lady for leaving her husband for defects of
+such inferior magnitude. Few households would be kept together, if the
+right of transition were exercised on such trifling occasions. We are
+but suggesting that she may share the excuse which our great satirist
+has suggested for another unreliable lady: ‘My mother was an angel; but
+angels are not always _commodes à vivre_.’
+
+This is not a pleasant part of our subject, and we must leave it. It
+is more agreeable to relate that on no occasion of his life was the
+substantial excellence of Milton’s character more conclusively shown,
+than in his conduct at the last stage of this curious transaction. After
+a very considerable interval, and after the publication of his book on
+divorce, Mrs. Milton showed a disposition to return to her husband; and,
+in spite of his theories, he received her with open arms. With great
+Christian patience, he received her relations too. The Parliamentary
+party was then victorious; and old Mr. Powell, who had suffered very much
+in the cause of the king, lived until his death untroubled, and ‘wholly
+to his devotion,’ as we are informed, in the house of his son-in-law.
+
+Of the other occurrences of Milton’s domestic life we have left ourselves
+no room to speak; we must turn to our second source of illustration for
+his character,—his opinions on the great public events of his time. It
+may seem odd, but we believe that a man of austere character naturally
+tends _both_ to an excessive party spirit and to an extreme isolation. Of
+course, the circumstances which develope the one must be different from
+those which are necessary to call out the other: party-spirit requires
+companionship; isolation, if we may be pardoned so original a remark,
+excludes it. But though, as we have shown, this species of character is
+prone to mental solitude, tends to an intellectual isolation where it is
+possible and as soon as it can, yet when invincible circumstances throw
+it into mental companionship, when it is driven into earnest association
+with earnest men on interesting topics, its zeal becomes excessive. Such
+a man’s mind is at home only with its own enthusiasm; it is cooped up
+within the narrow limits of its own ideas, and it can make no allowance
+for those who differ from or oppose them. We may see something of this
+excessive party-zeal in Burke. No one’s reasons are more philosophical;
+yet no one who acted with a party went further in aid of it or was more
+violent in support of it. He forgot what could be said for the tenets of
+the enemy; his imagination made that enemy an abstract incarnation of his
+tenets. A man, too, who knows that he formed his opinions originally by a
+genuine and intellectual process, is but little aware of the undue energy
+those ideas may obtain from the concurrence of those around. Persons who
+first acquired their ideas at second-hand are more open to a knowledge of
+their own weakness, and better acquainted with the strange force which
+there is in the sympathy of others. The isolated mind, when it acts with
+the popular feeling, is apt to exaggerate that feeling for the most part
+by an almost inevitable consequence of the feelings which render it
+isolated. Milton is an example of this remark. In the commencement of the
+struggle between Charles I. and the Parliament, he sympathised strongly
+with the popular movement, and carried to what seems now a strange
+extreme his partisanship. No one could imagine that the first literary
+Englishman of his time could write the following passage on Charles I.:
+
+‘Who can with patience hear this filthy, rascally Fool speak so
+irreverently of Persons eminent both in Greatness and Piety? Dare you
+compare King _David_ with King _Charles_; a most Religious King and
+Prophet, with a Superstitious Prince, and who was but a Novice in the
+Christian Religion; a most prudent, wise Prince with a weak one; a
+valiant Prince with a cowardly one; finally, a most just Prince with
+a most unjust one? Have you the impudence to commend his Chastity and
+Sobriety, who is known to have committed all manner of Leudness in
+company with his Confident the Duke of _Buckingham_? It were to no
+purpose to inquire into the private Actions of his Life, who publickly at
+Plays would embrace and kiss the Ladies.’
+
+Whatever may be the faults of that ill-fated monarch—and they assuredly
+were not small—no one would now think this absurd invective to be even
+an excusable exaggeration. It misses the true mark altogether, and is
+the expression of a strongly imaginative mind, which has seen something
+that it did not like, and is unable in consequence to see anything that
+has any relation to it distinctly or correctly. But with the supremacy
+of the Long Parliament Milton’s attachment to their cause ceased. No one
+has drawn a more unfavourable picture of the rule which they established.
+Years after their supremacy had passed away, and the restoration of the
+monarchy had covered with a new and strange scene the old actors and
+the old world, he thrust into a most unlikely part of his _History of
+England_ the following attack on them:—
+
+‘But when once the superficiall zeal and popular fumes that acted their
+New Magistracy were cool’d and spent in them, strait every one betook
+himself (setting the Commonwealth behind, his privat ends before) to
+doe as his own profit or ambition ledd him. Then was justice delay’d,
+and soon after deni’d: spight and favour determin’d all: hence faction,
+thence treachery, both at home and in the field: ev’ry where wrong, and
+oppression: foull and horrid deeds committed daily, or maintain’d, in
+secret, or in open. Som who had bin call’d from shops and warehouses,
+without other merit, to sit in Supreme Councills and Committees as thir
+breeding was, fell to huckster the Commonwealth. Others did therafter as
+men could soothe and humour them best; so hee who would give most, or,
+under covert of hypocriticall zeale, insinuat basest, enjoy’d unworthily
+the rewards of lerning and fidelity; or escap’d the punishment of his
+crimes and misdeeds. Thir Votes and Ordinances, which men looked should
+have contain’d the repealing of bad laws, and the immediat constitution
+of better, resounded with nothing els, but new Impositions, Taxes,
+Excises; yeerly, monthly, weekly. Not to reckon the Offices, Gifts, and
+Preferments bestow’d and shar’d among themselvs.’
+
+His dislike of this system of committees, and of the generally dull
+and unemphatic administration of the Commonwealth, attached him to the
+Puritan army and to Cromwell; but in the continuation of the passage we
+have referred to, he expresses, with something, let it be said, of a
+schoolmaster feeling, an unfavourable judgment on their career.
+
+‘For _Britan_, to speak a truth not oft’n spok’n, as it is a Land
+fruitful enough of men stout and courageous in warr, soe it is naturally
+not over-fertill of men able to govern justly and prudently in peace,
+trusting onely in thir Motherwit; who consider not justly, that civility,
+prudence, love of the Publick good, more then of money or vaine honour,
+are to this soile in a manner outlandish; grow not here, but in mindes
+well implanted with solid and elaborat breeding, too impolitic els and
+rude, if not headstrong and intractable to the industry and vertue either
+of executing or understanding true Civill Government. Valiant indeed,
+and prosperous to win a field; but to know the end and reason of winning,
+unjudicious, and unwise: in good or bad succes, alike unteachable. For
+the Sun, which wee want, ripens wits as well as fruits; and as Wine and
+Oil are imported to us from abroad, soe must ripe understanding, and
+many Civill Vertues, be imported into our mindes from Foren Writings,
+and examples of best Ages; we shall els miscarry still, and com short
+in the attempts of any great enterprize. Hence did thir Victories prove
+as fruitles, as thir Losses dang’rous; and left them still conq’ring
+under the same greevances, that Men suffer conquer’d: which was indeed
+unlikely to goe otherwise, unles Men more then vulgar bred up, as few of
+them were, in the knowledg of antient and illustrious deeds, invincible
+against many and vaine Titles, impartial to Freindships and Relations,
+had conducted thir Affairs: but then from the Chapman to the Retailer,
+many whose ignorance was more audacious then the rest, were admitted
+with all thir sordid Rudiments to bear no meane sway among them, both in
+Church and State.’
+
+We need not speak of Milton’s disapprobation of the Restoration. Between
+him and the world of Charles II. the opposition was inevitable and
+infinite. Therefore the general fact remains, that except in the early
+struggles, when he exaggerated the popular feeling, he remained solitary
+in opinion, and had very little sympathy with any of the prevailing
+parties of his time.
+
+Milton’s own theory of government is to be learned from his works. He
+advocated a free commonwealth, without rule of a single person, or House
+of Lords: but the form of his projected commonwealth was peculiar. He
+thought that a certain perpetual council, which should be elected by
+the nation once for all, and the number of which should be filled up
+as vacancies might occur, was the best possible machine of government.
+He did not confine his advocacy to abstract theory, but proposed the
+immediate establishment of such a council in this country. We need not
+go into an elaborate discussion to show the errors of this conclusion.
+Hardly any one, then or since, has probably adopted it. The interest of
+the theoretical parts of Milton’s political works is entirely historical.
+The tenets advocated are not of great value, and the arguments by which
+he supports them are perhaps of less; but their relation to the times in
+which they were written gives them a very singular interest. The time
+of the Commonwealth was the only period in English history in which the
+fundamental questions of government have been thrown open for popular
+discussion in this country. We read in French literature discussions
+on the advisability of establishing a monarchy, on the advisability
+of establishing a republic, on the advisability of establishing an
+empire; and, before we proceed to examine the arguments, we cannot help
+being struck at the strange contrast which this multiplicity of open
+questions presents to our own uninquiring acquiescence in the hereditary
+polity which has descended to us. ‘King, Lords, and Commons’ are, we
+think, ordinances of nature. Yet Milton’s political writings embody the
+reflections of a period when, for a few years, the government of England
+was nearly as much a subject of fundamental discussion as that of France
+was in 1851. An ‘invitation to thinkers,’ to borrow the phrase of Neckar,
+was given by the circumstances of the time; and, with the habitual
+facility of philosophical speculation, it was accepted, and used to the
+utmost.
+
+Such are not the kind of speculations in which we expect assistance from
+Milton. It is not in its transactions with others, in its dealings with
+the manifold world, that the isolated and austere mind shows itself to
+the most advantage. Its strength lies in itself. It has ‘a calm and
+pleasing solitariness.’ It hears thoughts which others cannot hear.
+It enjoys the quiet and still air of delightful studies; and is ever
+conscious of such musing and poetry ‘as is not to be obtained by the
+invocation of Dame Memory and her twin daughters, but by devout prayer to
+that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge,
+and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of His altar.’
+
+    ‘Descend from Heav’n, Urania, by that name
+    If rightly thou art call’d, whose voice divine
+    Following, above th’ Olympian hill I soar,
+    Above the flight of Pegaséan wing.
+    The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou
+    Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
+    Of old Olympus dwell’st, but heav’nly born:
+    Before the hills appear’d, or fountain flow’d,
+    Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
+    Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
+    In presence of th’ Almighty Father, pleased
+    With thy celestial song. Up led by Thee
+    Into the Heav’n of Heav’ns I have presumed,
+    An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
+    Thy temp’ring. With like safety guided down,
+    Return me to my native element;
+    Lest from this flying steed, unrein’d (as once
+    Bellerophon, though from a lower clime),
+    Dismounted, on th’ Aleian field I fall
+    Erroneous there to wander and forlorn.
+    Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
+    Within the visible diurnal sphere;
+    Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
+    More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
+    To hoarse or mute, though fall’n on evil days,
+    On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues;
+    In darkness, and with dangers compass’d round,
+    And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
+    Visit’st my slumbers nightly, or when morn
+    Purples the east: still govern thou my song,
+    Urania, and fit audience find, though few;
+    But drive far off the barb’rous dissonance
+    Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
+    Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
+    In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
+    To rapture, till the savage clamour drown’d
+    Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
+    Her son. So fail not thou, who thee implores;
+    For thou art heav’nly, she an empty dream.’
+
+‘An ancient clergyman of Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright, found John Milton in
+a small chamber hung with rusty green, sitting in an elbow-chair, and
+dressed neatly in black: pale, but not cadaverous.’ ‘He used also to sit
+in a gray coarse cloth coat at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields,
+in warm, sunny weather;’ and the common people said he was inspired.
+
+If from the man we turn to his works, we are struck at once with two
+singular contrasts. The first of them is this. The distinction between
+ancient and modern art is sometimes said, and perhaps truly, to consist
+in the simple bareness of the imaginative conceptions which we find in
+ancient art, and the comparatively complex clothing in which all modern
+creations are embodied. If we adopt this distinction, Milton seems in
+some sort ancient, and in some sort modern. Nothing is so simple as the
+subject-matter of his works. The two greatest of his creations, the
+character of Satan and the character of Eve, are two of the simplest—the
+latter probably the very simplest—in the whole field of literature. On
+this side Milton’s art is classical. On the other hand, in no writer
+is the imagery more profuse, the illustrations more various, the dress
+altogether more splendid. And in this respect the style of his art seems
+romantic and modern. In real truth, however, it is only ancient art in a
+modern disguise. The dress is a mere dress, and can be stripped off when
+we will. We all of us do perhaps in memory strip it off for ourselves.
+Notwithstanding the lavish adornments with which her image is presented,
+the character of Eve is still the simplest sort of feminine essence—the
+pure embodiment of that inner nature, which we believe and hope that
+women have. The character of Satan, though it is not so easily described,
+has nearly as few elements in it. The most purely modern conceptions will
+not bear to be unclothed in this matter. Their romantic garment clings
+inseparably to them. Hamlet and Lear are not to be thought of except as
+complex characters, with very involved and complicated embodiments. They
+are as difficult to draw out in words as the common characters of life
+are; that of Hamlet, perhaps, is more so. If we make it, as perhaps we
+should, the characteristic of modern and romantic art that it presents
+us with creations which we cannot think of or delineate except as very
+varied, and, so to say, circumstantial, we must not rank Milton among
+the masters of romantic art. And without involving the subject in the
+troubled sea of an old controversy, we may say that the most striking of
+the poetical peculiarities of Milton is the bare simplicity of his ideas,
+and the rich abundance of his illustrations.
+
+Another of his peculiarities is equally striking. There seems to be such
+a thing as second-hand poetry. Some poets, musing on the poetry of other
+men, have unconsciously shaped it into something of their own: the new
+conception is like the original, it would never probably have existed had
+not the original existed previously; still it is sufficiently different
+from the original to be a new thing, not a copy or a plagiarism; it is
+a creation, though, so to say, a suggested creation. Gray is as good an
+example as can be found of a poet whose works abound in this species
+of semi-original conceptions. Industrious critics track his best lines
+back, and find others like them which doubtless lingered near his fancy
+while he was writing them. The same critics have been equally busy with
+the works of Milton, and equally successful. They find traces of his
+reading in half his works; not, which any reader could do, in overt
+similes and distinct illustrations, but also in the very texture of the
+thought and the expression. In many cases, doubtless, they discover more
+than he himself knew. A mind like his, which has an immense store of
+imaginative recollections, can never know which of his own imaginations
+is exactly suggested by which recollection. Men awake with their best
+ideas; it is seldom worth while to investigate very curiously whence
+they came. Our proper business is to adapt, and mould, and act upon
+them. Of poets perhaps this is true even more remarkably than of other
+men; their ideas are suggested in modes, and according to laws, which
+are even more impossible to specify than the ideas of the rest of the
+world. Second-hand poetry, so to say, often seems quite original to the
+poet himself; he frequently does not know that he derived it from an old
+memory; years afterwards it may strike him as it does others. Still, in
+general, such inferior species of creation is not so likely to be found
+in minds of singular originality as in those of less. A brooding, placid,
+cultivated mind, like that of Gray, is the place where we should expect
+to meet with it. Great originality disturbs the adaptive process, removes
+the mind of the poet from the thoughts of other men, and occupies it
+with its own heated and flashing thoughts. Poetry of the second degree
+is like the secondary rocks of modern geology—a still, gentle, alluvial
+formation; the igneous glow of primary genius brings forth ideas like
+the primeval granite, simple, astounding, and alone. Milton’s case is an
+exception to this rule. His mind has marked originality, probably as much
+of it as any in literature; but it has as much of moulded recollection
+as any mind too. His poetry in consequence is like an artificial park,
+green, and soft, and beautiful, yet with outlines bold, distinct, and
+firm, and the eternal rock ever jutting out; or, better still, it is like
+our own lake scenery, where nature has herself the same combination—where
+we have Rydal-water side by side with the everlasting upheaved mountain.
+Milton has the same union of softened beauty with unimpaired grandeur;
+and it is his peculiarity.
+
+These are the two contrasts which puzzle us at first in Milton, and which
+distinguish him from other poets in our remembrance afterwards. We have
+a superficial complexity in illustration, and imagery, and metaphor; and
+in contrast with it we observe a latent simplicity of idea, an almost
+rude strength of conception. The underlying thoughts are few, though
+the flowers on the surface are so many. We have likewise the perpetual
+contrast of the soft poetry of the memory, and the firm, as it were
+fused, and glowing poetry of the imagination. His words, we may half
+fancifully say, are like his character. There is the same austerity in
+the real essence, the same exquisiteness of sense, the same delicacy of
+form which we know that he had, the same music which we imagine there was
+in his voice. In both his character and his poetry there was an ascetic
+nature in a sheath of beauty.
+
+No book perhaps which has ever been written is more difficult to
+criticise than _Paradise Lost_. The only way to criticise a work of the
+imagination, is to describe its effect upon the mind of the reader—at any
+rate, of the critic; and this can only be adequately delineated by strong
+illustrations, apt similes, and perhaps a little exaggeration. The task
+is in its very nature not an easy one; the poet paints a picture on the
+fancy of the critic, and the critic has in some sort to copy it on the
+paper. He must say what it is before he can make remarks upon it. But
+in the case of _Paradise Lost_ we hardly like to use illustrations. The
+subject is one which the imagination rather shrinks from. At any rate, it
+requires courage, and an effort to compel the mind to view such a subject
+as distinctly and vividly as it views other subjects. Another peculiarity
+of _Paradise Lost_ makes the difficulty even greater. It does not profess
+to be a mere work of art; or rather, it claims to be by no means that,
+and that only. It starts with a dogmatic aim; it avowedly intends to
+
+            ‘assert eternal Providence,
+    And justify the ways of God to man.’
+
+In this point of view we have always had a sympathy with the Cambridge
+mathematician who has been so much abused. He said, ‘After all, _Paradise
+Lost_ proves nothing;’ and various persons of poetical tastes and
+temperament have been very severe on the prosaic observation. Yet,
+‘after all,’ he was right. Milton professed to prove something. He was
+too profound a critic—rather, he had too profound an instinct of those
+eternal principles of art which criticism tries to state—not to know
+that on such a subject he must prove something. He professed to deal with
+the great problem of human destiny; to show why man was created, in what
+kind of universe he lives, whence he came, and whither he goes. He dealt
+of necessity with the greatest of subjects. He had to sketch the greatest
+of objects. He was concerned with infinity and eternity even more than
+with time and sense; he undertook to delineate the ways, and consequently
+the character of Providence, as well as the conduct and the tendencies
+of man. The essence of success in such an attempt is to satisfy the
+religious sense of man; to bring home to our hearts what we know to be
+true; to teach us what we have not seen; to awaken us to what we have
+forgotten; to remove the ‘covering’ from all people, and ‘the veil’ that
+is spread over all nations; to give us, in a word, such a conception of
+things divine and human as we can accept, believe, and trust. The true
+doctrine of criticism demands what Milton invites—an examination of the
+degree in which the great epic attains this aim. And if, in examining it,
+we find it necessary to use unusual illustrations, and plainer words than
+are customary, it must be our excuse that we do not think the subject can
+be made clear without them.
+
+The defect of _Paradise Lost_ is that, after all, it is founded on a
+_political_ transaction. The scene is in heaven very early in the history
+of the universe, before the creation of man or the fall of Satan. We have
+a description of a court. The angels,
+
+    ‘By imperial summons called,’
+
+appear
+
+    ‘Under their hierarchs in orders bright:
+    Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
+    Standards and gonfalons ’twixt van and rear
+    Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
+    Of hierarchies, and orders, and degrees.’
+
+To this assemblage ‘th’ Omnipotent’ speaks:
+
+    ‘Hear, all ye Angels, progeny of light,
+    Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Pow’rs,
+    Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand:
+    This day I have begot whom I declare
+    My only Son; and on this holy hill
+    Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
+    At my right hand; your Head I him appoint;
+    And by myself have sworn, to him shall bow
+    All knees in Heav’n, and shall confess him Lord:
+    Under his great vicegerent reign abide
+    United as one individual soul
+    For ever happy. Him who disobeys,
+    Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day,
+    Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
+    Int’ utter darkness, deep ingulph’d, his place
+    Ordain’d without redemption, without end.’
+
+This act of patronage was not popular at court; and why should it have
+been? The religious sense is against it. The worship which sinful men
+owe to God is not transferable to lieutenants and vicegerents. The whole
+scene of the court jars upon a true feeling. We seem to be reading about
+some emperor of history, who admits his son to a share in the empire, who
+confers on him a considerable jurisdiction, and requires officials, with
+‘standards and gonfalons,’ to bow before him. The orthodoxy of Milton is
+quite as questionable as his accuracy. The old Athanasian creed was not
+made by persons who would allow such a picture as that of Milton to stand
+before their imaginations. The generation of the Son was to them a fact
+‘before all time;’ an eternal fact. There was no question in their minds
+of patronage or promotion. The Son was the Son before all time, just as
+the Father was the Father before all time. Milton had in such matters
+a bold but not very sensitive imagination. He accepted the inevitable
+materialism of biblical, and, to some extent, of all religious language
+as distinct revelation. He certainly believed, in contradiction to the
+old creed, that God had both ‘parts and passions.’ He imagined that earth
+
+    ‘Is but the shadow of heaven and things therein,
+    Each to other like more than on earth is thought.’
+
+From some passages it would seem that he actually thought of God as
+having ‘the members and form’ of a man. Naturally, therefore, he would
+have no toleration for the mysterious notions of time and eternity
+which are involved in the traditional doctrine. We are not, however,
+now concerned with Milton’s belief, but with his representation of his
+creed—his picture, so to say, of it in _Paradise Lost_; still, as we
+cannot but think, that picture is almost irreligious, and certainly
+different from that which has been generally accepted in Christendom.
+Such phrases as ‘before all time,’ ‘eternal generation,’ are doubtless
+very vaguely interpreted by the mass of men; nevertheless, no sensitively
+orthodox man _could_ have drawn the picture of a generation, not to say
+an exaltation, _in_ time.
+
+We shall see this more clearly by reading what follows in the poem:
+
+    ‘All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all.’
+
+One of the archangels, whose name can be guessed, decidedly disapproved,
+and calls a meeting, at which he explains that
+
+                  ‘orders and degrees
+    Jar not with liberty, but well consist;’
+
+but still, that the promotion of a new person, on grounds of relationship
+merely, above, even infinitely above, the old angels, with imperial
+titles, was ‘a new law,’ and rather tyrannical. Abdiel,
+
+            ‘than whom none with more zeal adored
+    The Deity, and with divine commands obeyed,’
+
+attempts a defence:
+
+              ‘Grant it thee unjust,
+    That equal over equals monarch reign:
+    Thyself, though great and glorious, dost thou count,
+    Or all angelic nature join’d in one,
+    Equal to him begotten Son? by whom
+    As by his Word the mighty Father made
+    All things, ev’n thee; and all the Spirits of Heav’n
+    By him created in their bright degrees,
+    Crown’d them with glory, and to their glory named
+    Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Pow’rs,
+    Essential Pow’rs; nor by his reign obscured,
+    But more illustrious made; since he the Head,
+    One of our number thus reduced becomes;
+    His laws our laws; all honour to him done
+    Returns our own. Cease then this impious rage,
+    And tempt not these; but hasten to appease
+    Th’ incensed Father and th’ incensed Son,
+    While pardon may be found, in time besought.’
+
+Yet though Abdiel’s intentions were undeniably good, his argument is
+rather specious. Acting as an instrument in the process of creation would
+scarcely give a valid claim to the obedience of the created being. Power
+may be shown in the act, no doubt; but mere power gives no true claim to
+the obedience of moral beings. It is a kind of principle of all manner
+of idolatries and false religions to believe that it does so. Satan,
+besides, takes issue on the fact:
+
+    ‘That we were formed then, say’st thou? and the work
+    Of secondary hands, by task transferr’d
+    From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!
+    Doctrine which we would know whence learned.’
+
+And we must say that the speech in which the new ruler is introduced to
+the ‘thrones, dominations, princedoms, powers,’ is hard to reconcile with
+Abdiel’s exposition. ‘_This day_’ he seems to have come into existence,
+and could hardly have assisted at the creation of the angels, who are not
+young, and who converse with one another like old acquaintances.
+
+We have gone into this part of the subject at length, because it is the
+source of the great error which pervades _Paradise Lost_. Satan is made
+_interesting_. This has been the charge of a thousand orthodox and even
+heterodox writers against Milton. Shelley, on the other hand, has gloried
+in it; and fancied, if we remember rightly, that Milton intentionally
+ranged himself on the Satanic side of the universe, just as Shelley
+himself would have done, and that he wished to show the falsity of the
+ordinary theology. But Milton was born an age too early for such aims,
+and was far too sincere to have advocated any doctrine in a form so
+indirect. He believed every word he said. He was not conscious of the
+effect his teaching would produce in an age like this, when scepticism
+is in the air, and when it is not possible to help looking coolly on his
+delineations. Probably in our boyhood we can recollect a period when
+any solemn description of celestial events would have commanded our
+respect; we should not have dared to read it intelligently, to canvass
+its details and see what it meant: it was a religious book; it sounded
+reverential, and that would have sufficed. Something like this was the
+state of mind of the seventeenth century. Even Milton probably shared in
+a vague reverence for religious language. He hardly felt the moral effect
+of the pictures he was drawing. His artistic instinct too, often hurries
+him away. His Satan was to him, as to us, the hero of his poem. Having
+commenced by making him resist on an occasion which in an earthly kingdom
+would have been excusable and proper, he probably a little sympathised
+with him, just as his readers do.
+
+The interest of Satan’s character is at its height in the first two
+books. Coleridge justly compared it to that of Napoleon. There is the
+same pride, the same satanic ability, the same will, the same egotism.
+His character seems to grow with his position. He is far finer after
+his fall, in misery and suffering, with scarcely any resource except
+in himself, than he was originally in heaven; at least, if Raphael’s
+description of him can be trusted. No portrait which imagination or
+history has drawn of a revolutionary anarch is nearly so perfect; there
+is all the grandeur of the greatest human mind, and a certain infinitude
+in his circumstances which humanity must ever want. Few Englishmen feel
+a profound reverence for Napoleon I. There was no French alliance in
+_his_ time; we have most of us some tradition of antipathy to him.
+Yet hardly any Englishman can read the account of the campaign of 1814
+without feeling his interest in the Emperor to be strong, and without
+perhaps being conscious of a latent wish that he may succeed. Our opinion
+is against him, our serious wish is of course for England; but the
+imagination has a sympathy of its own, and will not give place. We read
+about the great general—never greater than in that last emergency—showing
+resources of genius that seem almost infinite, and that assuredly
+have never been surpassed, yet vanquished, yielding to the power of
+circumstances, to the combined force of adversaries, each of whom singly
+he outmatches in strength, and all of whom together he surpasses in
+majesty and in mind. Something of the same sort of interest belongs to
+the Satan of the first two books of _Paradise Lost_. We know that he will
+be vanquished; his name is not a recommendation. Still we do not imagine
+distinctly the minds by which he is to be vanquished; we do not take the
+same interest in them that we do in him; our sympathies, our fancy, are
+on his side.
+
+Perhaps much of this was inevitable; yet what a defect it is! especially
+what a defect in Milton’s own view, and looked at with the stern realism
+with which he regarded it! Suppose that the author of evil in the
+universe were the most attractive being in it; suppose that the source
+of all sin were the origin of all interest to us! We need not dwell upon
+this.
+
+As we have said, much of this was difficult to avoid, if indeed it
+could be avoided in dealing with such a theme. Even Milton shrank, in
+some measure, from delineating the Divine character. His imagination
+evidently halts when it is required to perform that task. The more
+delicate imagination of our modern world would shrink still more. Any
+person who will consider what such an attempt must end in, will find
+his nerves quiver. But by a curiously fatal error, Milton has selected
+for delineation exactly that part of the Divine nature which is most
+beyond the reach of the human faculties, and which is also, when we try
+to describe our fancy of it, the least effective to our minds. He has
+made God _argue_. Now the procedure of the Divine mind from truth to
+truth must ever be incomprehensible to us; the notion, indeed, of His
+proceeding at all, is a contradiction: to some extent, at least, it is
+inevitable that we should use such language, but we know it is in reality
+inapplicable. A long train of reasoning in such a connection is so out
+of place as to be painful; and yet Milton has many. He relates a series
+of family prayers in heaven, with sermons afterwards, which are very
+tedious. Even Pope was shocked at the notion of Providence talking like
+‘a school-divine.’ And there is the still worse error, that if you once
+attribute reasoning to Him, subsequent logicians may discover that He
+does not reason very well.
+
+Another way in which Milton has contrived to strengthen our interest in
+Satan, is the number and insipidity of the good angels. There are old
+rules as to the necessity of a supernatural machinery for an epic poem,
+worth some fraction of the paper on which they are written, and derived
+from the practice of Homer, who believed his gods and goddesses to be
+real beings, and would have been rather harsh with a critic who called
+them machinery. These rules had probably an influence with Milton, and
+induced him to manipulate these serious angels more than he would have
+done otherwise. They appear to be excellent administrators with very
+little to do; a kind of grand chamberlains with wings, who fly down
+to earth and communicate information to Adam and Eve. They have no
+character; they are essentially messengers, merely conductors, so to say,
+of the providential will: no one fancies that they have an independent
+power of action; they seem scarcely to have minds of their own. No effect
+can be more unfortunate. If the struggle of Satan had been with Deity
+directly, the natural instincts of religion would have been awakened; but
+when an angel possessed of mind is contrasted with angels possessed only
+of wings, we sympathise with the former.
+
+In the first two books, therefore, our sympathy with Milton’s Satan is
+great; we had almost said unqualified. The speeches he delivers are of
+well-known excellence. Lord Brougham, no contemptible judge of emphatic
+oratory, has laid down, that if a person had not an opportunity of access
+to the great Attic master-pieces, he had better choose these for a model.
+What is to be regretted about the orator is, that he scarcely acts up to
+his sentiments. ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,’ is, at
+any rate, an audacious declaration. But he has no room for exhibiting
+similar audacity in action. His offensive career is limited. In the
+nature of the subject there was scarcely any opportunity for the fallen
+archangel to display in the detail of his operations the surpassing
+intellect with which Milton has endowed him. He goes across chaos, gets
+into a few physical difficulties; but these are not much. His grand aim
+is the conquest of our first parents; and we are at once struck with the
+enormous inequality of the conflict. Two beings just created, without
+experience, without guile, without knowledge of good and evil, are
+expected to contend with a being on the delineation of whose powers every
+resource of art and imagination, every subtle suggestion, every emphatic
+simile, has been lavished. The idea in every reader’s mind is, and must
+be, not surprise that our first parents should yield, but wonder that
+Satan should not think it beneath him to attack them. It is as if an army
+should invest a cottage.
+
+We have spoken more of theology than we intended; and we need not say how
+much the monstrous inequalities attributed to the combatants affect our
+estimate of the results of the conflict. The state of man is what it is,
+because the defenceless Adam and Eve of Milton’s imagination yielded to
+the nearly all-powerful Satan whom he has delineated. Milton has in some
+sense invented this difficulty; for in the book of Genesis there is no
+such inequality. The serpent may be subtler than any beast of the field;
+but he is not necessarily subtler or cleverer than man. So far from
+Milton having justified the ways of God to man, he has loaded the common
+theology with a new encumbrance.
+
+We may need refreshment after this discussion; and we cannot find it
+better than in reading a few remarks of Eve.
+
+    ‘That day I oft remember, when from sleep
+    I first awaked, and found myself reposed
+    Under a shade on flow’rs, much wond’ring where
+    And what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
+    Not distant far from thence a murm’ring sound
+    Of waters issued from a cave, and spread
+    Into a liquid plain, then stood unmoved
+    Pure as th’ expanse of Heav’n.... I thither went
+    With unexperienced thought, and laid me down
+    On the green bank, to look into the clear
+    Smooth lake, that to me seem’d another sky.
+    As I bent down to look, just opposite
+    A shape within the wat’ry gleam appear’d,
+    Bending to look on me. I started back;
+    It started back: but pleased I soon return’d;
+    Pleased it return’d as soon with answ’ring looks
+    Of sympathy and love: there I had fix’d
+    Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
+    Had not a voice thus warn’d me. What thou seest,
+    What there thou seest, fair Creature, is thyself;
+    With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
+    And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
+    Thy coming, and thy soft embraces, he
+    Whose image thou art; him thou shalt enjoy
+    Inseparably thine: to him shalt bear
+    Multitudes like thyself, and thence be call’d
+    Mother of Human Race. What could I do
+    But follow straight, invisibly thus led?
+    Till I espy’d thee, fair indeed and tall
+    Under a platan; yet methought less fair,
+    Less winning soft, less amiably mild,
+    Than that smooth wat’ry image. Back I turn’d:
+    Thou following cry’dst aloud, Return, fair Eve;
+    Whom fly’st thou?’
+
+Eve’s character, indeed, is one of the most wonderful efforts of the
+human imagination. She is a kind of abstract woman; essentially a
+typical being; an official ‘mother of all living.’ Yet she is a real
+interesting woman, not only full of delicacy and sweetness, but with all
+the undefinable fascination, the charm of personality, which such typical
+characters hardly ever have. By what consummate miracle of wit this charm
+of individuality is preserved, without impairing the general idea which
+is ever present to us, we cannot explain, for we do not know.
+
+Adam is far less successful. He has good hair,—‘hyacinthine locks’ that
+‘from his parted forelock manly hung;’ a ‘fair large front’ and ‘eye
+sublime;’ but he has little else that we care for. There is, in truth,
+no opportunity of displaying manly virtues, even if he possessed them.
+He has only to yield to his wife’s solicitations, which he does. Nor are
+we sure that he does it well. He is very tedious; he indulges in sermons
+which are good; but most men cannot but fear that so delightful a being
+as Eve must have found him tiresome. She steps away, however, and goes to
+sleep at some of the worst points.
+
+Dr. Johnson remarked, that, after all, _Paradise Lost_ was one of the
+books which no one wished longer: we fear, in this irreverent generation,
+some wish it shorter. Hardly any reader would be sorry if some portions
+of the later books had been spared him. Coleridge, indeed, discovered
+profound mysteries in the last; but in what could not Coleridge find a
+mystery if he wished? Dryden more wisely remarked that Milton became
+tedious when he entered upon a ‘tract of Scripture.’ Nor is it surprising
+that such is the case. The style of many parts of Scripture is such that
+it will not bear addition or subtraction. A word less, or an idea more,
+and the effect upon the mind is the same no longer. Nothing can be more
+tiresome than a sermonic amplification of such passages. It is almost
+too much when, as from the pulpit, a paraphrastic commentary is prepared
+for our spiritual improvement. In deference to the intention we bear it,
+but we bear it unwillingly; and we cannot endure it at all when, as
+in poems, the object is to awaken our fancy rather than to improve our
+conduct. The account of the creation in the book of Genesis is one of the
+compositions from which no sensitive imagination would subtract an iota,
+to which it could not bear to add a word. Milton’s paraphrase is alike
+copious and ineffective. The universe is, in railway phrase, ‘opened,’
+but not created; no green earth springs in a moment from the indefinite
+void. Instead, too, of the simple loneliness of the Old Testament,
+several angelic officials are in attendance, who help in nothing, but
+indicate that heaven must be plentifully supplied with tame creatures.
+
+There is no difficulty in writing such criticisms, and, indeed, other
+unfavourable criticisms on _Paradise Lost_. There is scarcely any book
+in the world which is open to a greater number, or which a reader who
+allows plain words to produce a due effect will be less satisfied with.
+Yet what book is really greater? In the best parts the words have a magic
+in them; even in the inferior passages you are hardly sensible of their
+inferiority till you translate them into your own language. Perhaps no
+style ever written by man expressed so adequately the conceptions of a
+mind so strong and so peculiar; a manly strength, a haunting atmosphere
+of enhancing suggestions, a firm continuous music, are only some of its
+excellences. To comprehend the whole of the others, you must take the
+volume down and read it,—the best defence of Milton, as has been said
+most truly, against all objections.
+
+Probably no book shows the transition which our theology has made since
+the middle of the seventeenth century, at once so plainly and so fully.
+We do not now compose long narratives to ‘justify the ways of God to
+man.’ The more orthodox we are, the more we shrink from it; the more
+we hesitate at such a task, the more we allege that we have no powers
+for it. Our most celebrated defences of established tenets are in the
+style of Butler, not in that of Milton. They do not profess to show a
+satisfactory explanation of human destiny; on the contrary, they hint
+that probably we could not understand such an explanation if it were
+given us; at any rate, they allow that it is not given us. Their course
+is palliative. They suggest an ‘analogy of difficulties.’ If our minds
+were greater, so they reason, we should comprehend these doctrines:
+now we cannot explain analogous facts which we see and know. No style
+can be more opposite to the bold argument, the boastful exposition of
+Milton. The teaching of the eighteenth century is in the very atmosphere
+we breathe. We read it in the teachings of Oxford; we hear it from the
+missionaries of the Vatican. The air of the theology is clarified. We
+know our difficulties, at least; we are rather prone to exaggerate the
+weight of some than to deny the reality of any.
+
+We cannot continue a line of thought which would draw us on too far for
+the patience of our readers. We must, however, make one more remark, and
+we shall have finished our criticism on _Paradise Lost_. It is analogous
+to that which we have just made. The scheme of the poem is based on an
+offence against positive morality. The offence of Adam was not against
+nature or conscience, nor against any thing of which we can see the
+reason, or conceive the obligation, but against an unexplained injunction
+of the Supreme Will. The rebellion in heaven, as Milton describes it,
+was a rebellion, not against known ethics, or immutable spiritual laws,
+but against an arbitrary selection and an unexplained edict. We do not
+say that there is no such thing as positive morality: we do not think
+so; even if we did, we should not insert a proposition so startling at
+the conclusion of a literary criticism. But we are sure that wherever a
+positive moral edict is promulgated, it is no subject, except perhaps
+under a very peculiar treatment, for literary art. By the very nature of
+it, it cannot satisfy the heart and conscience. It is a difficulty; we
+need not attempt to explain it away. There are mysteries enough which
+will never be explained away. But it is contrary to every principle of
+criticism to state the difficulty as if it were not one; to bring forward
+the puzzle, yet leave it to itself; to publish so strange a problem, and
+give only an untrue solution of it: and yet such, in its bare statement,
+is all that Milton has done.
+
+Of Milton’s other writings we have left ourselves no room to speak; and
+though every one of them, or almost every one of them, would well repay a
+careful criticism, yet few of them seem to throw much additional light on
+his character, or add much to our essential notion of his genius, though
+they may exemplify and enhance it. _Comus_ is the poem which does so the
+most. Literature has become so much lighter than it used to be, that we
+can scarcely realise the position it occupied in the light literature
+of our forefathers. We have now in our own language many poems that are
+pleasanter in their subject, more graceful in their execution, more
+flowing in their outline, more easy to read. Dr. Johnson, though perhaps
+no very excellent authority on the more intangible graces of literature,
+was disposed to deny to Milton the capacity of creating the lighter
+literature: ‘Milton, madam, was a genius that could cut a colossus from a
+rock, but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.’ And it would not be
+surprising if this generation, which has access to the almost indefinite
+quantity of lighter compositions which have been produced since Johnson’s
+time, were to echo his sentence. In some degree, perhaps, the popular
+taste does so. _Comus_ has no longer the peculiar exceptional popularity
+which it used to have. We can talk without general odium of its defects.
+Its characters are nothing, its sentiments are tedious, its story is not
+interesting. But it is only when we have realised the magnitude of its
+deficiencies that we comprehend the peculiarity of its greatness. Its
+power is in its style. A grave and firm music pervades it: it is soft,
+without a thought of weakness; harmonious and yet strong; impressive, as
+few such poems are, yet covered with a bloom of beauty and a complexity
+of charm that few poems have either. We have, perhaps, light literature
+in itself better, that we read oftener and more easily, that lingers more
+in our memories; but we have not any, we question if there ever will be
+any, which gives so true a conception of the capacity and the dignity of
+the mind by which it was produced. The breath of solemnity which hovers
+round the music attaches us to the writer. Every line, here as elsewhere,
+in Milton excites the idea of indefinite power.
+
+And so we must draw to a close. The subject is an infinite one, and if
+we pursued it, we should lose ourselves in miscellaneous commentary, and
+run on far beyond the patience of our readers. What we have said has at
+least a defined intention. We have wished to state the impression which
+the character of Milton and the greatest of Milton’s works are likely to
+produce on readers of the present generation—a generation different from
+his own almost more than any other.
+
+
+
+
+_LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU._[30]
+
+(1862.)
+
+
+Nothing is so transitory as second-class fame. The name of Lady Mary
+Wortley Montagu is hardly now known to the great mass of ordinary
+English readers. A generation has arisen which has had time to forget
+her. Yet only a few years since, an allusion to the ‘Lady Mary’ would
+have been easily understood by every well-informed person; young ladies
+were enjoined to form their style upon hers; and no one could have
+anticipated that her letters would seem in 1862 as different from what
+a lady of rank would then write or publish as if they had been written
+in the times of paganism. The very change, however, of popular taste and
+popular morality gives these letters now a kind of interest. The farther
+and the more rapidly we have drifted from where we once lay, the more
+do we wish to learn what kind of port it was. We venture, therefore, to
+recommend the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu as an instructive and
+profitable study, not indeed to the youngest of young ladies, but to
+those maturer persons of either sex ‘who have taken all knowledge to be
+their province,’ and who have commenced their readings in ‘universality’
+by an assiduous perusal of Parisian fiction.
+
+It is, we admit, true that these letters are not at the present day very
+agreeable reading. What our grandfathers and grandmothers thought of them
+it is not so easy to say. But it now seems clear that Lady Mary was
+that most miserable of human beings, an ambitious and wasted woman; that
+she brought a very cultivated intellect into a very cultivated society;
+that she gave to that society what it was most anxious to receive, and
+received from it all which it had to bestow;—and yet that this all was to
+her as nothing. The high intellectual world of England has never been so
+compact, so visible in a certain sense, so enjoyable, as it was in her
+time. She had a mind to understand it, beauty to adorn it, and wit to
+amuse it; but she chose to pass a great part of her life in exile, and
+returned at last to die at home among a new generation, whose name she
+hardly knew, and to whom she herself was but a spectacle and a wonder.
+
+Lady Mary Pierrepont—for that was by birth her name—belonged to a
+family which had a traditional reputation for ability and cultivation.
+The _Memoirs of Lucy Hutchinson_—(almost the only legacy that remains
+to us from the first generation of refined Puritans, the only book,
+at any rate, which effectually brings home to us how different
+they were in taste and in temper from their more vulgar and feeble
+successors)—contains a curious panegyric on _wise William_ Pierrepont, to
+whom the Parliamentary party resorted as an oracle of judgment, and whom
+Cromwell himself, if tradition may be trusted, at times condescended to
+consult and court. He did not, however, transmit much of his discretion
+to his grandson, Lady Mary’s father. This nobleman, for he inherited from
+an elder branch of the family both the marquisate of Dorchester and the
+dukedom of Kingston, was a mere man ‘about town,’ as the homely phrase
+then went, who passed a long life of fashionable idleness interspersed
+with political intrigue, and who signalised his old age by marrying
+a young beauty of fewer years than his youngest daughter, who, as he
+very likely knew, cared nothing for him and much for another person.
+He had the ‘grand air,’ however, and he expected his children, when he
+visited them, to kneel down immediately and ask his blessing, which,
+if his character was what is said, must have been _very_ valuable. The
+only attention he ever (that we know of) bestowed upon Lady Mary was
+a sort of theatrical outrage, pleasant enough to her at the time, but
+scarcely in accordance with the educational theories in which we now
+believe. He was a member of the Kit-Cat, a great Whig club, the Brooks’s
+of Queen Anne’s time, which, like Brooks’s, appears not to have been
+purely political, but to have found time for occasional relaxation and
+for somewhat unbusiness-like discussions. They held annually a formal
+meeting to arrange the female toasts for that year; and we are told that
+a whim seized her father to nominate Lady Mary, ‘then not eight years
+old, a candidate; alleging that she was far prettier than any lady on
+their list.’ The other members demurred, because the rules of the club
+forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen. ‘Then you shall
+see her,’ cried he; and in the gaiety of the moment sent orders home to
+have her finely dressed and brought to him at the tavern, where she was
+received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health
+drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form upon a
+drinking-glass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men
+in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesman,
+to the arms of another, was feasted with sweetmeats, overwhelmed with
+caresses, and what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard
+her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said,
+was too poor a word to express her sensations; they amounted to ecstasy:
+never again, throughout her whole future life, did she pass so happy
+a day. Nor, indeed, could she; for the love of admiration, which this
+scene was calculated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully
+gratified; there is always some alloying ingredient in the cup, some
+drawback upon the triumphs, of grown people. Her father carried on the
+frolic, and we may conclude, confirmed the taste, by having her picture
+painted for the club-room, that she might be enrolled a regular toast.
+Perhaps some young ladies of more than eight years old would not much
+object to have lived in those times. Fathers may be wiser now than they
+were then, but they rarely make themselves so thoroughly agreeable to
+their children.
+
+This stimulating education would leave a weak and vain girl still
+more vain and weak; but it had not that effect on Lady Mary. Vain she
+probably was, and her father’s boastfulness perhaps made her vainer; but
+her vanity took an intellectual turn. She read vaguely and widely; she
+managed to acquire some knowledge—how much is not clear—of Greek and
+Latin, and certainly learned with sufficient thoroughness French and
+Italian. She used to say that she had the worst education in the world,
+and that it was only by the ‘help of an uncommon memory and indefatigable
+labour’ that she had acquired her remarkable attainments. Her father
+certainly seems to have been capable of any degree of inattention and
+neglect; but we should not perhaps credit too entirely all the legends
+which an old lady recounted to her grandchildren of the intellectual
+difficulties of her youth.
+
+She seems to have been encouraged by her grandmother, one of the
+celebrated Evelyn family, whose memory is thus enigmatically but still
+expressively enshrined in the diary of the author of _Sylva_:—‘Under this
+date,’ we are informed, ‘of the 2d of July 1649, he records a day spent
+at Godstone, where Sir John’ (this lady’s father) ‘was on a visit with
+his daughter;’ and he adds, ‘Mem. The prodigious memory of Sir John of
+Wilts’s daughter, since married to Mr. W. Pierrepont.’ The lady who was
+thus formidable in her youth deigned in her old age to write frequently,
+as we should now say,—to open a ‘regular commerce’ of letters, as was
+said in that age—with Lady Mary when quite a girl, which she always
+believed to have been beneficial to her, and probably believed rightly;
+for she was intelligent enough to comprehend what was said to her, and
+the old lady had watched many changes in many things.
+
+Her greatest intellectual guide, at least so in after life she used to
+relate, was Mr. Wortley, whom she afterwards married. ‘When I was young,’
+she said, ‘I was a great admirer of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_, and that was
+one of the chief reasons that set me upon the thoughts of stealing the
+Latin language. Mr. Wortley was the only person to whom I communicated
+my design, and he encouraged me in it. I used to study five or six hours
+a day for two years in my father’s library; and so got that language,
+whilst everybody else thought I was reading nothing but novels and
+romances.’ She perused, however, some fiction also; for she possessed,
+till her death, the whole library of Mrs. Lennox’s _Female Quixote_, a
+ponderous series of novels in folio, in one of which she had written, in
+her fairest youthful hand, the names and characteristic qualities of ‘the
+beautiful Diana, the volatile Clemene, the melancholy Doris, Celadon the
+faithful, Adamas the wise, and so on, forming two columns.’
+
+Of Mr. Wortley’s character it is not difficult, from the materials before
+us, to decipher the features; he was a slow man, with a taste for quick
+companions. Swift’s diary to Stella mentions an evening spent over a
+bottle of old wine with Mr. Wortley and Mr. Addison. Mr. Wortley was
+a rigid Whig, and Swift’s transition to Toryism soon broke short that
+friendship. But with Addison he maintained an intimacy which lasted
+during their joint lives, and survived the marriages of both. With Steele
+likewise he was upon the closest terms, is said to have written some
+papers in the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_; and the second volume of the
+former is certainly dedicated to him in affectionate and respectful terms.
+
+Notwithstanding, however, these conspicuous testimonials to high ability,
+Mr. Wortley was an orderly and dull person. Every letter received by him
+from his wife during five-and-twenty years of absence, was found, at
+his death, carefully endorsed with the date of its arrival, and with a
+_synopsis_ of its contents. ‘He represented,’ we are told, ‘at various
+times, Huntingdon, Westminster, and Peterborough in Parliament, and
+appears to have been a member of that class who win respectful attention
+by sober and business-like qualities; and his name is constantly found in
+the drier and more formal part of the politics of the time.’ He answered
+to the description given more recently of a similar person: ‘Is not,’ it
+was asked, ‘Sir John —— a very methodical person?’ ‘Certainly he is,’
+was the reply, ‘he files his invitations to dinner.’ The Wortley papers,
+according to the description of those who have inspected them, seem to
+contain the accumulations of similar documents during many years. He
+hoarded money, however, to more purpose, for he died one of the richest
+commoners in England; and a considerable part of the now marvellous
+wealth of the Bute family seems at first to have been derived from him.
+
+Whatever good qualities Addison and Steele discovered in Mr. Wortley,
+they were certainly not those of a good writer. We have from his pen and
+from that of Lady Mary a description of the state of English politics
+during the three first years of George III., and any one who wishes to
+understand how much readability depends upon good writing would do well
+to compare the two. Lady Mary’s is a clear and bright description of
+all the superficial circumstances of the time; Mr. Wortley’s is equally
+superficial, often unintelligible and always lumbering, and scarcely
+succeeds in telling us more than that the writer was wholly unsuccessful
+in all which he tried to do. As to Mr. Wortley’s contributions to the
+periodicals of his time, we may suspect that the jottings preserved
+at Loudon are all which he ever wrote of them, and that the style and
+arrangement were supplied by more skilful writers. Even a county member
+might furnish headings for the _Saturday Review_. He might say: ‘Trent
+British vessel—Americans always intrusive—Support Government—Kill all
+that is necessary.’
+
+What Lady Mary discovered in Mr. Wortley it is easier to say and shorter,
+for he was very handsome. If his portrait can be trusted, there was
+a placid and business-like repose about him, which might easily be
+attractive to a rather excitable and wild young lady, especially when
+combined with imposing features and a quiet sweet expression. He attended
+_to her_ also. When she was a girl of fourteen, he met her at a party,
+and evinced his admiration. And a little while later, it is not difficult
+to fancy that a literary young lady might be much pleased with a
+good-looking gentleman not uncomfortably older than herself, yet having a
+place in the world, and well known to the literary men of the age. He was
+acquainted with the classics too, or was supposed to be so; and whether
+it was a consequence of or a preliminary to their affections, Lady Mary
+wished to know the classics also.
+
+Bishop Burnet was so kind as to superintend the singular studies—for
+such they were clearly thought—of this aristocratic young lady; and the
+translation of the _Enchiridion_ of Epictetus, which he revised, is
+printed in this edition of her works. But even so grave an undertaking
+could not wholly withdraw her from more congenial pursuits. She commenced
+a correspondence with Miss Wortley, Mr. Wortley’s unmarried sister,
+which still remains, though Miss Wortley’s letters are hardly to be
+called hers, for her brother composed, and she merely copied them. The
+correspondence is scarcely in the sort of English or in the tone which
+young ladies, we understand, now use.
+
+    ‘It is as impossible,’ says Miss Wortley, ‘for my dearest
+    Lady Mary to utter thought that can seem dull as to put on a
+    look that is not beautiful. Want of wit is a fault that those
+    who envy you most would not be able to find in your kind
+    compliments. To me they seem perfect, since repeated assurances
+    of your kindness forbid me to question their sincerity. You
+    have often found that the most angry, nay, the most neglectful
+    air you can assume, has made as deep a wound as the kindest;
+    and these lines of yours, that you tax with dulness (perhaps
+    because they were writ when you was not in a right humour,
+    or when your thoughts were elsewhere employed), are so far
+    from deserving the imputation, that the very turn of your
+    expression, had I forgot the rest of your charms, would be
+    sufficient to make me lament the only fault you have—your
+    inconstancy.’
+
+To which the reply is:
+
+    ‘I am infinitely obliged to you, my dear Mrs. Wortley, for the
+    wit, beauty, and other fine qualities, you so generously bestow
+    upon me. Next to receiving them from Heaven, you are the person
+    from whom I would choose to receive gifts and graces: I am very
+    well satisfied to owe them to your own delicacy of imagination,
+    which represents to you the idea of a fine lady, and you have
+    good nature enough to fancy I am she. All this is mighty well,
+    but you do not stop there; imagination is boundless. After
+    giving me imaginary wit and beauty, you give me imaginary
+    passions, and you tell me I’m in love: if I am, ’tis a perfect
+    sin of ignorance, for I don’t so much as know the man’s name:
+    I have been studying these three hours, and cannot guess who
+    you mean. I passed the days of Nottingham races [at] Thoresby
+    without seeing, or even wishing to see, one of the sex. Now,
+    if I am in love, I have very hard fortune to conceal it so
+    industriously from my own knowledge, and yet discover it so
+    much to other people. ’Tis against all form to have such a
+    passion as that, without giving one sigh for the matter. Pray
+    tell me the name of him I love, that I may (according to
+    the laudable custom of lovers) sigh to the woods and groves
+    hereabouts, and teach it to the echo.’
+
+After some time Miss Wortley unfortunately died, and there was an obvious
+difficulty in continuing the correspondence without the aid of an
+appropriate sisterly screen. Mr. Wortley seems to have been tranquil and
+condescending; perhaps he thought placid tactics would be most effective,
+for Lady Mary was not so calm. He sent her some _Tatlers_, and received,
+by way of thanks, the following tolerably encouraging letter:
+
+    ‘_To Mr. Wortley Montagu._
+
+    ‘I am surprised at one of the _Tatlers_ you send me; is it
+    possible to have any sort of esteem for a person one believes
+    capable of having such trifling inclinations? Mr. Bickerstaff
+    has very wrong notions of our sex. I can say there are some
+    of us that despise charms of show, and all the pageantry of
+    greatness, perhaps with more ease than any of the philosophers.
+    In contemning the world, they seem to take pains to contemn
+    it; we despise it, without taking the pains to read lessons
+    of morality to make us do it. At least I know I have always
+    looked upon it with contempt, without being at the expense of
+    one serious reflection to oblige me to it. I carry the matter
+    yet farther; was I to choose of two thousand pounds a year
+    or twenty thousand, the first would be my choice. There is
+    something of an unavoidable _embarras_ in making what is called
+    a great figure in the world; [it] takes off from the happiness
+    of life; I hate the noise and hurry inseparable from great
+    estates and titles, and look upon both as blessings that ought
+    only to be given to fools, for ’tis only to them that they are
+    blessings. The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain
+    me sometimes; but is it impossible to be diverted with what
+    one despises? I can laugh at a puppet-show; at the same time
+    I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.
+    General notions are generally wrong. Ignorance and folly are
+    thought the best foundations for virtue, as if not knowing
+    what a good wife is was necessary to make one so. I confess
+    that can never be my way of reasoning; as I always forgive an
+    _injury_ when I think it not done out of malice, I can never
+    think myself _obliged_ by what is done without design. Give
+    me leave to say it (I know it sounds vain), I know how to
+    make a man of sense happy; but then that man must resolve to
+    contribute something towards it himself. I have so much esteem
+    for you, I should be very sorry to hear you was unhappy; but
+    for the world I would not be the instrument of making you so;
+    which (of the humour you are) is hardly to be avoided if I am
+    your wife. You distrust me—I can neither be easy, nor loved,
+    where I am distrusted. Nor do I believe your passion for me is
+    what you pretend it; at least I am sure was I in love I could
+    not talk as you do. Few women would have spoke so plainly as
+    I have done; but to dissemble is among the things I never do.
+    I take more pains to approve my conduct to myself than to
+    the world; and would not have to accuse myself of a minute’s
+    deceit. I wish I loved you enough to devote myself to be for
+    ever miserable, for the pleasure of a day or two’s happiness. I
+    cannot resolve upon it. You must think otherwise of me, or not
+    all.
+
+    ‘I don’t enjoin you to burn this letter. I know you will. ’Tis
+    the first I ever writ to one of your sex, and shall be the
+    last. You must never expect another. I resolve against all
+    correspondence of the kind; my resolutions are seldom made, and
+    never broken.’
+
+Mr. Wortley, however, still grumbled. He seems to have expected a young
+lady to do something even more decisive than ask him to marry her. He
+continued to hesitate and pause. The lady in the comedy says, ‘What right
+has a man to intend unless he states his intentions?’ and Lady Mary’s
+biographers are entirely of that opinion. They think her exceedingly
+ill-used, and Mr. Wortley exceedingly to blame. And so it may have been;
+certainly a love-correspondence is rarely found where activity and
+intrepidity on the lady’s side so much contrasts with quiescence and
+timidity on the gentleman’s. If, however, we could summon him before
+us, probably Mr. Wortley would have something to answer on his own
+behalf. It is tolerably plain that he thought Lady Mary too excitable.
+‘Certainly,’ he doubtless reasoned, ‘she is a handsome young lady, and
+very witty; but beauty and wit are dangerous as well as attractive.
+Vivacity is delightful; but my esteemed friend Mr. Addison has observed
+that excessive quickness of parts is not unfrequently the cause of
+extreme rapidity in action. Lady Mary makes love to me before marriage,
+and I like it; but may she not make love also to some one else after
+marriage, and then I shall not like it.’ Accordingly he writes to her
+timorously as to her love of pleasure, her love of romantic reading, her
+occasional toleration of younger gentlemen and quicker admirers. At last,
+however, he proposed; and, as far as the lady was concerned, there was no
+objection.
+
+We might have expected, from a superficial view of the facts, that there
+would have been no difficulty either on the side of her father. Mr.
+Wortley died one of the richest commoners in England; was of the first
+standing in society, of good family, and he had apparently, therefore,
+money to settle and station to offer to his bride. And he did offer both.
+He was ready to settle an ample sum on Lady Mary, both as his wife and
+as his widow, and was anxious that, if they married, they should live
+in a manner suitable to her rank and his prospects. But nevertheless
+there was a difficulty. The _Tatler_ had recently favoured its readers
+with dissertations upon social ethics not altogether dissimilar to those
+with which the _Saturday Review_ frequently instructs its readers. One
+of these dissertations contained an elaborate exposure of the folly of
+settling your estate upon your unborn children. The arguments were of
+a sort very easily imaginable. ‘Why,’ it was said, ‘should you give
+away that which you have to a person whom you do not know; whom you may
+never see; whom you may not like when you do see; who may be undutiful,
+unpleasant, or idiotic? Why, too, should each generation surrender its
+due control over the next? When the family estate is settled, men of the
+world know that the father’s control is gone, for disinterested filial
+affection is an unfrequent though doubtless possible virtue; but so long
+as _property_ is in suspense, all expectants will be attentive to those
+who have it in their power to give or not to give it.’ These arguments
+had converted Mr. Wortley, who is said even to have contributed notes
+for the article, and they seem to have converted Lady Mary also. She
+was to have her money, and the most plain-spoken young ladies do not
+commonly care to argue much about the future provision for their possible
+children; the subject is always delicate and a little frightful, and on
+the whole, must be left to themselves. But Lord Dorchester, her father,
+felt it his duty to be firm. It is an old saying, that ‘you never know
+where a man’s conscience may turn up,’ and the advent of ethical feeling
+was in this case even unusually beyond calculation. Lord Dorchester had
+never been an anxious father, and was not now going to be a liberal
+father. He had never cared much about Lady Mary, except in so far as he
+could himself gain _éclat_ by exhibiting her youthful beauty, and he
+was not now at her marriage about to do at all more than was necessary
+and decent in his station. It was not therefore apparently probable
+that he would be irritatingly obstinate respecting the income of his
+daughter’s children. He was so, however. He deemed it a duty to see
+that ‘_his_ grandchild never should be a beggar,’ and, for what reason
+does not so clearly appear, wished that his eldest male grandchild
+should be immensely richer than all his other grandchildren. The old
+feudal aristocrat, often in modern Europe so curiously disguised in the
+indifferent exterior of a careless man of the world, was, as became him,
+dictatorial and unalterable upon the duty of founding a family. Though
+he did not care much for his daughter, he cared much for the position of
+his daughter’s eldest son. He had probably stumbled on the fundamental
+truth that ‘girls were girls, and boys were boys,’ and was disinclined
+to disregard the rule of primogeniture by which he had obtained his
+marquisate, and from which he expected a dukedom.
+
+Mr. Wortley, however, was through life a man, if eminent in nothing else,
+eminent at least in obstinacy. He would not give up the doctrine of the
+_Tatler_ even to obtain Lady Mary. The match was accordingly abandoned,
+and Lord Dorchester looked out for and found another gentleman whom he
+proposed to make his son-in-law; for he believed, according to the old
+morality, ‘that it was the duty of the parents to find a husband for a
+daughter, and that when he was found, it was the daughter’s duty to marry
+him.’ It was as wrong in her to attempt to choose as in him to neglect
+to seek. Lady Mary was, however, by no means disposed to accept this
+passive theory of female obligation. She _had_ sought and chosen; and
+to her choice she intended to adhere. The conduct of Mr. Wortley would
+have offended some ladies, but it rather augmented her admiration. She
+had exactly that sort of irritable intellect which sets an undue value
+on new theories of society and morality, and is pleased when others do
+so too. She thought Mr. Wortley was quite right not to ‘defraud himself
+for a possible infant,’ and admired his constancy and firmness. She
+determined to risk a step, as she herself said, unjustifiable to her own
+relatives, but which she nevertheless believed that she could justify to
+herself. She decided on eloping with Mr. Wortley.
+
+Before, however, taking this audacious leap, she looked a little. Though
+she did not object to the sacrifice of the customary inheritance of her
+contingent son, she by no means approved of sacrificing the settlement
+which Mr. Wortley had undertaken at a prior period of the negotiation to
+make upon herself. And, according to common sense, she was undoubtedly
+judicious. She was going from her father, and foregoing the money which
+he had promised her; and therefore it was not reasonable that, by going
+_to_ her lover, she should forfeit also the money which _he_ had promised
+her. And there is nothing offensive in her mode of expression. ‘’Tis
+something odd for a woman that brings nothing to expect anything; but
+after the way of my education, I dare not pretend to live but in some
+degree suitable to it. I had rather die than return to a dependency upon
+relations I have disobliged. Save me from that fear, if you love me. If
+you cannot, or think I ought not to expect it, be sincere and tell me so.
+’Tis better I should not be yours at all, than, for a short happiness,
+involve myself in ages of misery. I hope there will never be occasion
+for this precaution; but, however, ’tis necessary to make it.’ But true
+and rational as all this seems, perhaps it is still truer and still more
+rational to say, that if a woman has not sufficient confidence in her
+lover to elope with him without a previous promise of a good settlement,
+she had better not elope with him at all. After all, if he declines to
+make the stipulated settlement, the lady will have either to return to
+her friends or to marry without it, and she would have the full choice
+between these satisfactory alternatives, even if she asked no previous
+promise from her lover. At any rate, the intrusion of coarse money among
+the refined materials of romance is, in this case, even more curious and
+remarkable than usual.
+
+After some unsuccessful attempts, Lady Mary and Mr. Wortley did elope
+and did marry, and, after a certain interval, of course, Lord Dorchester
+received them, notwithstanding their contempt of his authority, into
+some sort of favour and countenance. They had probably saved him money
+by their irregularity, and economical frailties are rarely judged
+severely by men of fashion who are benefited by them. Lady Mary, however,
+was long a little mistrusted by her own relations, and never seems to
+have acquired much family influence; but her marriage was not her only
+peculiarity, or the only one which impartial relations might dislike.
+
+The pair appear to have been for a little while tolerably happy. Lady
+Mary was excitable, and wanted letters when absent, and attention when
+present: Mr. Wortley was heavy and slow; could not write letters when
+away, and seemed torpid in her society when at home. Still, these are
+common troubles. Common, too, is the matrimonial correspondence upon
+baby’s deficiency in health, and on Mrs. Behn’s opinion that ‘the cold
+bath is the best medicine for weak children.’ It seems an odd end to
+a deferential perusal of Latin authors in girlhood, and to a spirited
+elopement with the preceptor in after years; but the transition is only
+part of the usual irony of human life.
+
+The world, both social and political, into which Lady Mary was introduced
+by her marriage was singularly calculated to awaken the faculties, to
+stimulate the intellect, to sharpen the wit, and to harden the heart of
+an intelligent, witty, and hard-headed woman. The world of London—even
+the higher world—is now too large to be easily seen, or to be pithily
+described. The elements are so many, their position is so confused, the
+display of their mutual counteraction is so involved, that many years
+must pass away before even a very clever woman can thoroughly comprehend
+it all. She will cease to be young and handsome long ere she does
+comprehend it. And when she at last understands it, it does not seem a
+fit subject for concise and summary wit. Its evident complexity refuses
+to be condensed into pithy sayings and brilliant _bons-mots_. It has
+fallen into the hands of philosophers, with less brains perhaps than the
+satirists of our fathers, but with more anxiety to tell the whole truth,
+more toleration for the many-sidedness of the world, with less of sharp
+conciseness, but, perhaps, with more of useful completeness. As are the
+books, so are the readers. People do not wish to read satire nowadays.
+The epigrams even of Pope would fall dull and dead upon this serious and
+investigating time. The folly of the last age affected levity; the folly
+of this, as we all know, encases itself in ponderous volumes which defy
+refutation, in elaborate arguments which prove nothing, in theories which
+confuse the uninstructed, and which irritate the well-informed. The folly
+of a hundred years since was at least the folly of Vivien, but ours is
+the folly of Merlin:
+
+    ‘_You_ read the book, my pretty Vivien,
+    And none can read the text, not even I,
+    And none can read the comments but myself—
+    Oh, the results are simple!’
+
+Perhaps people did not know then as much as they know now: indisputably
+they knew nothing like so much in a superficial way _about_ so many
+things; but they knew far more correctly where their knowledge began and
+where it stopped; what they thought and why they thought it: they had
+readier illustrations and more summary phrases; they could say at once
+what it _came to_, and to what action it should lead.
+
+The London of the eighteenth century was an aristocratic world, which
+lived to itself, which displayed the virtues and developed the vices of
+an aristocracy which was under little fear of external control or check;
+which had emancipated itself from the control of the crown; which had
+not fallen under the control of the _bourgeoisie_; which saw its own
+life, and saw that, according to its own maxims, it was good. Public
+opinion now rules, and it is an opinion which constrains the conduct,
+and narrows the experience, and dwarfs the violence, and minimises the
+frankness of the highest classes, while it diminishes their vices,
+supports their conscience, and precludes their grossness. There was
+nothing like this in the last century, especially in the early part of
+it. The aristocracy came to town from their remote estates,—where they
+were uncontrolled by any opinion or by any equal society, and where the
+eccentricities and personalities of each character were fostered and
+exaggerated,—to a London which was like a large county town, in which
+everybody of rank knew everybody of rank, where the eccentricities
+of each rural potentate came into picturesque collision with the
+eccentricities of other rural potentates, where the most minute allusions
+to the peculiarities and the career of the principal persons were
+instantly understood, where squibs were on every table, and where satire
+was in the air. No finer field of social observation could be found for
+an intelligent and witty woman. Lady Mary understood it at once.
+
+Nor was the political life of the last century so unfavourable to the
+influence and so opposed to the characteristic comprehension of women
+as our present life. We are now ruled by political discussion and by
+a popular assembly, by leading articles, and by the House of Commons.
+But women can scarcely ever compose leaders, and no woman sits in our
+representative chamber. The whole tide of abstract discussion, which
+fills our mouths and deafens our ears, the whole complex accumulation
+of facts and figures to which we refer every thing, and which we apply
+to every thing, is quite unfemale. A lady has an insight into what she
+sees; but how will this help her with the case of the _Trent_, with
+the proper structure of a representative chamber, with Indian finance
+or parliamentary reform? Women are clever, but cleverness of itself
+is nothing at present. A sharp Irish writer described himself ‘as
+bothered intirely by the want of preliminary information;’ women are
+in the same difficulty now. Their nature may hereafter change, as some
+sanguine advocates suggest. But the visible species certainly have not
+the intellectual providence to acquire the vast stores of dry information
+which alone can enable them to judge adequately of our present
+controversies. We are ruled by a machinery of oratory and discussion,
+in which women have no share, and which they hardly comprehend: we are
+engaged on subjects which need an arduous learning, to which they have no
+pretensions.
+
+In the last century much of this was very different. The Court still
+counted for much in English politics. The House of Commons was the
+strongest power in the State machine, but it was not so immeasurably the
+strongest power as now. It was absolutely supreme within its sphere,
+but that sphere was limited. It could absolutely control the money, and
+thereby the policy of the State. Whether there should be peace or war,
+excise or no excise, it could and did despotically determine. It was
+supreme in its choice of _measures_. But, on the other hand, it had only
+a secondary influence in the choice of _persons_. Who the Prime Minister
+was to be, was a question not only theoretically determinable, but in
+fact determined by the Sovereign. The House of Commons could despotically
+impose two conditions: first, that the Prime Minister should be a man
+of sufficient natural ability, and sufficient parliamentary experience,
+to conduct the business of his day; secondly, that he should adopt the
+policy which the nation wished. But, subject to a conformity with these
+prerequisites, the selection of the king was nearly uncontrolled. Sir
+Robert Walpole was the greatest master of parliamentary tactics and
+political business in his generation; he was a statesman of wide views
+and consummate dexterity; but these intellectual gifts, even joined to
+immense parliamentary experience, were not alone sufficient to make him
+and to keep him Prime Minister of England. He also maintained, during
+two reigns, a complete system of court-strategy. During the reign of
+George II. he kept a _queen-watcher_. Lord Hervey, one of the cleverest
+men in England, the keenest observer, perhaps, in England, was induced,
+by very dexterous management, to remain at court during many years—to
+observe the queen, to hint to the queen, to remove wrong impressions
+from the queen, to confirm the Walpolese predilections of the queen, to
+report every incident to Sir Robert. The records of politics tell us few
+stranger tales than that it should have been necessary for the Sir Robert
+Peel of the age to hire a subordinate as safe as Eldon, and as witty as
+Canning, for the sole purpose of managing a clever German woman, to whom
+the selection of a Prime Minister was practically intrusted. Nor was this
+the only court-campaign which Sir Robert had to conduct, or in which he
+was successful. Lady Mary, who hated him much, has satirically described
+the foundation upon which his court favour rested during the reign of
+George I.:—
+
+    ‘The new Court with all their train was arrived before I left
+    the country. The Duke of Marlborough was returned in a sort of
+    triumph, with the apparent merit of having suffered for his
+    fidelity to the succession, and was reinstated in his office of
+    general, &c. In short, all people who had suffered any hardship
+    or disgrace during the late ministry would have it believed
+    that it was occasioned by their attachment to the House of
+    Hanover. Even Mr. Walpole, who had been sent to the Tower for
+    a piece of bribery proved upon him, was called a confessor to
+    the cause. But he had another piece of good luck that yet more
+    contributed to his advancement; he had a very handsome sister,
+    whose folly had lost her reputation in London; but the yet
+    greater folly of Lord Townshend, who happened to be a neighbour
+    in Norfolk to Mr. Walpole, had occasioned his being drawn in to
+    marry her some months before the queen died.
+
+    ‘Lord Townshend had that sort of understanding which commonly
+    makes men honest in the first part of their lives; they follow
+    the instructions of their tutor, and, till somebody thinks it
+    worth their while to show them a new path, go regularly on in
+    the road where they are set. Lord Townshend had then been many
+    years an excellent husband to a sober wife, a kind master
+    to all his servants and dependents, a serviceable relation
+    wherever it was in his power, and followed the instinct of
+    nature in being fond of his children. Such a sort of behaviour
+    without any glaring absurdity, either in prodigality or
+    avarice, always gains a man the reputation of reasonable and
+    honest; and this was his character when the Earl of Godolphin
+    sent him envoy to the States, not doubting but he would be
+    faithful to his orders, without giving himself the trouble of
+    criticising on them, which is what all ministers wish in an
+    envoy. Robotun, a French refugee (secretary to Bernstoff, one
+    of the Elector of Hanover’s ministers), happened then to be at
+    the Hague, and was civilly received at Lord Townshend’s, who
+    treated him at his table with the English hospitality, and he
+    was charmed with a reception which his birth and education did
+    not entitle him to. Lord Townshend was recalled when the queen
+    changed her ministry; his wife died, and he retired into the
+    country, where (as I have said before) Walpole had art enough
+    to make him marry his sister Dolly. At that time, I believe, he
+    did not propose much more advantage by the match than to get
+    rid of a girl that lay heavy on his hands.
+
+    ‘When King George ascended the throne, he was surrounded by
+    all his German ministers and playfellows, male and female.
+    Baron Goritz was the most considerable among them both for
+    birth and fortune. He had managed the king’s treasury thirty
+    years with the utmost fidelity and economy; and had the true
+    German honesty, being a plain, sincere, and unambitious man.
+    Bernstoff, the secretary, was of a different turn. He was
+    avaricious, artful, and designing; and had got his share in the
+    king’s councils by bribing his women. Robotun was employed in
+    these matters, and had the sanguine ambition of a Frenchman. He
+    resolved there should be an English ministry of his choosing;
+    and, knowing none of them personally but Townshend, he had
+    not failed to recommend him to his master, and his master
+    to the king, as the only proper person for the important
+    post of Secretary of State; and he entered upon that office
+    with universal applause, having at that time a very popular
+    character, which he might possibly have retained for ever if he
+    had not been entirely governed by his wife and her brother R.
+    Walpole, whom he immediately advanced to be paymaster, esteemed
+    a post of exceeding profit, and very necessary for his indebted
+    estate.’
+
+And it is indisputable that Lord Townshend, who thought he was a very
+great statesman, and who began as the patron of Sir Robert Walpole,
+nevertheless was only his Court-agent—the manager on his behalf of the
+king and of the king’s mistresses.
+
+We need not point out at length, for the passage we have cited of itself
+indicates how well suited this sort of politics is to the comprehension
+and to the pen of a keen-sighted and witty woman.
+
+Nor was the Court the principal improver of the London society of the
+age. The House of Commons was then a part of society. This separate,
+isolated, aristocratic world, of which we have spoken, had an almost
+undisputed command of both Houses in the Legislature. The letter of the
+constitution did not give it them, and no law appointed that it should
+be so. But the aristocratic class were by far the most educated, by
+far the most respected, by far the most _eligible_ part of the nation.
+Even in the boroughs, where there was universal suffrage, or something
+near it, they were the favourites. Accordingly, they gave the tone to
+the House of Commons; they required the small community of members who
+did not belong to their order to conform as far as they could to their
+usages, and to guide themselves by their code of morality and of taste.
+In the main the House of Commons obeyed these injunctions, and it was
+repaid by being incorporated within the aristocratic world: it became
+not only the council of the nation, but the debating-club of fashion.
+That which was ‘received’ modified the recipient. The remains of the
+aristocratic society, wherever we find them, are penetrated not only
+with an aristocratic but with a political spirit. They breathe a sort
+of atmosphere of politics. In the London of the present day, the vast
+miscellaneous _bourgeois_ London, we all know that this is not so. ‘In
+the country,’ said a splenetic observer, ‘people talk politics; at London
+dinners you talk nothing; between two pillars of crinoline you eat and
+are resigned.’ A hundred and fifty years ago, as far as our rather ample
+materials inform us, people in London talked politics just as they now
+talk politics in Worcestershire; and being on the spot, and cooped up
+with politicians in a small social world, their talk was commonly better.
+They knew the people of whom they spoke, even if they did not know the
+subjects with which they were concerned.
+
+No element is better fitted to counteract the characteristic evil of an
+aristocratic society. The defect of such societies in all times has been
+frivolity. All talk has tended to become gossip; it has ceased to deal
+with important subjects, and has devoted itself entirely to unimportant
+incidents. Whether the Duc de —— has more or less prevailed with the
+Marquise de —— is a sort of common form into which any details may be
+fitted, and any names inserted. The frivolities of gallantry—never very
+important save to some woman who has long been dead—fill the records
+of all aristocracies who lived under a despotism, who had no political
+authority, no daily political cares. The aristocracy of England in the
+last century was, at any rate, exempt from _this_ reproach. There is
+in the records of it not only an intellectuality, which would prove
+little,—for every clever describer, by the subtleties of his language
+and the arrangement of his composition, gives a sort of intellectuality
+even to matters which have no pretension to it themselves,—but likewise
+a pervading medium of political discussion. The very language in which
+they are written is the language of political business. Horace Walpole
+was certainly by nature no politician and no orator; yet no discerning
+critic can read a page of his voluminous remains without feeling that
+the writer has through life lived with politicians and talked with
+politicians. A keen observant mind, not naturally political, but capable
+of comprehending and viewing any subject which was brought before it, has
+chanced to have this particular subject—politics—presented to it for a
+lifetime; and all its delineations, all its efforts, all its thoughts,
+reflect it, and are coloured by it. In all the records of the eighteenth
+century the tonic of business is seen to combat the relaxing effect of
+habitual luxury.
+
+This element, too, is favourable to a clever woman. The more you can
+put before such a person the greater she will be; the less her world,
+the less she is. If you place the most keen-sighted lady in the midst
+of the pure futilities and unmitigated flirtations of an aristocracy,
+she will sink to the level of those elements, and will scarcely seem to
+wish for anything more, or to be competent for anything higher. But if
+she is placed in an intellectual atmosphere, in which political or other
+important subjects are currently passing, you will probably find that
+she can talk better upon them than you can, without your being able to
+explain whence she derived either her information or her talent.
+
+The subjects, too, which were discussed in the political society of the
+last age were not so inscrutable to women as our present subjects; and
+even when there were great difficulties they were more on a level with
+men in the discussion of them than they now are. It was no disgrace to
+be destitute of preliminary information at a time in which there were
+no accumulated stores from which such information could be derived. A
+lightening element of female influence is therefore to be found through
+much of the politics of the eighteenth century.
+
+Lady Mary entered easily into all this world, both social and political.
+She had beauty for the fashionable, satire for the witty, knowledge for
+the learned, and intelligence for the politician. She was not too refined
+to shrink from what we now consider the coarseness of that time. Many
+of her verses themselves are scarcely adapted for our decorous pages.
+Perhaps the following give no unfair idea of her ordinary state of mind:
+
+    ‘TOWN ECLOGUES.
+
+    ‘ROXANA; OR, THE DRAWING-ROOM.
+
+    ‘Roxana, from the Court retiring late,
+    Sigh’d her soft sorrows at St. James’s gate.
+    Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast,
+    Not her own chairmen with more weight oppress’d;
+    They groan the cruel load they’re doom’d to bear;
+    She in these gentle sounds express’d her care.
+      “Was it for this that I these roses wear?
+    For this new-set the jewels for my hair?
+    Ah! Princess! with what zeal have I pursued!
+    Almost forgot the duty of a prude.
+    Thinking I never could attend too soon,
+    I’ve miss’d my prayers, to get me dress’d by noon.
+    For thee, ah! what for thee did I resign!
+    My pleasures, passions, all that e’er was mine.
+    I sacrific’d both modesty and ease,
+    Left operas and went to filthy plays;
+    Double-entendres shock my tender ear;
+    Yet even this for thee I choose to bear.
+    In glowing youth, when nature bids be gay,
+    And every joy of life before me lay,
+    By honour prompted, and by pride restrain’d,
+    The pleasures of the young my soul disdain’d:
+    Sermons I sought, and with a mien severe
+    Censur’d my neighbours, and said daily prayer.
+      “Alas! how chang’d—with the same sermon-mien
+    That once I pray’d, the _What d’ye call’t_ I’ve seen.
+    Ah! cruel Princess, for thy sake I’ve lost
+    That reputation which so dear had cost:
+    I, who avoided every public place,
+    When bloom and beauty bade me show my face,
+    Now near thee constant every night abide
+    With never-failing duty by thy side;
+    Myself and daughters standing on a row,
+    To all the foreigners a goodly show!
+    Oft had your drawing-room been sadly thin,
+    And merchants’ wives close by the chair been seen,
+    Had not I amply filled the empty space,
+    And saved your highness from the dire disgrace.
+      “Yet Coquetilla’s artifice prevails,
+    When all my merit and my duty fails;
+    That Coquetilla, whose deluding airs
+    Corrupt our virgins, still our youth ensnares;
+    So sunk her character, so lost her fame,
+    Scarce visited before your highness came:
+    Yet for the bed-chamber ’tis her you choose,
+    When zeal and fame and virtue you refuse.
+    Ah! worthy choice! not one of all your train
+    Whom censure blasts not, and dishonours stain!
+    Let the nice hind now suckle dirty pigs,
+    And the proud pea-hen hatch the cuckoo’s eggs!
+    Let Iris leave her paint and own her age,
+    And grave Suffolka wed a giddy page!
+    A greater miracle is daily view’d,
+    A virtuous Princess with a Court so lewd.
+      “I know thee, Court! with all thy treach’rous wiles,
+    Thy false caresses and undoing smiles!
+    Ah! Princess, learn’d in all the courtly arts,
+    To cheat our hopes, and yet to gain our hearts!
+      “Large lovely bribes are the great statesman’s aim;
+    And the neglected patriot follows fame.
+    The Prince is ogled; some the king pursue;
+    But your Roxana only follows you.
+    Despis’d Roxana, cease, and try to find
+    Some other, since the Princess proves unkind:
+    Perhaps it is not hard to find at Court,
+    If not a greater, a more firm support.”’
+
+There was every kind of rumour as to Lady Mary’s own conduct, and we
+have no means of saying whether any of these rumours were true. There
+is no evidence against her which is worthy of the name. So far as can
+be proved, she was simply a gay, witty, bold-spoken, handsome woman,
+who made many enemies by unscrupulous speech, and many friends by
+unscrupulous flirtation. We may believe, but we cannot prove, that
+she found her husband tedious, and was dissatisfied that his slow,
+methodical, _borné_ mind made so little progress in the political world,
+and understood so little of what really passed there. Unquestionably
+she must have much preferred talking to Lord Hervey to talking with Mr.
+Montagu. But we must not credit the idle scandals of a hundred years
+since, because they may have been true, or because they appear not
+inconsistent with the characters of those to whom they relate. There were
+legends against every attractive and fashionable woman in that age,
+and most of the legends were doubtless exaggerations and inventions. We
+cannot know the truth of such matters now, and it would hardly be worth
+searching into if we could; but the important fact is certain, Lady Mary
+lived in a world in which the worst rumours were greedily told, and often
+believed, about her and others; and the moral refinement of a woman must
+always be impaired by such a contact.
+
+Lady Mary was so unfortunate as to incur the partial dislike of one of
+the great recorders of that age, and the bitter hostility of the other.
+She was no favourite with Horace Walpole, and the bitter enemy of Pope.
+The first is easily explicable. Horace Walpole never loved his father,
+but recompensed himself by hating his father’s enemies. No one connected
+with the opposition to Sir Robert is spared by his son, if there be a
+fair opportunity for unfavourable insinuation. Mr. Wortley Montagu was
+the very man for a grave mistake. He made the very worst that could be
+made in that age. He joined the party of constitutional exiles on the
+Opposition bench, who had no real objection to the policy of Sir Robert
+Walpole; who, when they had a chance, adopted that policy themselves;
+who were discontented because they had no power, and he had all the
+power. Probably too, being a man eminently respectable, Mr. Montagu was
+frightened at Sir Robert’s unscrupulous talk and not very scrupulous
+actions. At any rate, he opposed Sir Robert; and thence many a little
+observation of Horace Walpole’s against Lady Mary.
+
+Why Pope and Lady Mary quarrelled is a question on which much discussion
+has been expended, and on which a judicious German professor might even
+now compose an interesting and exhaustive monograph. A curt English
+critic will be more apt to ask, ‘Why they should _not_ have quarrelled?’
+We know that Pope quarrelled with almost every one; we know that Lady
+Mary quarrelled or half quarrelled with most of her acquaintances. Why,
+then, should they not have quarrelled with one another?
+
+It is certain that they were very intimate at one time; for Pope wrote
+to her some of the most pompous letters of compliment in the language.
+And the more intimate they were to begin with, the more sure they were
+to be enemies in the end. Human nature will not endure that sort of
+proximity. An irritable, vain poet, who always fancies that people are
+trying to hurt him, whom no argument could convince that every one is
+not perpetually thinking about him, cannot long be friendly with a witty
+woman of unscrupulous tongue, who spares no one, who could sacrifice
+a good friend for a bad _bon-mot_, who thinks of the person whom she
+is addressing, not of those about whom she is speaking. The natural
+relation of the two is that of victim and torturer, and no other will
+long continue. There appear also to have been some money matters (of
+all things in the world) between the two. Lady Mary was intrusted by
+Pope with some money to use in speculation during the highly fashionable
+panic which derives its name from the South-Sea Bubble,—and as of course
+it was lost, Pope was very angry. Another story goes, that Pope made
+serious love to Lady Mary, and that she laughed at him; upon which a
+very personal, and not always very correct, controversy has arisen as to
+the probability or improbability of Pope’s exciting a lady’s feelings.
+Lord Byron took part in it with his usual acuteness and incisiveness,
+and did not leave the discussion more decent than he found it. Pope
+doubtless was deformed, and had not the large red health that uncivilised
+women admire; yet a clever lady might have taken a fancy to him, for the
+little creature knew what he was saying. There is, however, no evidence
+that Lady Mary did so. We only know that there was a sudden coolness or
+quarrel between them, and that it was the beginning of a long and bitter
+hatred.
+
+In their own times Pope’s sensitive disposition probably gave Lady
+Mary a great advantage. Her tongue perhaps gave him more pain than his
+pen gave her. But in later times she has fared the worse. What between
+Pope’s sarcasms and Horace Walpole’s anecdotes, Lady Mary’s reputation
+has suffered very considerably. As we have said, her offences are _non
+proven_; there is no evidence to convict her; but she is likely to be
+condemned upon the general doctrine that a person who is accused of much
+is probably guilty of something.
+
+During many years Lady Mary continued to live a distinguished fashionable
+and social life, with a single remarkable break. This interval was her
+journey to Constantinople. The powers that then were, thought fit to send
+Mr. Wortley as ambassador to Constantinople, and his wife accompanied
+him. During that visit she kept a journal, and wrote sundry real letters,
+out of which, after her return, she composed a series of unreal letters
+as to all she saw and did in Turkey, and on the journey there and back,
+which were published, and which are still amusing, if not always select,
+reading. The Sultan was not then the ‘dying man’; he was the ‘Grand
+Turk.’ He was not simply a potentate to be counted with, but a power to
+be feared. The appearance of a Turkish army on the Danube had in that
+age much the same effect as the appearance of a Russian army now. It
+was an object of terror and dread. A mission at Constantinople was not
+then a _bureau_ for interference in Turkey, but a serious office for
+transacting business with a great European power. A European ambassador
+at Constantinople now presses on the Government there impracticable
+reforms; he then asked for useful aid. Lady Mary was evidently impressed
+by the power of the country in which she sojourned; and we observe in
+her letters evident traces of the notion that the Turk was the dread of
+Christendom,—which is singular now, when the Turk is its _protégé_.
+
+Lady Mary had another advantage too. Many sorts of books make steady
+progress; a scientific treatise published now is sure to be fuller and
+better than one on the same subject written long ago. But with books of
+travel in a stationary country the presumption is the contrary. In that
+case the old book is probably the better book. The first traveller writes
+out a plain, straightforward description of the most striking objects
+with which he meets; he believes that his readers know nothing of the
+country of which he is writing, for till he visited it he probably knew
+nothing himself; and, if he is sensible, he describes simply and clearly
+all which most impresses him. He has no motive for not dwelling upon the
+principal things, and most likely will do so, as they are probably the
+most conspicuous. The second traveller is not so fortunate. He is always
+in terror of the traveller who went before. He fears the criticism,—‘this
+is all very well, _but_ we knew the whole of it before. No. 1 said
+that at page 103.’ In consequence he is timid. He picks and skips. He
+fancies that you are acquainted with all which is great and important,
+and he dwells, for your good and to your pain, upon that which is small
+and unimportant. For ordinary readers no result can be more fatal.
+They perhaps never read,—they certainly do not remember anything upon
+the subject. The curious _minutiæ_ so elaborately set forth, are quite
+useless, for they have not the general framework in which to store them.
+Not knowing much of the first traveller’s work, that of the second is a
+supplement to a treatise with which they are unacquainted. In consequence
+they do not read it. Lady Mary made good use of her position in the front
+of the herd of tourists. She told us what she saw in Turkey,—all the best
+of what she saw, and all the most remarkable things,—and told it very
+well.
+
+Nor was this work the only fruit of her Turkish travels; she brought home
+the notion of inoculation. Like most improvers, she was roughly spoken
+to. Medical men were angry because the practice was not in their books,
+and conservative men were cross at the agony of a new idea. Religious
+people considered it wicked to have a disease which Providence did not
+think fit to send you; and simple people ‘did not like to make themselves
+ill of their own accord.’ She triumphed, however, over all obstacles;
+inoculation, being really found to lengthen life and save complexions,
+before long became general.
+
+One of the first patients upon whom Lady Mary tried the novelty was her
+own son, and many considerate people thought it ‘worthy of observation’
+that he turned out a scamp. When he ran away from school, the mark of
+inoculation, then rare, was used to describe him, and after he was
+recovered, he never did anything which was good. His case seems to have
+been the common one in which nature (as we speak) requites herself for
+the strongheadedness of several generations by the weakness of one.
+His father’s and his mother’s family had been rather able for some
+generations; the latter remarkably so. But this boy had always a sort of
+practical imbecility. He was not stupid, but he never did anything right.
+He exemplified another curious trait of nature’s practice. Mr. Montagu
+was obstinate, though sensible; Lady Mary was flighty, though clever.
+Nature combined the defects. Young Edward Montagu was both obstinate and
+flighty. The only pleasure he can ever have given his parents was the
+pleasure of _feeling_ their own wisdom. He showed that they were right
+before marriage in not settling the paternal property upon him, for he
+ran through every shilling he possessed. He was not sensible enough to
+keep his property, and just not fool enough for the law to take it from
+him.
+
+After her return from Constantinople, Lady Mary continued to lead the
+same half-gay and half-literary life as before; but at last she did
+not like it. Various ingenious inquirers into antiquated minutiæ have
+endeavoured, without success, to discover reasons of detail which might
+explain her dissatisfaction. They have suggested that some irregular
+love-affair was unprosperous, and hinted that she and her husband were
+not on good terms. The love-affair, however, when looked for, cannot
+be found; and though she and her husband would appear to have been but
+distantly related, they never had any great quarrel which we know of.
+Neither seems to have been fitted to give the other much pleasure, and
+each had the fault of which the other was most impatient. Before marriage
+Lady Mary had charmed Mr. Montagu, but she had also frightened him;
+after marriage she frightened, but did not charm him. He was formal and
+composed; she was flighty and _outrée_. ‘What _will_ she do next?’ was
+doubtless the poor man’s daily feeling; and ‘Will he ever do anything?’
+was probably also hers. Torpid business, which is always going on, but
+which never seems to come to anything, is simply aggravating to a clever
+woman. Even the least impatient lady can hardly endure a perpetual
+process for which there is little visible and nothing theatrical to
+show; and Lady Mary was by no means the least impatient. But there was
+no abrupt quarrel between the two; and a husband and wife who have lived
+together more than twenty years can generally manage to continue to
+live together during a second twenty years. These reasons of detail are
+scarcely the reasons for Lady Mary’s wishing to break away from the life
+to which she had so long been used. Yet there was clearly some reason,
+for Lady Mary went abroad, and stayed there during many years.
+
+We believe that the cause was not special and peculiar to the case, but
+general, and due to the invariable principles of human nature, at all
+times and everywhere. If historical experience proves anything, it proves
+that the earth is not adapted for a life of mere intellectual pleasure.
+The life of a brute on earth, though bad, is possible. It is not even
+difficult to many persons to destroy the higher part of their nature by a
+continual excess in sensual pleasure. It is even more easy and possible
+to dull all the soul and most of the mind by a vapid accumulation of
+torpid comfort. Many of the middle classes spend their whole lives in a
+constant series of petty pleasures, and an undeviating pursuit of small
+material objects. The gross pursuit of pleasure, and the tiresome pursuit
+of petty comfort, are quite suitable to such ‘a being as man in such
+a world as the present one.’ What is not possible is, to combine the
+pursuit of pleasure and the enjoyment of comfort with the characteristic
+pleasures of a strong mind. If you wish for luxury, you must not nourish
+the inquisitive instinct. The great problems of human life are in the
+air; they are without us in the life we see, within us in the life we
+feel. A quick intellect feels them in a moment. It says, ‘Why am I here?
+What is pleasure, that I desire it? What is comfort, that I seek it? What
+are carpets and tables? What is the lust of the eye? What is the pride
+of life, that they should satisfy _me_? I was not made for such things.
+I hate them, because I have liked them; I loathe them, because it seems
+that there is nothing else for me.’ An impatient woman’s intellect comes
+to this point in a moment; it says, ‘Society is good, but I have seen
+society. What is the use of talking, or hearing _bon-mots_? I have done
+both till I am tired of doing either. I have laughed till I have no wish
+to laugh again, and made others laugh till I have hated them for being
+such fools. As for instruction, I have seen the men of genius of my
+time; and they tell me nothing,—nothing of what I want to know. They are
+choked with intellectual frivolities. They cannot say “whence I came, and
+whither I go.” What do they know of themselves? It is not from literary
+people that we can learn anything; more likely, they will copy, or try to
+copy, the manners of lords, and make ugly love, in bad imitation of those
+who despise them.’ Lady Mary felt this, as we believe. She had seen all
+the world of England, and it did not _satisfy_. She turned abroad, not in
+pursuit of definite good, nor from fear of particular evil, but from a
+vague wish for some great change—from a wish to escape from a life which
+harassed the soul, but did not calm it; which awakened the intellect
+without answering its questions.
+
+She lived abroad for more than twenty years, at Avignon and Venice
+and elsewhere; and, during that absence, she wrote the letters which
+compose the greater part of her works. And there is no denying that they
+are good letters. The art of note-writing may become classical—it is
+for the present age to provide models of that sort of composition—but
+letters have perished. Nobody but a bore now takes pains enough to make
+them pleasant; and the only result of a bore’s pains is to make them
+unpleasant. The correspondence of the present day is a continual labour
+without any visible achievement. The dying penny-a-liner said with
+emphasis, ‘That which I have written has perished.’ We might all say so
+of the mass of petty letters we write. They are a heap of small atoms,
+each with some interest individually, but with no interest as a whole;
+all the items concern us, but they all add up to nothing. In the last
+century, cultivated people who sat down to write a letter took pains to
+have something to say, and took pains to say it. The postage was perhaps
+ninepence; and it would be impudent to make a correspondent pay ninepence
+for nothing. Still more impudent was it, _after_ having made him pay
+ninepence, to give him the additional pain of making out what was half
+expressed. People, too, wrote to one another then, not unfrequently,
+who had long been separated, and who required much explanation and
+many details to make the life of each intelligible to the other. The
+correspondence of the nineteenth century is like a series of telegrams
+with amplified headings. There is not more than one idea; and that idea
+comes soon, and is soon over. The best correspondence of the last age
+is rather like a good light article,—in which the points are studiously
+made,—in which the effort to make them is studiously concealed,—in which
+a series of selected circumstances is set forth,—in which you feel, but
+are not told, that the principle of the writer’s selection was to make
+his composition pleasant.
+
+In letter-writing of this kind Lady Mary was very skilful. She has the
+highest merit of letter-writing—she is concise without being affected.
+Fluency, which a great orator pronounced to be the curse of orators, is
+at least equally the curse of writers. There are many people, many ladies
+especially, who can write letters at any length, in any number, and at
+any time. We may be quite sure that the letters so written are not good
+letters. Composition of any sort implies consideration; you must see
+where you are going before you can go straight, or can pick your steps
+as you go. On the other hand, too much consideration is unfavourable
+to the ease of letter-writing, and perhaps of all writing. A letter
+too much studied wants flow; it is a museum of hoarded sentences. Each
+sentence sounds effective; but the whole composition wants vitality. It
+was written with the memory instead of the mind; and every reader feels
+the effect, though only the critical reader can detect the cause. Lady
+Mary understood all this. She said what she had to say in words that were
+always graphic and always sufficiently good, but she avoided curious
+felicity. Her expressions seem choice, but not chosen.
+
+At the end of her life Lady Mary pointed a subordinate but not a useless
+moral. The masters of mundane ethics observe that ‘you should stay in
+the world, or stay out of the world.’ Lady Mary did neither. She went
+out and tried to return. Horace Walpole thus describes the result: ‘Lady
+Mary Wortley is arrived; I have seen her; I think her avarice, her
+art, and her vivacity are all increased. Her dress, like her language,
+is a _galimatias_ of several countries; the groundwork rags, and the
+embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no
+petticoat, and no shoes. An old black laced hood represents the first;
+the fur of a horseman’s coat, which replaces the third, serves for the
+second; a dimity petticoat is deputy and officiates for the fourth;
+and slippers act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she
+was expected there, we were drawing _sortes Virgilianas_ for her; we
+literally drew
+
+                         “Insanam vatem aspicies.”
+
+It would have been a stranger prophecy now even than it was then.’ There
+is a description of what the favourite of society becomes after leaving
+it for years, and after indulging eccentricities for years! There is a
+commentary on the blunder of exposing yourself in your old age to young
+people, to whom you have always been a tradition and a name! Horace
+Walpole doubtless painted up a few trivialities a little. But one of the
+traits is true. Lady Mary lived before the age in which people waste half
+their lives in washing the whole of their persons.
+
+Lady Mary did not live long after her return to England. Horace Walpole’s
+letter is written on the 2nd February 1762, and she died on the 21st
+August in the same year. Her husband had died just before her return, and
+perhaps, after so many years, she would not have returned unless he had
+done so. _Requiescat in pace_; for she quarrelled all her life.
+
+
+
+
+_WILLIAM COWPER._[31]
+
+(1855.)
+
+
+For the English, after all, the best literature is the English. We
+understand the language; the manners are familiar to us; the scene at
+home: the associations our own. Of course, a man who has not read Homer
+is like a man who has not seen the ocean. There is a great object of
+which he has no idea. But we cannot be always seeing the ocean. Its face
+is always large; its smile is bright; the ever-sounding shore sounds on.
+Yet we have no property in them. We stop and gaze; we pause and draw
+our breath; we look and wonder at the grandeur of the other world; but
+we live on shore. We fancy associations of unknown things and distant
+climes, of strange men and strange manners. But we are ourselves.
+Foreigners do not behave as we should, nor do the Greeks. What a strength
+of imagination, what a long practice, what a facility in the details
+of fancy is required to picture their past and unknown world! They are
+deceased. They are said to be immortal, because they have written a good
+epitaph; but they are gone. Their life and their manners have passed
+away. We read with interest in the catalogue of the ships—
+
+    ‘The men of Argos and Tyrintha next,
+    And of Hermione, that stands retired
+    With Asine, within her spacious bay;
+    Of Epidaurus, crowned with purple vines,
+    And of Træzena, with the Achaian youth
+    Of sea-begirt Ægina, and with thine
+    Maseta, and the dwellers on thy coast,
+    Waveworn Eïonæ; ...
+    And from Caristus and from Styra came
+    Their warlike multitudes, in front of whom
+    Elphenor marched, Calchodon’s mighty son.
+    With foreheads shorn and wavy locks behind,
+    They followed, and alike were eager all
+    To split the hauberk with the shortened spear.’
+
+But they are dead. ‘“So am not I,” said the foolish fat scullion.’ We
+are the English of the present day. We have cows and calves, corn and
+cotton; we hate the Russians; we know where the Crimea is; we believe in
+Manchester the great. A large expanse is around us; a fertile land of
+corn and orchards, and pleasant hedgerows, and rising trees, and noble
+prospects, and large black woods, and old church towers. The din of
+great cities comes mellowed from afar. The green fields, the half-hidden
+hamlets, the gentle leaves, soothe us with ‘a sweet inland murmur.’ We
+have before us a vast seat of interest, and toil, and beauty, and power,
+and this our own. Here is our home. The use of foreign literature is
+like the use of foreign travel. It imprints in early and susceptible
+years a deep impression of great, and strange, and noble objects; but we
+cannot live with these. They do not resemble our familiar life; they do
+not bind themselves to our intimate affection; they are picturesque and
+striking, like strangers and wayfarers, but they are not of our home,
+or homely; they cannot speak to our ‘business and bosoms’; they cannot
+touch the hearth of the soul. It would be better to have no outlandish
+literature in the mind than to have it the principal thing. We should
+be like accomplished vagabonds without a country, like men with a
+hundred acquaintances and no friends. We need an intellectual possession
+analogous to our own life; which reflects, embodies, improves it; on
+which we can repose; which will recur to us in the placid moments—which
+will be a latent principle even in the acute crises of our life. Let us
+be thankful if our researches in foreign literature enable us, as rightly
+used they will enable us, better to comprehend our own. Let us venerate
+what is old, and marvel at what is far. Let us read our own books. Let us
+understand ourselves.
+
+With these principles, if such they may be called, in our minds, we
+gladly devote these early pages of our journal[32] to the new edition
+of Cowper, with which Mr. Bell has favoured us. There is no writer
+more exclusively English. There is no one—or hardly one, perhaps—whose
+excellences are more natural to our soil, and seem so little able to
+bear transplantation. We do not remember to have seen his name in any
+continental book. Professed histories of English literature, we dare say,
+name him; but we cannot recall any such familiar and cursory mention as
+would evince a real knowledge and hearty appreciation of his writings.
+
+The edition itself is a good one. The life of Cowper, which is
+prefixed to it, though not striking, is sensible. The notes are clear,
+explanatory, and, so far as we know, accurate. The special introductions
+to each of the poems are short and judicious, and bring to the mind at
+the proper moment the passages in Cowper’s letters most clearly relating
+to the work in hand. The typography is not very elegant, but it is plain
+and business-like. There is no affectation of cheap ornament.
+
+The little book which stands second on our list belongs to a class of
+narratives written for a peculiar public, inculcating peculiar doctrines,
+and adapted, at least in part, to a peculiar taste. We dissent from many
+of these tenets, and believe that they derive no support, but rather the
+contrary, from the life of Cowper. In previous publications, written for
+the same persons, these opinions have been applied to that melancholy
+story in a manner which it requires strong writing to describe. In this
+little volume they are more rarely expressed, and when they are it is
+with diffidence, tact, and judgment.
+
+Only a most pedantic critic would attempt to separate the criticism on
+Cowper’s works from a narrative of his life. Indeed, such an attempt
+would be scarcely intelligible. Cowper’s poems are almost as much
+connected with his personal circumstances as his letters, and his
+letters are as purely autobiographical as those of any man can be. If
+all information concerning him had perished save what his poems contain,
+the attention of critics would be diverted from the examination of their
+interior characteristics to a conjectural dissertation on the personal
+fortunes of the author. The Germans would have much to say. It would be
+debated in Tübingen who were the Three Hares, why ‘The Sofa’ was written,
+why John Gilpin was not called William. Halle would show with great
+clearness that there was no reason why he _should_ be called William;
+that it appeared by the bills of mortality that several other persons
+born about the same period had also been called John; and the ablest of
+all the professors would finish the subject with a monograph showing
+that there was a special fitness in the name John, and that any one
+with the æsthetic sense who (like the professor) had devoted many years
+exclusively to the perusal of the poem, would be certain that any other
+name would be quite ‘paralogistic, and in every manner impossible and
+inappropriate.’ It would take a German to write upon the Hares.
+
+William Cowper, the poet, was born on November 26, 1731, at his father’s
+parsonage, at Berkhampstead. Of his father, who was chaplain to the
+king, we know nothing of importance. Of his mother, who had been named
+Donne, and was a Norfolk lady, he has often made mention, and it appears
+that he regarded the faint recollection which he retained of her—for she
+died early—with peculiar tenderness. In later life, and when his sun was
+going down in gloom and sorrow, he recurred eagerly to opportunities
+of intimacy with her most distant relatives, and wished to keep alive
+the idea of her in his mind. That idea was not of course very definite;
+indeed, as described in his poems, it is rather the abstract idea of what
+a mother should be, than anything else; but he was able to recognise her
+picture, and there is a suggestion of cakes and sugar-plums, which gives
+a life and vividness to the rest. Soon after her death he was sent to a
+school kept by a man named Pitman, at which he always described himself
+as having suffered exceedingly from the cruelty of one of the boys. He
+could never see him, or think of him, he has told us, without trembling.
+And there must have been some solid reason for this terror, since—even
+in those days, when τύπτω meant ‘I strike,’ and ‘boy’ denoted a thing
+to be beaten—this juvenile inflicter of secret stripes was actually
+expelled. From Mr. Pitman, Cowper, on account of a weakness in the eyes,
+which remained with him through life, was transferred to the care of an
+oculist,—a dreadful fate even for the most cheerful boy, and certainly
+not likely to cure one with any disposition to melancholy; hardly indeed
+can the boldest mind, in its toughest hour of manly fortitude, endure to
+be domesticated with an operation chair. Thence he went to Westminster,
+of which he has left us discrepant notices, according to the feeling
+for the time being uppermost in his mind. From several parts of the
+‘Tirocinium,’ it would certainly seem that he regarded the whole system
+of public school teaching not only with speculative disapproval, but with
+the painful hatred of a painful experience. A thousand genial passages
+in his private letters, however, really prove the contrary; and in a
+changing mood of mind, the very poem which was expressly written to
+‘recommend private tuition at home’ gives some idea of school happiness.
+
+    ‘Be it a weakness, it deserves some praise,
+    We love the play-place of our early days;
+    The scene is touching, and the heart is stone
+    That feels not at that sight, and feels at none.
+    The wall on which we tried our graving skill,
+    The very name we carved subsisting still,
+    The bench on which we sat while deep employed,
+    Though mangled, hacked, and hewed, not yet destroyed;
+    The little ones unbuttoned, glowing hot,
+    Playing our games, and on the very spot,
+    As happy as we once, to kneel and draw
+    The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw;
+    To pitch the ball into the grounded hat,
+    Or drive it devious with a dextrous pat;
+    The pleasing spectacle at once excites
+    Such recollections of our own delights,
+    That viewing it, we seem almost t’ obtain
+    Our innocent sweet simple years again.
+    This fond attachment to the well-known place,
+    Whence first we started into life’s long race,
+    Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway,
+    We feel it e’en in age, and at our latest day.’
+
+Probably we pursue an insoluble problem in seeking a suitable education
+for a morbidly melancholy mind. At first it seems a dreadful thing to
+place a gentle and sensitive nature in contact, in familiarity, and
+even under the rule of coarse and strong buoyant natures. Nor should
+this be in general attempted. The certain result is present suffering,
+and the expected good is remote and disputable. Nevertheless, it is no
+artificial difficulty which we here encounter—none which we can hope by
+educational contrivances to meet or vanquish. The difficulty is in truth
+the existence of the world. It is the fact, that by the constitution of
+society the bold, the vigorous, and the buoyant, rise and rule; and that
+the weak, the shrinking, and the timid, fall and serve. In after-life,
+in the actual commerce of men, even too in those quiet and tranquil
+pursuits in which a still and gentle mind should seem to be under the
+least disadvantage, in philosophy and speculation, the strong and active,
+who have confidence in themselves and their ideas, acquire and keep
+dominion. It is idle to expect that this will not give great pain—that
+the shrinking and timid, who are often just as ambitious as others,
+will not repine—that the rough and strong will not often consciously
+inflict grievous oppression—will not still more often, without knowing
+it, cause to more tremulous minds a refined suffering which their coarser
+texture could never experience, which it does not sympathise with, nor
+comprehend. Some time in life—it is but a question of a very few years
+at most—this trial must be undergone. There may be a short time, more or
+less, of gentle protection and affectionate care, but the leveret grows
+old—the world waits at the gate—the hounds are ready, and the huntsman
+too, and there is need of strength, and pluck, and speed. Cowper indeed,
+himself, as we have remarked, does not, on an attentive examination, seem
+to have suffered exceedingly. In subsequent years, when a dark cloud
+had passed over him, he was apt at times to exaggerate isolated days of
+melancholy and pain, and fancy that the dislike which he entertained
+for the system of schools, by way of speculative principle, was in fact
+the result of a personal and suffering experience. But, as we shall
+have (though we shall not, in fact, perhaps use them all) a thousand
+occasions to observe, he had, side by side with a morbid and melancholy
+humour, an easy nature, which was easily satisfied with the world as he
+found it, was pleased with the gaiety of others, and liked the sight
+of, and sympathy with, the more active enjoyments which he did not care
+to engage in or to share. Besides, there is every evidence that cricket
+and marbles (though he sometimes in his narratives suppresses the fact,
+in condescension to those of his associates who believed them to be the
+idols of wood and stone which are spoken of in the prophets) really
+exercised a laudable and healthy supremacy over his mind. The animation
+of the scene—the gay alertness which Gray looked back on so fondly in
+long years of soothing and delicate musing, exerted, as the passage which
+we cited shows, a great influence over a genius superior to Gray’s in
+facility and freedom, though inferior in the ‘little footsteps’ of the
+finest fancy,—in the rare and carefully-hoarded felicities, unequalled
+save in the immeasurable abundance of the greatest writers. Of course
+Cowper was unhappy at school, as he was unhappy always; and of course too
+we are speaking of Westminster only. For Dr. Pitman and the oculist there
+is nothing to say.
+
+In scholarship Cowper seems to have succeeded. He was not, indeed, at
+all the sort of man to attain to that bold, strong-brained, confident
+scholarship which Bentley carried to such an extreme, and which, in
+almost every generation since, some Englishman has been found of hard
+head and stiff-clayed memory to keep up and perpetuate. His friend
+Thurlow was the man for this pursuit, and the man to prolong the just
+notion that those who attain early proficiency in it are likely men to
+become Lord Chancellors. Cowper’s scholarship was simply the general and
+delicate _impression_ which the early study of the classics invariably
+leaves on a nice and susceptible mind. In point of information it was
+strictly of a common nature. It is clear that his real knowledge was
+mostly confined to the poets, especially the ordinary Latin poets
+and Homer, and that he never bestowed any regular attention on the
+historians, or orators, or philosophers of antiquity, either at school
+or in after years. Nor indeed would such a course of study have in
+reality been very beneficial to him. The strong, analytic, comprehensive,
+reason-giving powers which are required in these dry and rational
+pursuits were utterly foreign to his mind. All that was congenial to him,
+he acquired in the easy intervals of apparent idleness. The friends whom
+he made at Westminster, and who continued for many years to be attached
+to him, preserved the probable tradition that he was a gentle and
+gradual, rather than a forcible or rigorous learner.
+
+The last hundred years have doubtless seen a vast change in the common
+education of the common boy. The small and pomivorous animal which we so
+call is now subjected to a treatment very elaborate and careful,—that
+contrasts much with the simple alternation of classics and cuffs which
+was formerly so fashionable. But it may be doubted whether for a
+peculiar mind such as Cowper’s, on the intellectual side at least, the
+tolerant and corpuscular theory of the last century was not preferable
+to the intolerant and never-resting moral influence that has succeeded
+to it. Some minds learn most when they seem to learn least. A certain,
+placid, unconscious, equable in-taking of knowledge suits them, and alone
+suits them. To succeed in forcing such men to attain great learning is
+simply impossible; for you cannot put the fawn into the ‘Land Transport.’
+The only resource is to allow them to acquire gently and casually in
+their own way; and in that way they will often imbibe, as if by the mere
+force of existence, much pleasant and well-fancied knowledge.
+
+From Westminster Cowper went at once into a solicitor’s office. Of the
+next few years (he was then about eighteen) we do not know much. His
+attention to legal pursuits was, according to his own account, not
+very profound; yet it could not have been wholly contemptible, for his
+evangelical friend, Mr. Newton, who, whatever may be the worth of his
+religious theories, had certainly a sound, rough judgment on topics
+terrestrial, used in after years to have no mean opinion of the value of
+his legal counsel. In truth, though nothing could be more out of Cowper’s
+way than abstract and recondite jurisprudence, an easy and sensible
+mind like his would find a great deal which was very congenial to it in
+the well-known and perfectly settled maxims which regulate and rule the
+daily life of common men. No strain of capacity or stress of speculative
+intellect is necessary for the apprehension of these. A fair and easy
+mind, which is placed within their reach, will find it has learnt them,
+without knowing when or how.
+
+After some years of legal instruction, Cowper chose to be called to the
+bar, and took chambers in the Temple accordingly. He never, however, even
+pretended to practise. He passed his time in literary society, in light
+study, in tranquil negligence. He was intimate with Colman, Lloyd, and
+other wits of those times. He wrote an essay in the _Connoisseur_, the
+kind of composition then most fashionable, especially with such literary
+gentlemen as were most careful not to be confounded with the professed
+authors. In a word, he did ‘nothing,’ as that word is understood among
+the vigorous, aspiring, and trenchant part of mankind. Nobody could seem
+less likely to attain eminence. Every one must have agreed that there
+was no harm in him, and few could have named any particular good which
+it was likely that he would achieve. In after days he drew up a memoir
+of his life, in which he speaks of those years with deep self-reproach.
+It was not indeed the secular indolence of the time which excited his
+disapproval. The course of life had not made him more desirous of worldly
+honours, but less; and nothing could be further from his tone of feeling
+than regret for not having strenuously striven to attain them. He spoke
+of those years in the Puritan manner, using words which literally express
+the grossest kind of active Atheism in a vague and vacant way; leaving
+us to gather from external sources whether they are to be understood in
+their plain and literal signification, or in that out-of-the-way and
+technical sense in which they hardly have a meaning. In this case the
+external evidence is so clear that there is no difficulty. The regrets of
+Cowper had reference to offences which the healthy and sober consciences
+of mankind will not consider to deserve them. A vague, literary,
+omnitolerant idleness was perhaps their worst feature. He was himself
+obliged to own that he had always been considered ‘as one religiously
+inclined, if not actually religious,’ and the applicable testimony, as
+well as the whole form and nature of his character, forbid us to ascribe
+to him the slightest act of licence or grossness. A reverend biographer
+has called his life at this time, ‘an unhappy compound of guilt and
+wretchedness.’ But unless the estimable gentleman thinks it sinful to
+be a barrister and wretched to live in the Temple, it is not easy to
+make out what he would mean. In point of intellectual cultivation, and
+with a view to preparing himself for writing his subsequent works, it
+is not possible he should have spent his time better. He then acquired
+that easy, familiar knowledge of terrestrial things—the vague and general
+information of the superficies of all existence—the acquaintance with
+life, business, hubbub, and rustling matter of fact, which seem odd
+in the recluse of Olney—and enliven so effectually the cucumbers of
+the ‘Task.’ It has been said that at times every man wishes to be a
+man of the world, and even the most rigid critic must concede it to be
+nearly essential to a writer on real life and actual manners. If a man
+has not seen his brother, how can he describe him? As this world calls
+happiness and blamelessness, it is not easy to fancy a life more happy—at
+least with more of the common elements of happiness,—or more blameless
+than those years of Cowper. An easy temper, light fancies,—hardly as
+yet broken by shades of melancholy brooding;—an enjoying habit, rich
+humour, literary, but not pedantic companions, a large scene of life and
+observation, polished acquaintance and attached friends: these were his,
+and what has a light life more? A rough hero Cowper was not and never
+became, but he was then, as ever, a quiet and tranquil gentleman. If De
+Béranger’s doctrine were true, ‘_Le bonheur tient au savoir-vivre_,’
+there were the materials of existence here. What, indeed, would not De
+Béranger have made of them?
+
+One not unnatural result or accompaniment of such a life was that
+Cowper fell in love. There were in those days two young ladies, cousins
+of Cowper, residents in London, to one of whom, the Lady Hesketh of
+after years, he once wrote:—‘My dear Cousin,—I wonder how it happened,
+that much as I love you, I was never in love with you.’ No similar
+providence protected his intimacy with her sister. Theodora Cowper,
+‘One of the cousins with whom Thurlow used to giggle and make giggle in
+Southampton-row,’ was a handsome and vigorous damsel. ‘What!’ said her
+father, ‘What will you do if you marry William Cowper?’ meaning, in the
+true parental spirit, to intrude mere pecuniary ideas. ‘Do, sir!’ she
+replied, ‘Wash all day, and ride out on the great dog all night!’ a
+spirited combination of domestic industry and exterior excitement. It
+is doubtful, however, whether either of these species of pastime and
+occupation would have been exactly congenial to Cowper. A gentle and
+refined indolence must have made him an inferior washerman, and perhaps
+to accompany the canine excursions of a wife ‘which clear-starched,’
+would have hardly seemed enough to satisfy his accomplished and placid
+ambition. At any rate, it certainly does seem that he was not a very
+vigorous lover. The young lady was, as he himself oddly said:—
+
+      ‘Through tedious years of doubt and pain,
+    Fixed in her choice and faithful ... _but in vain_.’
+
+The poet does indeed partly allude to the parental scruples of Mr.
+Cowper, her father; but house-rent would not be so high as it is, if
+fathers had their way. The profits of builders are eminently dependent on
+the uncontrollable nature of the best affections; and that intelligent
+class of men have had a table compiled from trustworthy data, in which
+the chances of parental victory are rated at ·0000000001, and those of
+the young people themselves at ·999999999,—in fact, as many nines as you
+can imagine. ‘It has been represented to me,’ says the actuary, ‘that
+few young people ever marry without some objection, more or less slight,
+on the part of their parents; and from a most laborious calculation,
+from data collected in quarters both within and exterior to the bills of
+mortality, I am led to believe that the above figures represent the state
+of the case accurately enough to form a safe guide for the pecuniary
+investments of the gentlemen, &c. &c.’ It is not likely that Theodora
+Cowper understood decimals, but she had a strong opinion in favour of
+her cousin, and a great idea, if we rightly read the now obscure annals
+of old times, that her father’s objections might pretty easily have
+been got over. In fact, we think so even now, without any prejudice of
+affection, in our cool and mature judgment. Mr. Cowper the aged had
+nothing to say, except that the parties were cousins—a valuable remark,
+which has been frequently repeated in similar cases, but which has not
+been found to prevent a mass of matches both then and since. Probably
+the old gentleman thought the young gentleman by no means a working
+man, and objected—believing that a small income can only be made more
+by unremitting industry,—and the young gentleman admitting this horrid
+and abstract fact, and agreeing, though perhaps tacitly, in his uncle’s
+estimate of his personal predilections, did not object to being objected
+to. The nature of Cowper was not, indeed, passionate. He required beyond
+almost any man the daily society of amiable and cultivated women. It
+is clear that he preferred such gentle excitement to the rough and
+argumentative pleasures of more masculine companionship. His easy and
+humorous nature loved and learned from female detail. But he had no
+overwhelming partiality for a particular individual. One refined lady,
+the first moments of shyness over, was nearly as pleasing as another
+refined lady. Disappointment sits easy on such a mind. Perhaps, too,
+he feared the anxious duties, the rather contentious tenderness of
+matrimonial existence. At any rate, he acquiesced. Theodora never
+married. Love did not, however, kill her—at least, if it did, it was
+a long time at the task, as she survived these events more than sixty
+years. She never, seemingly, forgot the past.
+
+But a dark cloud was at hand. If there be any truly painful fact about
+the world now tolerably well established by ample experience and ample
+records, it is that an intellectual and indolent happiness is wholly
+denied to the children of men. That most valuable author, Lucretius, who
+has supplied us and others with an inexhaustible supply of metaphors on
+this topic, ever dwells on the life of his gods with a sad and melancholy
+feeling that no such life was possible on a crude and cumbersome earth.
+In general, the two opposing agencies are marriage and money; either
+of these breaks the lot of literary and refined inaction at once and
+for ever. The first of these, as we have seen, Cowper had escaped. His
+reserved and negligent reveries were still free, at least from the
+invasion of affection. To this invasion, indeed, there is commonly
+requisite the acquiescence or connivance of mortality; but all men are
+born, not free and equal, as the Americans maintain, but, in the old
+world at least, basely subjected to the yoke of coin. It is in vain that
+in this hemisphere we endeavour after impecuniary fancies. In bold and
+eager youth we go out on our travels. We visit Baalbec, and Paphos, and
+Tadmor, and Cythera,—ancient shrines and ancient empires, seats of eager
+love or gentle inspiration. We wander far and long. We have nothing to
+do with our fellow-men. What are we, indeed, to diggers and counters?
+We wander far; we dream to wander for ever, but we dream in vain. A
+surer force than the subtlest fascination of fancy is in operation.
+The purse-strings tie us to our kind. Our travel-coin runs low, and we
+must return, away from Tadmor and Baalbec back to our steady, tedious
+industry and dull work, to ‘_la vieille Europe_ (as Napoleon said) _qui
+m’ennuie_.’ It is the same in thought. In vain we seclude ourselves in
+elegant chambers, in fascinating fancies, in refined reflections. ‘By
+this time,’ says Cowper, ‘my patrimony being nearly all spent, and there
+being no appearance that I should ever repair the damage by a fortune
+of my own getting, I began to be a little apprehensive of approaching
+want.’ However little one is fit for it, it is necessary to attack some
+drudgery. The vigorous and sturdy rouse themselves to the work. They find
+in its regular occupation, clear decisions, and stern perplexities, a
+bold and rude compensation for the necessary loss or diminution of light
+fancies and delicate musings,—
+
+    ‘The sights which youthful poets dream,
+    On summer eve by haunted stream.’
+
+But it was not so with Cowper. A peculiar and slight nature unfitted him
+for so rough and harsh a resolution. The lion may eat straw like the ox,
+and the child put his head on the cockatrice’ den; but will even then the
+light antelope be equal to the heavy plough? Will the gentle gazelle,
+even in those days, pull the slow waggon of ordinary occupation?
+
+The outward position of Cowper was, indeed, singularly fortunate. Instead
+of having to meet the long labours of an open profession, or the anxious
+decisions of a personal business, he had the choice among several
+lucrative and quiet public offices, in which very ordinary abilities
+would suffice, and scarcely any degree of incapacity would entail
+dismissal, or reprimand, or degradation. It seemed at first scarcely
+possible that even the least strenuous of men should be found unequal to
+duties so little arduous or exciting. He has himself said—
+
+    ‘Lucrative offices are seldom lost
+    For want of powers proportioned to the post;
+    Give e’en a dunce the employment he desires,
+    And he soon finds the talents it requires;
+    A business with an income at its heels,
+    Furnishes always oil for its own wheels.’
+
+The place he chose was called the Clerkship of the Journals of the House
+of Lords, one of the many quiet haunts which then slumbered under the
+imposing shade of parliamentary and aristocratic privilege. Yet the idea
+of it was more than he could bear.
+
+    ‘In the beginning,’ he writes, ‘a strong opposition to my
+    friend’s right of nomination began to show itself. A powerful
+    party was formed among the Lords to thwart it, in favour of
+    an old enemy of the family, though one much indebted to its
+    bounty; and it appeared plain that, if we succeeded at last,
+    it would only be by fighting our ground by inches. Every
+    advantage, as I was told, would be sought for, and eagerly
+    seized, to disconcert us. I was bid to expect an examination
+    at the bar of the House, touching my sufficiency for the post
+    I had taken. Being necessarily ignorant of the nature of
+    that business, it became expedient that I should visit the
+    office daily, in order to qualify myself for the strictest
+    scrutiny. All the horror of my fears and perplexities now
+    returned. A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me as
+    this intelligence. I knew, to demonstration, that upon these
+    terms the clerkship of the journals was no place for me. To
+    require my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might
+    there publicly entitle myself to the office, was, in effect, to
+    exclude me from it. In the meantime, the interest of my friend,
+    the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances,
+    all urged me forward; all pressed me to undertake that which
+    I saw to be impracticable. They whose spirits are formed like
+    mine, to whom _a public exhibition of themselves, on any
+    occasion, is mortal poison_, may have some idea of the horrors
+    of my situation; others can have none.
+
+    ‘My continual misery at length brought on a nervous fever:
+    quiet forsook me by day, and peace by night; a finger raised
+    against me was more than I could stand against. In this
+    posture of mind, I attended regularly at the office; where,
+    instead of a soul upon the rack, the most active spirits were
+    essentially necessary for my purpose. I expected no assistance
+    from anybody there, all the inferior clerks being under the
+    influence of my opponent; and accordingly I received none.
+    The journal books were indeed thrown open to me—a thing which
+    could not be refused; and from which, perhaps, a man in health,
+    and with a head turned to business, might have gained all
+    the information he wanted; but it was not so with me. I read
+    without perception, and was so distressed, that, had every
+    clerk in the office been my friend, it could have availed me
+    little; for I was not in a condition to receive instruction,
+    much less to elicit it out of manuscripts, without direction.
+    Many months went over me thus employed; constant in the use of
+    means, despairing as to the issue.’
+
+As the time of trial drew near, his excitement rapidly increased. A short
+excursion into the country was attended with momentary benefit; but as
+soon as he returned to town he became immediately unfit for occupation,
+and as unsettled as ever. He grew first to wish to become mad, next to
+believe that he should become so, and only to be afraid that the expected
+delirium might not come on soon enough to prevent his appearance for
+examination before the lords,—a fear, the bare existence of which shows
+how slight a barrier remained between him and the insanity which he
+fancied that he longed for. He then began to contemplate suicide, and
+not unnaturally called to mind a curious circumstance:
+
+    ‘I well recollect, too,’ he writes, ‘that when I was about
+    eleven years of age, my father desired me to read a vindication
+    of self-murder, and give him my sentiments upon the question: I
+    did so, and argued against it. My father heard my reasons, and
+    was silent, neither approving nor disapproving; from whence I
+    inferred that he sided with the author against me; though all
+    the time, I believe, the true motive for his conduct was, that
+    he wanted, if he could, to think favourably of the state of a
+    departed friend, who had some years before destroyed himself,
+    and whose death had struck him with the deepest affliction. But
+    this solution of the matter never once occurred to me, and the
+    circumstance now weighed mightily with me.’
+
+And he made several attempts to execute his purpose, all which are
+related in a ‘Narrative,’ which he drew up after his recovery; and of
+which the elaborate detail shows a strange and most painful tendency
+to revive the slightest circumstances of delusions which it would
+have been most safe and most wholesome never to recall. The curiously
+careful style, indeed, of the narration, as elegant as that of the most
+flowing and felicitous letter, reminds one of nothing so much as the
+studiously beautiful and compact handwriting in which Rousseau used to
+narrate and describe the most incoherent and indefinite of his personal
+delusions. On the whole, nevertheless—for a long time, at least—it does
+not seem that the life of Cowper was in real danger. The hesitation and
+indeterminateness of nerve which rendered him liable to these fancies,
+and unequal to ordinary action, also prevented his carrying out these
+terrible visitations to their rigorous and fearful consequences. At last,
+however, there seems to have been possible, if not actual danger:
+
+    ‘Not one hesitating thought now remained, but I fell greedily
+    to the execution of my purpose. My garter was made of a broad
+    piece of scarlet binding, with a sliding buckle, being sewn
+    together at the ends; by the help of the buckle I formed a
+    noose, and fixed it about my neck, straining it so tight
+    that I hardly left a passage for my breath, or for the blood
+    to circulate; the tongue of the buckle held it fast. At each
+    corner of the bed was placed a wreath of carved work, fastened
+    by an iron pin, which passed up through the midst of it: the
+    other part of the garter, which made a loop, I slipped over one
+    of these, and hung by it some seconds, drawing up my feet under
+    me, that they might not touch the floor; but the iron bent, and
+    the carved work slipped off, and the garter with it. I then
+    fastened it to the frame of the tester, winding it round, and
+    tying it in a strong knot. The frame broke short, and let me
+    down again.
+
+    ‘The third effort was more likely to succeed. I set the door
+    open, which reached within a foot of the ceiling; by the help
+    of a chair I could command the top of it, and the loop being
+    large enough to admit a large angle of the door, was easily
+    fixed so as not to slip off again. I pushed away the chair with
+    my feet, and hung at my whole length. While I hung there, I
+    distinctly heard a voice say three times, “_’Tis over!_” Though
+    I am sure of the fact, and was so at the time, yet it did not
+    at all alarm me, or affect my resolution. I hung so long that I
+    lost all sense, all consciousness of existence.
+
+    ‘When I came to myself again, I thought myself in hell; the
+    sound of my own dreadful groans was all that I heard, and
+    a feeling like that produced by a flash of lightning just
+    beginning to seize upon me, passed over my whole body. In a few
+    seconds I found myself fallen on my face to the floor. In about
+    half a minute I recovered my feet: and, reeling and staggering,
+    tumbled into bed again.
+
+    ‘By the blessed providence of God, the garter which had held
+    me till the bitterness of temporal death was past, broke just
+    before eternal death had taken place upon me. The stagnation
+    of the blood under one eye, in a broad crimson spot, and a
+    red circle round my neck, showed plainly that I had been on
+    the brink of eternity. The latter, indeed, might have been
+    occasioned by the pressure of the garter, but the former was
+    certainly the effect of strangulation; for it was not attended
+    with the sensation of a bruise, as it must have been, had I, in
+    my fall, received one in so tender a part. And I rather think
+    the circle round my neck was owing to the same cause; for the
+    part was not excoriated, not at all in pain.
+
+    ‘Soon after I got into bed, I was surprised to hear a noise
+    in the dining-room, where the laundress was lighting a fire;
+    she had found the door unbolted, notwithstanding my design to
+    fasten it, and must have passed the bed-chamber door while I
+    was hanging on it, and yet never perceived me. She heard me
+    fall, and presently came to ask me if I was well; adding, she
+    feared I had been in a fit.
+
+    ‘I sent her to a friend, to whom I related the whole affair,
+    and dispatched him to my kinsman at the coffee-house. As soon
+    as the latter arrived, I pointed to the broken garter, which
+    lay in the middle of the room, and apprised him also of the
+    attempt I had been making. His words were, “My dear Mr. Cowper,
+    you terrify me! To be sure you cannot hold the office at this
+    rate,—where is the deputation?” I gave him the key of the
+    drawer where it was deposited; and his business requiring his
+    immediate attendance, he took it away with him; and thus ended
+    all my connection with the Parliament office.’
+
+It must have been a strange scene; for, so far as appears, the outward
+manners of Cowper had undergone no remarkable change. There was always
+a mild composure about them, which would have deceived any but the most
+experienced observer; and it is probable that Major Cowper, his ‘kinsman’
+and intimate friend, had very little or no suspicion of the conflict
+which was raging beneath his tranquil and accomplished exterior. What
+a contrast is the ‘broad piece of scarlet binding’ and the red circle,
+‘showing plainly that I had been on the brink of eternity,’ to the daily
+life of the easy gentleman ‘who contributed some essays to the “St.
+James’s Magazine,” and more than one to the “St. James’s Chronicle,”’
+living ‘soft years’ on a smooth superficies of existence, away from the
+dark realities which are, as it were, the skeleton of our life,—which
+seem to haunt us like a death’s head throughout the narrative that has
+been quoted!
+
+It was doubtless the notion of Cowper’s friends, that when all idea of
+an examination before the Lords was removed, by the abandonment of his
+nomination to the office in question, the excitement which that idea had
+called forth would very soon pass away. But that notion was an error. A
+far more complicated state of mind ensued. If we may advance a theory on
+a most difficult as well as painful topic, we would say that religion is
+very rarely the proximate or impulsive cause of madness. The real and
+ultimate cause (as we speak) is of course that unknown something which we
+variously call predisposition, or malady, or defect. But the critical and
+exciting cause seems generally to be some comparatively trivial external
+occasion, which falls within the necessary lot and life of the person who
+becomes mad. The inherent excitability is usually awakened by some petty
+casual stimulant, which looks positively not worth a thought—certainly
+a terribly slight agent for the wreck and havoc which it makes. The
+constitution of the human mind is such, that the great general questions,
+problems, and difficulties of our state of being are not commonly capable
+of producing that result. They appear to lie too far in the distance,
+to require too great a stretch of imagination, to be too apt (for the
+very weakness of our minds’ sake, perhaps) to be thrust out of view by
+the trivial occurrences of this desultory world,—to be too impersonal,
+in truth, to cause the exclusive, anxious, aching occupation which is
+the common prelude and occasion of insanity. Afterwards, on the other
+hand, when the wound is once struck, when the petty circumstance has been
+allowed to work its awful consequence, religion very frequently becomes
+the predominating topic of delusion. It would seem as if, when the mind
+was once set apart by the natural consequences of the disease, and
+secluded from the usual occupations of, and customary contact with, other
+minds, it searched about through all the universe for causes of trouble
+and anguish. A certain pain probably exists; and even in insanity, man is
+so far a rational being that he seeks and craves at least the outside and
+semblance of a reason for a suffering, which is really and truly without
+reason. Something must be found to justify its anguish to itself. And
+naturally the great difficulties inherent in the very position of man in
+this world, and trying so deeply the faith and firmness of the wariest
+and wisest minds, are ever ready to present plausible justifications
+or causeless depression. An anxious melancholy is not without very
+perplexing sophisms and very painful illustrations, with which a morbid
+mind can obtain not only a fair logical position, but even apparent
+argumentative victories, on many points, over the more hardy part of
+mankind. The acuteness of madness soon uses these in its own wretched and
+terrible justification. No originality of mind is necessary for so doing.
+Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about
+us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad—which read like professed
+exculpations of a contemplated insanity.
+
+‘To this moment,’ writes Cowper, immediately after the passage which
+has been quoted, ‘I had felt no concern of a spiritual kind.’ But now
+a conviction fell upon him that he was eternally lost. ‘All my worldly
+sorrows,’ he says, ‘seemed as if they had never been; the terrors which
+succeeded them seemed so great and so much more afflicting. One moment I
+thought myself expressly excluded by one chapter; next by another.’ He
+thought the curse of the barren fig-tree was pronounced with an especial
+and designed reference to him. All day long these thoughts followed
+him. He lived nearly alone, and his friends were either unaware of the
+extreme degree to which his mind was excited, or unalive to the possible
+alleviation with which new scenes and cheerful society might have been
+attended. He fancied the people in the street stared at and despised
+him—that ballads were made in ridicule of him—that the voice of his
+conscience was eternally audible. He then bethought him of a Mr. Madan,
+an evangelical minister, at that time held in much estimation, but who
+afterwards fell into disrepute by the publication of a work on marriage
+and its obligations (or rather its _non_-obligations), which Cowper has
+commented on in a controversial poem. That gentleman visited Cowper at
+his request, and began to explain to him the gospel.
+
+    ‘He spoke,’ says Cowper, ‘of original sin, and the corruption
+    of every man born into the world, whereby every one is a child
+    of wrath. I perceived something like hope dawning in my heart.
+    This doctrine set me more on a level with the rest of mankind,
+    and made my condition appear less desperate.’
+
+    ‘Next he insisted on the all-atoning efficacy of the blood of
+    Jesus, and His righteousness, for our justification. While I
+    heard this part of his discourse, and the Scriptures on which
+    he founded it, my heart began to burn within me; my soul was
+    pierced with a sense of my bitter ingratitude to so merciful
+    a Saviour; and those tears, which I thought impossible, burst
+    forth freely. I saw clearly that my case required such a
+    remedy, and had not the least doubt within me but that this was
+    the gospel of salvation.
+
+    ‘Lastly, he urged the necessity of a lively faith in Jesus
+    Christ; not an assent only of the understanding, but a faith of
+    application, an actually laying hold of it, and embracing it as
+    a salvation wrought out for me personally. Here I failed, and
+    deplored my want of such a faith. He told me it was the gift
+    of God, which he trusted He would bestow upon me. I could only
+    reply, “I wish He would:” a very irreverent petition, but a
+    very sincere one, and such as the blessed God, in His due time,
+    was pleased to answer.’
+
+It does not appear that previous to this conversation he had ever
+distinctly realised the tenets which were afterwards to have so much
+influence over him. For the moment they produced a good effect, but
+in a few hours their novelty was over—the dark hour returned, and he
+awoke from slumber with a ‘stronger alienation from God than ever.’ The
+tenacity with which the mind in moments of excitement appropriates and
+retains very abstract tenets, that bear even in a slight degree on the
+topic of its excitement, is as remarkable as the facility and accuracy
+with which it apprehends them in the midst of so great a tumult. Many
+changes and many years rolled over Cowper—years of black and dark
+depression, years of tranquil society, of genial labour, of literary
+fame, but never in the lightest or darkest hour was he wholly unconscious
+of the abstract creed of Martin Madan. At the time indeed, the body had
+its rights, and maintained them.
+
+    ‘While I traversed the apartment, expecting every moment that
+    the earth would open her mouth and swallow me, my conscience
+    scaring me, and the city of refuge out of reach and out of
+    sight, a strange and horrible darkness fell upon me. If it
+    were possible that a heavy blow could light on the brain
+    without touching the skull, such was the sensation I felt. I
+    clapped my hand to my forehead, and cried aloud, through the
+    pain it gave me. At every stroke my thoughts and expressions
+    became more wild and incoherent; all that remained clear was
+    the sense of sin, and the expectation of punishment. These
+    kept undisturbed possession all through my illness, without
+    interruption or abatement.’
+
+It is idle to follow details further. The deep waters had passed over
+him, and it was long before the face of his mind was dry or green again.
+
+He was placed in a lunatic asylum, where he continued many months, and
+which he left apparently cured. After some changes of no moment, but
+which by his own account evinced many traces of dangerous excitement,
+he took up his abode at Huntingdon, with the family of Unwin; and it
+is remarkable how soon the taste for easy and simple, yet not wholly
+unintellectual society, which had formerly characterised him, revived
+again. The delineation cannot be given in any terms but his own:—
+
+    ‘We breakfast commonly between eight and nine; till eleven,
+    we read either the Scripture, or the sermons of some faithful
+    preacher of these holy mysteries; at eleven we attend divine
+    service, which is performed here twice every day; and from
+    twelve to three we separate, and amuse ourselves as we please.
+    During that interval, I either read, in my own apartment, or
+    walk, or ride, or work in the garden. We seldom sit an hour
+    after dinner, but if the weather permits, adjourn to the
+    garden, where, with Mrs. Unwin and her son, I have generally
+    the pleasure of religious conversation till tea-time. If it
+    rains, or is too windy for walking, we either converse within
+    doors, or sing some hymns of Martin’s collection, and by the
+    help of Mrs. Unwin’s harpsichord, make up a tolerable concert,
+    in which our hearts, I hope, are the best and most musical
+    performers. After tea we sally forth to walk in good earnest.
+    Mrs. Unwin is a good walker, and we have generally travelled
+    about four miles before we see home again. When the days are
+    short, we make this excursion in the former part of the day,
+    between church time and dinner. At night we read, and converse,
+    as before, till supper, and commonly finish the evening either
+    with hymns, or a sermon, and last of all the family are called
+    to prayers. I need not tell _you_, that such a life as this is
+    consistent with the utmost cheerfulness; accordingly we are all
+    happy, and dwell together in unity as brethren. Mrs. Unwin
+    has almost a maternal affection for me, and I have something
+    very like a filial one for her, and her son and I are brothers.
+    Blessed be the God of our salvation for such companions, and
+    for such a life—above all, for a heart to like it.’
+
+The scene was not however to last as it was. Mr. Unwin, the husband of
+Mrs. Unwin, was suddenly killed soon after, and Cowper removed with Mrs.
+Unwin to Olney, where a new epoch of his life begins.
+
+The curate of Olney at this time was John Newton, a man of great energy
+of mind, and well known in his generation for several vigorous books,
+and still more for a very remarkable life. He had been captain of a
+Liverpool slave ship—an occupation in which he had quite energy enough
+to have succeeded, but was deeply influenced by serious motives, and
+became one of the strongest and most active of the Low Church clergymen
+of that day. He was one of those men who seem intended to make excellence
+disagreeable. He was a converting engine. The whole of his own enormous
+vigour of body—the whole steady intensity of a pushing, impelling,
+compelling, unoriginal mind—all the mental or corporeal exertion he
+could exact from the weak or elicit from the strong, were devoted to
+one sole purpose—the effectual impact of the Calvinistic tenets on the
+parishioners of Olney. Nor would we hint that his exertions were at
+all useless. There is no denying that there is a certain stiff, tough,
+agricultural, clayish English nature, on which the aggressive divine
+produces a visible and good effect. The hardest and heaviest hammering
+seems required to stir and warm that close and coarse matter. To impress
+any sense of the supernatural on so secular a substance is a great good,
+though that sense be expressed in false or irritating theories. It is
+unpleasant, no doubt, to hear the hammering; the bystanders are in an
+evil case; you might as well live near an iron-ship yard. Still the blows
+do not hurt the iron. Something of the sort is necessary to beat the
+coarse ore into a shining and useful shape; certainly that does so beat
+it. But the case is different when the hundred-handed divine desires
+to hit others. The very system which, on account of its hard blows, is
+adapted to the tough and ungentle, is by that very reason unfit for the
+tremulous and tender. The nature of many men and many women is such that
+it will not bear the daily and incessant repetition of some certain and
+indisputable truths. The universe has of course its dark aspect. Many
+tremendous facts and difficulties can be found which often haunt the
+timid and sometimes incapacitate the feeble. To be continually insisting
+on these, and these only, will simply render both more and more unfit for
+the duties to which they were born. And if this is the case with certain
+fact and clear truth, how much more with uncertain error and mystic
+exaggeration! Mr. Newton was alive to the consequence of his system: ‘I
+believe my name is up about the country for preaching people mad; for
+whether it is owing to the sedentary life women lead here, &c. &c., I
+suppose we have near a dozen in different degrees disordered in their
+heads, and most of them, I believe, _truly gracious people_.’ He perhaps
+found his peculiar views more generally appreciated among this class of
+young ladies than among more healthy and rational people, and clearly
+did not wholly condemn the delivering them, even at this cost, from the
+tyranny of the ‘carnal reason.’
+
+No more dangerous adviser, if this world had been searched over,
+could have been found for Cowper. What the latter required was prompt
+encouragement to cheerful occupation, quiet amusement, gentle and
+unexhausting society. Mr. Newton thought otherwise. His favourite motto
+was _Perimus in licitis_. The simple round of daily pleasures and genial
+employments which give instinctive happiness to the happiest natures,
+and best cheer the common life of common men, was studiously watched
+and scrutinised with the energy of a Puritan and the watchfulness of an
+inquisitor. Mr. Newton had all the tastes and habits which go to form
+what in the Catholic system is called a spiritual director. Of late years
+it is well known that the institution, or rather practice of confession,
+has expanded into a more potent and more imperious organisation. You
+are expected by the priests of the Roman Church not only to confess
+to them what you have done, but to take their advice as to what you
+shall do. The future is under their direction, as the past was beneath
+their scrutiny. This was exactly the view which Mr. Newton took of his
+relation to Cowper. A natural aptitude for dictation—a steady, strong,
+compelling decision,—great self-command, and a sharp perception of
+all impressible points in the characters of others,—made the task of
+guiding ‘weaker brethren’ a natural and pleasant pursuit. To suppose a
+shrinking, a wounded, and tremulous mind, like that of Cowper’s, would
+rise against such bold dogmatism, such hard volition, such animal nerve,
+is to fancy that the beaten slave will dare the lash which his very eyes
+instinctively fear and shun. Mr. Newton’s great idea was that Cowper
+ought to be of some use. There was a great deal of excellent hammering
+hammered in the parish, and it was sinful that a man with nothing to do
+should sit tranquil. Several persons in the street had done what they
+ought not; football was not unknown; cards were played; flirtation was
+not conducted ‘improvingly.’ It was clearly Cowper’s duty to put a stop
+to such things. Accordingly he made him a parochial implement; he set
+him to visit painful cases, to attend at prayer meetings, to compose
+melancholy hymns, even to conduct or share in conducting public services
+himself. It never seems to have occurred to him that so fragile a mind
+would be unequal to the burden—that a bruised reed does often break;
+or rather if it did occur to him, he regarded it as a subterranean
+suggestion, and expected a supernatural interference to counteract the
+events at which it hinted. Yet there are certain rules and principles
+in this world which seem earthly, but which the most excellent may not
+on that account venture to disregard. The consequence of placing Cowper
+in exciting situations was a return of his excitement. It is painful to
+observe, that though the attack resembled in all its main features his
+former one, several months passed before Mr. Newton would permit any
+proper physical remedies to be applied, and then it was too late. We need
+not again recount details. Many months of dark despondency were to be
+passed before he returned to a simple and rational mind.
+
+The truth is, that independently of the personal activity and dauntless
+energy which made Mr. Newton so little likely to sympathise with
+such a mind as Cowper’s, the former lay under a still more dangerous
+disqualification for Cowper’s predominant adviser, viz., an erroneous
+view of his case. His opinion exactly coincided with that which Cowper
+first heard from Mr. Madan during his first illness in London. This view
+is in substance that the depression which Cowper originally suffered
+from was exactly what almost all mankind, if they had been rightly aware
+of their true condition, would have suffered also. They were ‘children
+of wrath,’ just as he was; and the only difference between them was,
+that he appreciated his state and they did not,—showing, in fact, that
+Cowper was not, as common persons imagined, on the extreme verge of
+insanity, but, on the contrary, a particularly rational and right-seeing
+man. So far, Cowper says, with one of the painful smiles which make his
+‘Narrative’ so melancholy, ‘my condition was less desperate.’ That is,
+his counsellors had persuaded him that his malady was rational, and his
+sufferings befitting his true position,—no difficult task, for they had
+the poignancy of pain and the pertinacity of madness on their side: the
+efficacy of their arguments was less when they endeavoured to make known
+the sources of consolation. We have seen the immediate effect of the
+first exposition of the evangelical theory of faith. When applied to the
+case of the morbidly-despairing sinner, that theory has one argumentative
+imperfection which the logical sharpness of madness will soon discover
+and point out. The simple reply is, ‘I do not feel the faith which you
+describe. I wish I could feel it; but it is no use trying to conceal the
+fact, I am conscious of nothing like it.’ And this was substantially
+Cowper’s reply on his first interview with Mr. Madan. It was a simple
+denial of a fact solely accessible to his personal consciousness; and,
+as such, unanswerable. And in this intellectual position (if such it can
+be called) his mind long rested. At the commencement of his residence
+at Olney, however, there was a decided change. Whether it were that
+he mistook the glow of physical recovery for the peace of spiritual
+renovation, or that some subtler and deeper agency was, as he supposed,
+at work, the outward sign is certain; and there is no question but
+that during the first months of his residence at Olney, and his daily
+intercourse with Mr. Newton, he did feel, or supposed himself to feel,
+the faith which he was instructed to deem desirable, and he lent himself
+with natural pleasure to the diffusion of it among those around him. But
+this theory of salvation requires a metaphysical postulate, which to many
+minds is simply impossible. A prolonged meditation on unseen realities
+is sufficiently difficult, and seems scarcely the occupation for which
+common human nature was intended; but more than this is said to be
+essential. The meditation must be successful in exciting certain feelings
+of a kind peculiarly delicate, subtle, and (so to speak) unstable. The
+wind bloweth where it listeth; but it is scarcely more partial, more
+quick, more unaccountable, than the glow of an emotion excited by a
+supernatural and unseen object. This depends on the vigour of imagination
+which has to conceive that object—on the vivacity of feeling which has to
+be quickened by it—on the physical energy which has to support it. The
+very watchfulness, the scrupulous anxiety to find and retain the feeling,
+are exactly the most unfavourable to it. In a delicate disposition like
+that of Cowper, such feelings revolt from the inquisition of others,
+and shrink from the stare of the mind itself. But even this was not the
+worst. The mind of Cowper was, so to speak, naturally terrestrial. If a
+man wishes for a nice appreciation of the details of time and sense, let
+him consult Cowper’s miscellaneous letters. Each simple event of every
+day—each petty object of external observation or inward suggestion, is
+there chronicled with a fine and female fondness, a wise and happy
+faculty, let us say, of deriving a gentle happiness from the tranquil and
+passing hour. The fortunes of the hares—Bess who died young, and Tiney
+who lived to be nine years old—the miller who engaged their affections
+at once, his powdered coat having charms that were irresistible—the
+knitting-needles of Mrs. Unwin—the qualities of his friend Hill, who
+managed his money transactions—
+
+    ‘An honest man, close buttoned to the chin,
+    Broadcloth without, and a warm heart within’—
+
+live in his pages, and were the natural, insensible, unbiassed occupants
+of his fancy. It is easy for a firm and hard mind to despise the minutiæ
+of life, and to pore and brood over an abstract proposition. It may be
+possible for the highest, the strongest, the most arduous imagination to
+live aloof from common things—alone with the unseen world, as some have
+lived their whole lives in memory with a world which has passed away.
+But it seems hardly possible that an imagination such as Cowper’s—which
+was rather a detective fancy, perceiving the charm and essence of things
+which are seen, than an eager, actuating, conceptive power, embodying,
+enlivening, empowering those which are not seen—should leave its own
+home—the _domus et tellus_—the sweet fields and rare orchards which it
+loved,—and go out alone apart from all flesh into the trackless and
+fearful and unknown Infinite. Of course, his timid mind shrank from it at
+once, and returned to its own fireside. After a little, the idea that he
+had a true faith faded away. Mr. Newton, with misdirected zeal, sought to
+revive it by inciting him to devotional composition; but the only result
+was the volume of ‘Olney Hymns’—a very painful record, of which the
+burden is
+
+    ‘My former hopes are fled,
+      My terror now begins;
+    I feel, alas! that I am dead
+      In trespasses and sins.
+
+    ‘Ah, whither shall I fly?
+      I hear the thunder roar;
+    The law proclaims destruction nigh,
+      And vengeance at the door.’
+
+‘The Preacher’ himself did not conceive such a store of melancholy
+forebodings.
+
+The truth is, that there are two remarkable species of minds on which
+the doctrine of Calvinism acts as a deadly and fatal poison. One is the
+natural, vigorous, bold, defiant, hero-like character, abounding in
+generosity, in valour, in vigour, and abounding also in self-will, and
+pride, and scorn. This is the temperament which supplies the world with
+ardent hopes and keen fancies, with springing energies, and bold plans,
+and noble exploits; but yet, under another aspect and in other times, is
+equally prompt in desperate deeds, awful machinations, deep and daring
+crimes. It one day is ready by its innate heroism to deliver the world
+from any tyranny; the next it ‘hungers to become a tyrant’ in its turn.
+Yet the words of the poet are ever true and are ever good, as a defence
+against the cold narrators who mingle its misdeeds and exploits, and
+profess to believe that each is a set-off and compensation for the other.
+You can ever say—
+
+                          ‘Still he retained,
+    ’Mid much abasement, what he had received
+    From Nature, an intense and glowing mind.’
+
+It is idle to tell such a mind that, by an arbitrary irrespective
+election, it is chosen to happiness or doomed to perdition. The evil and
+the good in it equally revolt at such terms. It thinks, ‘Well, if the
+universe be a tyranny, if one man is doomed to misery for no fault, and
+the next is chosen to pleasure for no merit—if the favouritism of time
+be copied into eternity—if the highest heaven be indeed like the meanest
+earth,—then, as the heathen say, it is better to suffer injustice than to
+inflict it, better to be the victims of the eternal despotism than its
+ministers, better to curse in hell than serve in heaven.’ And the whole
+burning soul breaks away into what is well called Satanism—into wildness,
+and bitterness, and contempt.
+
+Cowper had as little in common with this proud, Titanic, aspiring genius
+as any man has or can have, but his mind was equally injured by the same
+system. On a timid, lounging, gentle, acquiescent mind, the effect is
+precisely the contrary—singularly contrasted, but equally calamitous.
+‘I am doomed, you tell me, already. One way or other the matter is
+already settled. It can be no better, and it is as bad as it can be. Let
+me alone; do not trouble me at least these few years. Let me at least
+sit sadly and bewail myself. Action is useless. I will brood upon my
+melancholy and be at rest;’ the soul sinks into ‘passionless calm and
+silence unreproved,’ flinging away ‘the passionate tumult of a clinging
+hope,’ which is the allotted boon and happiness of mortality. It was,
+as we believe, straight towards this terrible state that Mr. Newton
+directed Cowper. He kept him occupied with subjects which were too great
+for him; he kept him away from his natural life; he presented to him
+views and opinions but too well justifying his deep and dark insanity; he
+convinced him that he ought to experience emotions which were foreign to
+his nature; he had nothing to add by way of comfort, when told that those
+emotions did not and could not exist. Cowper seems to have felt this. His
+second illness commenced with a strong dislike to his spiritual adviser,
+and it may be doubted if there ever was again the same cordiality
+between them. Mr. Newton, too, as was natural, was vexed at Cowper’s
+calamity. His reputation in the ‘religious world’ was deeply pledged to
+conducting this most ‘interesting case’ to a favourable termination. A
+failure was not to be contemplated, and yet it was obviously coming and
+coming. It was to no purpose that Cowper acquired fame and secular glory
+in the literary world. This was rather adding gall to bitterness. The
+unbelievers in evangelical religion would be able to point to one at
+least, and that the best known among its proselytes, to whom it had not
+brought peace—whom it had rather confirmed in wretchedness. His literary
+fame, too, took Cowper away into a larger circle, out of the rigid
+decrees and narrow ordinances of his father-confessor, and of course the
+latter remonstrated. Altogether there was not a cessation, but a decline
+and diminution of intercourse. But better, according to the saying, had
+they never met or never parted. If a man is to have a father-confessor,
+let him at least choose a sensible one. The dominion of Mr. Newton had
+been exercised, not indeed with mildness, or wisdom, or discrimination,
+but, nevertheless, with strong judgment and coarse acumen—with a bad
+choice of ends, but at least a vigorous selection of means. Afterwards it
+was otherwise. In the village of Olney there was a schoolmaster, whose
+name often occurs in Cowper’s letters,—a foolish, vain, worthy sort of
+man: what the people of the west call a ‘scholard,’ that is, a man of
+more knowledge and less sense than those about him. He sometimes came
+to Cowper to beg old clothes, sometimes to instruct him with literary
+criticisms, and is known in the ‘Correspondence’ as ‘Mr. Teedon, who
+reads the “Monthly Review,”’ ‘Mr. Teedon, whose smile is fame.’ Yet to
+this man, whose harmless follies his humour had played with a thousand
+times, Cowper, in his later years, and when the dominion of Mr. Newton
+had so far ceased as to leave him, after many years, the use of his own
+judgment, resorted for counsel and guidance. And the man had visions, and
+dreams, and revelations!! But enough of such matters.
+
+The peculiarity of Cowper’s life is its division into marked periods.
+From his birth to his first illness he may be said to have lived in one
+world, and for some twenty years afterwards, from his thirty-second to
+about his fiftieth year, in a wholly distinct one. Much of the latter
+time was spent in hopeless despondency. His principal companions during
+that period were Mr. Newton, about whom we have been writing, and Mrs.
+Unwin, who may be said to have broken the charmed circle of seclusion in
+which they lived by inciting Cowper to continuous literary composition.
+Of Mrs. Unwin herself ample memorials remain. She was, in truth, a most
+excellent person—in mind and years much older than the poet—as it were
+by profession elderly, able in every species of preserve, profound in
+salts, and pans, and jellies; culinary by taste; by tact and instinct
+motherly and housewifish. She was not, however, without some less
+larderiferous qualities. Lady Hesketh and Lady Austen, neither of them
+very favourably-prejudiced critics, decided so. The former has written,
+‘She is very far from grave; on the contrary, she is cheerful and gay,
+and laughs _de bon cœur_ upon the smallest provocation. Amidst all the
+little puritanical words which fall from her _de tems en tems_, she seems
+to have by nature a great fund of gaiety.... I must say, too, that she
+seems to be very well read in the English poets, as appears by several
+little quotations which she makes from time to time, and has a true taste
+for what is excellent in that way.’ This she showed by persuading Cowper
+to the composition of his first volume.
+
+As a poet, Cowper belongs, though with some differences, to the school
+of Pope. Great question, as is well known, has been raised whether that
+very accomplished writer was a poet at all; and a secondary and equally
+debated question runs side by side, whether, if a poet, he were a great
+one. With the peculiar genius and personal rank of Pope we have in this
+article nothing to do. But this much may be safely said, that according
+to the definition which has been ventured of the poetical art, by the
+greatest and most accomplished master of the other school, his works are
+delicately-finished specimens of artistic excellence in one branch of it.
+‘Poetry,’ says Shelley, who was surely a good judge, ‘is the expression
+of the imagination,’ by which he meant of course not only the expression
+of the interior sensations accompanying the faculty’s employment, but
+likewise, and more emphatically, the exercise of it in the delineation
+of objects which attract it. Now society, viewed as a whole, is clearly
+one of those objects. There is a vast assemblage of human beings, of
+all nations, tongues, and languages, each with ideas, and a personality
+and a cleaving mark of its own, yet each having somewhat that resembles
+something of all, much that resembles a part of many—a motley regiment,
+of various forms, of a million impulses, passions, thoughts, fancies,
+motives, actions; a ‘many-headed monstered thing;’ a Bashi Bazouk array;
+a clown to be laughed at; a hydra to be spoken evil of; yet, in fine,
+our all—the very people of the whole earth. There is nothing in nature
+more attractive to the fancy than this great spectacle and congregation.
+Since Herodotus went to and fro to the best of his ability over all the
+earth, the spectacle of civilisation has ever drawn to itself the quick
+eyes and quick tongues of seeing and roving men. Not only, says Goethe,
+is man ever interesting to man, but ‘properly there is nothing else
+interesting.’ There is a distinct subject for poetry—at least according
+to Shelley’s definition—in selecting and working out, in idealising,
+in combining, in purifying, in intensifying the great features and
+peculiarities which make society, as a whole, interesting, remarkable,
+fancy-taking. No doubt it is not the object of poetry to versify the
+works of the eminent narrators, ‘to prose,’ according to a disrespectful
+description, ‘o’er books of travelled seamen,’ to chill you with didactic
+icebergs, to heat you with torrid sonnets. The difficulty of reading such
+local narratives is now great—so great that a gentleman in the reviewing
+department once wished ‘one man would go everywhere and say everything,’
+in order that the limit of his labour at least might be settled and
+defined. And it would certainly be much worse if palm trees were of
+course to be in rhyme, and the dinner of the migrator only recountable in
+blank verse. We do not wish this. We only maintain that there are certain
+principles, causes, passions, affections, acting on and influencing
+communities at large, permeating their life, ruling their principles,
+directing their history, working as a subtle and wandering principle
+over all their existence. These have a somewhat abstract character, as
+compared with the soft ideals and passionate incarnations of purely
+individual character, and seem dull beside the stirring lays of eventful
+times in which the earlier and bolder poets delight. Another cause
+cooperates. The tendency of civilisation is to pare away the oddness and
+licence of personal character, and to leave a monotonous agreeableness as
+the sole trait and comfort of mankind. This obviously tends to increase
+the efficacy of general principles, to bring to view the daily efficacy
+of constant causes, to suggest the hidden agency of subtle abstractions.
+Accordingly, as civilisation augments and philosophy grows, we commonly
+find a school of ‘common-sense poets,’ as they may be called, arise and
+develop, who proceed to depict what they see around them, to describe
+its _natura naturans_, to delineate its _natura naturata_, to evolve
+productive agencies, to teach subtle ramifications. Complete, as the most
+characteristic specimen of this class of poets, stands Pope. He was,
+some one we think has said, the sort of person we cannot even conceive
+existing in a barbarous age. His subject was not life at large, but
+fashionable life. He described the society in which he was thrown—the
+people among whom he lived. His mind was a hoard of small maxims, a
+quintessence of petty observations. When he described character, he
+described it, not dramatically, nor as it is in itself; but observantly
+and from without, calling up in the mind not so much a vivid conception
+of the man, of the real, corporeal, substantial being, as an idea of
+the idea which a metaphysical bystander might refine and excruciate
+concerning him. Society in Pope is scarcely a society of people, but
+of pretty little atoms, coloured and painted with hoops or in coats—a
+miniature of metaphysics, a puppet-show of sylphs. He elucidates the
+doctrine, that the tendency of civilised poetry is towards an analytic
+sketch of the existing civilisation. Nor is the effect diminished by the
+pervading character of keen judgment and minute intrusive sagacity; for
+no great painter of English life can be without a rough sizing of strong
+sense, or he would fail from want of sympathy with his subject. Pope
+exemplifies the class and type of ‘common-sense’ poets who substitute
+an animated ‘_catalogue raisonné_’ of working thoughts and operative
+principles—a sketch of the then present society, as a whole and as an
+object, for the κλέα ἀνδρῶν, the tale of which is one subject of early
+verse, and the stage effect of living, loving, passionate, impetuous men
+and women, which is the special topic of another.
+
+What Pope is to our fashionable and town life, Cowper is to our domestic
+and rural life. This is perhaps the reason why he is so national. It
+has been said no foreigner can live in the country. We doubt whether
+any people, who felt their whole heart and entire exclusive breath of
+their existence to be concentrated in a great capital, could or would
+appreciate such intensely provincial pictures as are the entire scope of
+Cowper’s delineation. A good many imaginative persons are really plagued
+with him. Everything is so comfortable; the tea-urn hisses so plainly,
+the toast is so warm, the breakfast so neat, the food so edible, that
+one turns away, in excitable moments, a little angrily from anything so
+quiet, tame, and sober. Have we not always hated this life? What can be
+worse than regular meals, clock-moving servants, a time for everything,
+and everything then done, a place for everything, without the Irish
+alleviation—‘Sure, and I’m rejiced to say, that’s jist and exactly where
+it isn’t,’ a common gardener, a slow parson, a heavy assortment of near
+relations, a placid house flowing with milk and sugar—all that the fates
+can stuff together of substantial comfort, and fed and fatted monotony?
+Aspiring and excitable youth stoutly maintains it can endure anything
+much better than the ‘gross fog Bœotian’—the torpid, in-door, tea-tabular
+felicity. Still a great deal of tea is really consumed in the English
+nation. A settled and practical people are distinctly in favour of heavy
+relaxations, placid prolixities, slow comforts. A state between the mind
+and the body, something intermediate, half-way from the newspaper to a
+nap—this is what we may call the middle-life theory of the influential
+English gentleman—the true aspiration of the ruler of the world.
+
+    ‘’Tis then the understanding takes repose
+    In indolent vacuity of thought,
+    And sleeps and is refreshed. Meanwhile the face
+    Conceals the mood lethargic with a mask
+    Of deep deliberation.’
+
+It is these in-door scenes, this common world, this gentle round of ‘calm
+delights,’ the trivial course of slowly-moving pleasures, the petty
+detail of quiet relaxation, that Cowper excels in. The post-boy, the
+winter’s evening, the newspaper, the knitting needles, the stockings, the
+waggon—these are his subjects. His sure popularity arises from his having
+held up to the English people exact delineations of what they really
+prefer. Perhaps one person in four hundred understands Wordsworth, about
+one in eight thousand may appreciate Shelley, but there is no expressing
+the small fraction who do not love dulness, who do not enter into
+
+                      ‘Homeborn happiness,
+    Fireside enjoyments, intimate delights,
+    And all the comforts that the lowly roof
+    Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
+    Of long uninterrupted evening know.’
+
+His objection to the more exciting and fashionable pleasures was perhaps,
+in an extreme analysis, that they put him out. They were too great a task
+for his energies—asked too much for his spirits. His comments on them
+rather remind us of Mr. Rushworth—Miss Austen’s heavy hero’s remark on
+the theatre, ‘I think we went on much better by ourselves before this was
+thought of, doing, doing, doing _nothing_.’
+
+The subject of these pictures, in point of interest, may be what we
+choose to think it, but there is no denying great merit to the execution.
+The sketches have the highest merit—suitableness of style. It would be
+absurd to describe a post-boy as sonneteers their mistress—to cover his
+plain face with fine similes—to put forward the ‘brow of Egypt’—to stick
+metaphors upon him, as the Americans upon General Washington. The only
+merit such topics have room for is an easy and dextrous plainness—a sober
+suit of well-fitting expressions—a free, working, flowing, picturesque
+garb of words adapted to the solid conduct of a sound and serious world,
+and this merit Cowper’s style has. On the other hand, it entirely wants
+the higher and rarer excellences of poetical expression. There is none
+of the choice art which has studiously selected the words of one class
+of great poets, or the rare, untaught, unteachable felicity which has
+vivified those of others. No one, in reading Cowper, stops as if to draw
+his breath more deeply over words which do not so much express or clothe
+poetical ideas, as seem to intertwine, coalesce, and be blended with the
+very essence of poetry itself.
+
+Of course a poet could not deal in any measure with such subjects as
+Cowper dealt with, and not become inevitably, to a certain extent,
+satirical. The ludicrous is in some sort the imagination of common life.
+The ‘dreary intercourse’ of which Wordsworth makes mention, would be
+dreary, unless some people possessed more than he did the faculty of
+making fun. A universe in which Dignity No. I. conversed decorously with
+Dignity No. II. on topics befitting their state, would be perhaps a levee
+of great intellects and a tea-table of enormous thoughts; but it would
+want the best charm of this earth—the medley of great things and little,
+of things mundane and things celestial, things low and things awful, of
+things eternal and things of half a minute. It is in this contrast that
+humour and satire have their place—pointing out the intense unspeakable
+incongruity of the groups and juxtapositions of our world. To all of
+these which fell under his own eye, Cowper was alive. A gentle sense of
+propriety and consistency in daily things was evidently characteristic of
+him; and if he fail of the highest success in this species of art, it is
+not from an imperfect treatment of the scenes and conceptions which he
+touched, but from the fact that the follies with which he deals are not
+the greatest follies—that there are deeper absurdities in human life than
+John Gilpin touches upon—that the superficial occurrences of ludicrous
+life do not exhaust, or even deeply test, the mirthful resources of our
+minds and fortunes.
+
+As a scold, we think Cowper failed. He had a great idea of the use of
+railing, and there are many pages of laudable invective against various
+vices which we feel no call whatever to defend. But a great vituperator
+had need to be a great hater; and of any real rage, any such gall and
+bitterness as great and irritable satirists have in other ages let loose
+upon men, of any thorough, brooding, burning, abiding detestation, he
+was as incapable as a tame hare. His vituperation reads like the mild
+man’s whose wife ate up his dinner, ‘Really, Sir, I feel quite _angry_!’
+Nor has his language any of the sharp intrusive acumen which divides in
+sunder both soul and spirit, and makes fierce and unforgettable reviling.
+
+Some people may be surprised, notwithstanding our lengthy explanation, at
+hearing Cowper treated as of the school of Pope. It has been customary,
+at least with some critics, to speak of him as one of those who recoiled
+from the artificiality of that great writer, and at least commenced a
+return to a simple delineation of outward nature. And of course there
+is considerable truth in this idea. The poetry (if such it is) of Pope
+would be just as true if all the trees were yellow and all the grass
+flesh-colour. He did not care for ‘snowy scalps,’ or ‘rolling streams,’
+or ‘icy halls,’ or ‘precipice’s gloom.’ Nor, for that matter, did Cowper
+either. He, as Hazlitt most justly said, was as much afraid of a shower
+of rain as any man that ever lived. At the same time, the fashionable
+life described by Pope has no reference whatever to the beauties of
+the material universe, never regards them, could go on just as well in
+the soft, sloppy, gelatinous existence which Dr. Whewell (who knows)
+says is alone possible in Jupiter and Saturn. But the rural life of
+Cowper’s poetry has a constant and necessary reference to the country,
+is identified with its features, cannot be separated from it even in
+fancy. Green fields and a slow river seem all the material of beauty
+Cowper had given him. But what was more to the purpose, his attention
+was well concentrated upon them. As he himself said, he did not go more
+than thirteen miles from home for twenty years, and very seldom as far.
+He was, therefore, well able to find out all that was charming in Olney
+and its neighbourhood, and as it presented nothing which is not to be
+found in any of the fresh rural parts of England, what he has left us is
+really a delicate description and appreciative delineation of the simple
+essential English country.
+
+However, it is to be remarked that the description of nature in Cowper
+differs altogether from the peculiar delineation of the same subject,
+which has been so influential in more recent times, and which bears,
+after its greatest master, the name Wordsworthian. To Cowper nature
+is simply a background, a beautiful background no doubt, but still
+essentially a _locus in quo_—a space in which the work and mirth of life
+pass and are performed. A more professedly formal delineation does not
+occur than the following:—
+
+      ‘O Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
+    Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled,
+    Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
+    Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
+    Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,
+    A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
+    A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
+    But urged by storms along its slippery way;
+    I love thee, all unlovely as thou seemest,
+    And dreaded as thou art. Thou holdest the sun
+    A prisoner in the yet undawning east,
+    Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
+    And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
+    Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
+    Compensating his loss with added hours
+    Of social converse and instructive ease,
+    And gathering, at short notice, in one group
+    The family dispersed, and fixing thought,
+    Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
+    I crown thee King of intimate delights,
+    Fireside enjoyments, homeborn happiness,
+    And all the comforts that the lowly roof
+    Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
+    Of long uninterrupted evening know.
+    No rattling wheels stop short before these gates.’
+
+After a very few lines he returns within doors to the occupation of
+man and woman—to human tasks and human pastimes. To Wordsworth, on the
+contrary, nature is a religion. So far from being unwilling to treat
+her as a special object of study, he hardly thought any other equal or
+comparable. He was so far from holding the doctrine that the earth was
+made for men to live in, that it would rather seem as if he thought men
+were created to see the earth. The whole aspect of nature was to him
+a special revelation of an immanent and abiding power—a breath of the
+pervading art—a smile of the Eternal Mind—according to the lines which
+every one knows,—
+
+                        ‘A sense sublime
+    Of something far more deeply interfused;
+    Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
+    And the round ocean, and the living air,
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
+    A motion and a spirit, that impels
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
+    And rolls through all things.’
+
+Of this haunting, supernatural, mystical view of nature Cowper never
+heard. Like the strong old lady who said, ‘_She_ was born before nerves
+were invented,’ he may be said to have lived before the awakening of the
+detective sensibility which reveals this deep and obscure doctrine.
+
+In another point of view, also, Cowper is curiously contrasted with
+Wordsworth, as a delineator of nature. The delineation of Cowper is
+a simple delineation. He makes a sketch of the object before him,
+and there he leaves it. Wordsworth, on the contrary, is not satisfied
+unless he describe not only the bare outward object which others see,
+but likewise the reflected high-wrought feelings which that object
+excites in a brooding, self-conscious mind. His subject was not so much
+nature, as nature reflected by Wordsworth. Years of deep musing and long
+introspection had made him familiar with every shade and shadow in the
+many-coloured impression which the universe makes on meditative genius
+and observant sensibility. Now these feelings Cowper did not describe,
+because, to all appearance, he did not perceive them. He had a great
+pleasure in watching the common changes and common aspects of outward
+things, but he was not invincibly prone to brood and pore over their
+reflex effects upon his own mind:
+
+    ‘A primrose by the river’s brim,
+    A yellow primrose was to him,
+    And it was nothing more.’
+
+According to the account which Cowper at first gave of his literary
+occupations, his entire design was to communicate the religious views
+to which he was then a convert. He fancied that the vehicle of verse
+might bring many to listen to truths which they would be disinclined to
+have stated to them in simple prose. And however tedious the recurrence
+of these theological tenets may be to the common reader, it is certain
+that a considerable portion of Cowper’s peculiar popularity may be
+traced to their expression. He is the one poet of a class which have no
+poets. In that once large and still considerable portion of the English
+world, which regards the exercise of the fancy and the imagination as
+dangerous—snares, as they speak—distracting the soul from an intense
+consideration of abstract doctrine, Cowper’s strenuous inculcation of
+those doctrines has obtained for him a certain toleration. Of course
+all verse is perilous. The use of single words is harmless, but the
+employment of two, in such a manner as to form a rhyme—the regularities
+of interval and studied recurrence of the same sound, evince an attention
+to time, and a partiality to things of sense. Most poets must be
+prohibited; the exercise of the fancy requires watching. But Cowper is a
+ticket-of-leave man. He has the chaplain’s certificate. He has expressed
+himself ‘with the utmost propriety.’ The other imaginative criminals must
+be left to the fates, but he may be admitted to the sacred drawing-room,
+though with constant care and scrupulous _surveillance_. Perhaps,
+however, taken in connection with his diseased and peculiar melancholy,
+these tenets really add to the artistic effect of Cowper’s writings. The
+free discussion of daily matters, the delicate delineation of domestic
+detail, the passing narrative of fugitive occurrences, would seem light
+and transitory, if it were not broken by the interruption of a terrible
+earnestness, and relieved by the dark background of a deep and foreboding
+sadness. It is scarcely artistic to describe the ‘painted veil which
+those who live call life,’ and leave wholly out of view and undescribed
+‘the chasm sightless and drear,’ which lies always beneath and around it.
+
+It is of the _Task_ more than of Cowper’s earlier volume of poems that
+a critic of his poetry must more peculiarly be understood to speak. All
+the best qualities of his genius are there concentrated, and the alloy
+is less than elsewhere. He was fond of citing the saying of Dryden, that
+the rhyme had often helped him to a thought—a great but very perilous
+truth. The difficulty is, that the rhyme so frequently helps to the wrong
+thought—that the stress of the mind is recalled from the main thread
+of the poem, from the narrative, or sentiment, or delineation, to some
+wayside remark or fancy, which the casual resemblance of final sound
+suggests. This is fatal, unless either a poet’s imagination be so hot
+and determined as to bear down upon its objects, and to be unwilling
+to hear the voice of any charmer who might distract it, or else the
+nature of the poem itself should be of so desultory a character that it
+does not much matter about the sequence of the thought—at least within
+great and ample limits, as in some of Swift’s casual rhymes, where the
+sound is in fact the connecting link of unity. Now Cowper is not often
+in either of these positions; he always has a thread of argument on
+which he is hanging his illustrations, and yet he has not the exclusive
+interest or the undeviating energetic downrightness of mind which would
+ensure his going through it without idling or turning aside; consequently
+the thoughts which the rhyme suggests are constantly breaking in upon
+the main matter, destroying the emphatic unity which is essential to
+rhythmical delineation. His blank verse of course is exempt from this
+defect, and there is moreover something in the nature of the metre which
+fits it for the expression of studious and quiet reflection. The _Task_
+too was composed at the healthiest period of Cowper’s later life, in the
+full vigour of his faculties, and with the spur the semi-recognition of
+his first volume had made it a common subject of literary discussion,
+whether he was a poet or not. Many men could endure—as indeed all but
+about ten do actually in every generation endure—to be without this
+distinction; but few could have an idea that it was a frequent point of
+argument whether they were duly entitled to possess it or not, without
+at least a strong desire to settle the question by some work of decisive
+excellence. This the _Task_ achieved for Cowper. Since its publication
+his name has been a household word—a particularly household word in
+English literature. The story of its composition is connected with one of
+the most curious incidents in Cowper’s later life, and has given occasion
+to a good deal of writing.
+
+In the summer of 1781 it happened that two ladies called at a shop
+exactly opposite the house at Olney where Cowper and Mrs. Unwin
+resided. One of these was a familiar and perhaps tame object,—a Mrs.
+Jones,—the wife of a neighbouring parson; the other, however, was so
+striking, that Cowper, one of the shyest and least demonstrative of men,
+immediately asked Mrs. Unwin to invite her to tea. This was a great
+event, as it would appear that few or no social interruptions, casual
+or contemplated, then varied what Cowper called the ‘duality of his
+existence.’ This favoured individual was Lady Austen, a person of what
+Mr. Hayley terms ‘colloquial talents;’ in truth an energetic, vivacious,
+amusing, and rather handsome lady of the world. She had been much in
+France, and is said to have caught the facility of manner and love of
+easy society, which is the unchanging characteristic of that land of
+change. She was a fascinating person in the great world, and it is not
+difficult to imagine she must have been an excitement indeed at Olney.
+She was, however, most gracious; fell in love, as Cowper says, not only
+with him but with Mrs. Unwin; was called ‘Sister Ann,’ laughed and made
+laugh, was every way so great an acquisition that his seeing her appeared
+to him to show ‘strong marks of providential interposition.’ He thought
+her superior to the curate’s wife, who was a ‘valuable person,’ but had
+a family, &c. &c. The new acquaintance had much to contribute to the
+Olney conversation. She had seen much of the world, and probably seen it
+well, and had at least a good deal to narrate concerning it. Among other
+interesting matters, she one day recounted to Cowper the story of John
+Gilpin, as one which she had heard in childhood, and in a short time the
+poet sent her the ballad, which every one has liked ever since. It was
+written, he says, no doubt truly, in order to relieve a fit of terrible
+and uncommon despondency; but altogether, for a few months after the
+introduction of this new companion, he was more happy and animated than
+at any other time after his first illness. Clouds, nevertheless, began
+to show themselves soon. The circumstances are of the minute and female
+kind, which it would require a good deal of writing to describe, even
+if we knew them perfectly. The original cause of misconstruction was a
+rather romantic letter of Lady Austen, drawing a sublime picture of what
+she expected from Cowper’s friendship. Mr. Scott, the clergyman at Olney,
+who had taken the place of Mr. Newton, and who is described as a dry
+and sensible man, gave a short account of what he thought was the real
+embroilment. ‘Who,’ said he, ‘can be surprised that two women should be
+daily in the society of one man and then quarrel with _one another_?’
+Cowper’s own description shows how likely this was.
+
+    ‘From a scene of the most uninterrupted retirement,’ he
+    says to Mr. Unwin, ‘we have passed at once into a state of
+    constant engagement. Not that our society is much multiplied;
+    the addition of an individual has made all this difference.
+    Lady Austen and we pass our days alternately at each other’s
+    _château_. In the morning I walk with one or other of the
+    ladies, and in the afternoon wind thread. Thus did Hercules,
+    and thus probably did Samson, and thus do I; and were both
+    those heroes living, I should not fear to challenge them to a
+    trial of skill in that business, or doubt to beat them both. As
+    to killing lions and other amusements of that kind, with which
+    they were so delighted, I should be their humble servant and
+    beg to be excused.’
+
+Things were in this state when she suggested to him the composition of a
+new poem of some length in blank verse, and on being asked to suggest a
+subject, said, Well, write upon that ‘sofa,’ whence is the title of the
+first book of the _Task_. According to Cowper’s own account, it was this
+poem which was the cause of the ensuing dissension.
+
+    ‘On her first settlement in our neighbourhood, I made it my
+    own particular business (for at that time I was not employed
+    in writing, having published my first volume, and not begun
+    my second) to pay my devoirs to her ladyship every morning at
+    eleven. Customs very soon become laws. I began the _Task_; for
+    she was the lady who gave me the Sofa for a subject. Being once
+    engaged in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my
+    morning attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till
+    ten: and the intervening hour was all the time that I could
+    find in the whole day for writing; and occasionally it would
+    happen that the half of that hour was all that I could secure
+    for the purpose. But there was no remedy. Long usage had made
+    that which at first was optional, a point of good manners, and
+    consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect the
+    _Task_, to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject.
+    But she had ill health, and before I had quite finished the
+    work was obliged to repair to Bristol.’
+
+And it is possible that this is the true account of the matter. Yet
+we fancy there is a kind of awkwardness and constraint in the manner
+in which it is spoken of. Of course, the plain and literal portion of
+mankind have set it down at once that Cowper was in love with Lady
+Austen, just as they married him over and over again to Mrs. Unwin. But
+of a strong passionate love, as we have before explained, we do not think
+Cowper capable, and there are certainly no signs of it in this case.
+There is, however, one odd circumstance. Years after, when no longer
+capable of original composition, he was fond of hearing all his poems
+read to him except ‘John Gilpin.’ There were recollections, he said,
+connected with those verses which were too painful. Did he mean, the worm
+that dieth not—the reminiscence of the animated narratress of that not
+intrinsically melancholy legend?
+
+The literary success of Cowper opened to him a far larger circle
+of acquaintance, and connected him in close bonds with many of his
+relations, who had looked with an unfavourable eye at the peculiar tenets
+which he had adopted, and the peculiar and recluse life which he had
+been advised to lead. It is to these friends and acquaintance that we
+owe that copious correspondence on which so much of Cowper’s fame at
+present rests. The complete letter-writer is now an unknown animal. In
+the last century, when communications were difficult, and epistles rare,
+there were a great many valuable people who devoted a good deal of time
+to writing elaborate letters. You wrote letters to a man whom you knew
+nineteen years and a half ago, and told him what you had for dinner, and
+what your second cousin said, and how the crops got on. Every detail of
+life was described and dwelt on, and improved. The art of writing, at
+least of writing easily, was comparatively rare, which kept the number
+of such compositions within narrow limits. Sir Walter Scott says he knew
+a man who remembered that the London post-bag once came to Edinburgh
+with only one letter in it. One can fancy the solemn conscientious
+elaborateness with which a person would write, with the notion that his
+letter would have a whole coach and a whole bag to itself, and travel two
+hundred miles alone, the exclusive object of a red guard’s care. The only
+thing like it now—the deferential minuteness with which one public office
+writes to another, conscious that the letter will travel on her Majesty’s
+service three doors down the passage—sinks by comparison into cursory
+brevity. No administrative reform will be able to bring even the official
+mind of these days into the grave inch-an-hour conscientiousness with
+which a confidential correspondent of a century ago related the growth
+of apples, the manufacture of jams, the appearance of flirtations, and
+other such things. All the ordinary incidents of an easy life were made
+the most of; a party was epistolary capital, a race a mine of wealth. So
+deeply sentimental was this intercourse, that it was much argued whether
+the affections were created for the sake of the ink, or ink for the sake
+of the affections. Thus it continued for many years, and the fruits
+thereof are written in the volumes of family papers, which daily appear,
+are praised as ‘materials for the historian,’ and consigned, as the case
+may be, to posterity or oblivion. All this has now passed away. Sir
+Rowland Hill is entitled to the credit, not only of introducing stamps,
+but also of destroying letters. The amount of annotations which will be
+required to make the notes of this day intelligible to posterity is a
+wonderful idea, and no quantity of comment will make them readable. You
+might as well publish a collection of telegraphs. The careful detail, the
+studious minuteness, the circumstantial statement of a former time, is
+exchanged for a curt brevity or only half-intelligible narration. In old
+times, letters were written for people who knew nothing and required to
+be told everything. Now they are written for people who know everything
+except the one thing which the letter is designed to explain to them.
+It is impossible in some respects not to regret the old practice. It
+is well that each age should write for itself a faithful account of
+its habitual existence. We do this to a certain extent in novels, but
+novels are difficult materials for an historian. They raise a cause and
+a controversy as to how far they are really faithful delineations. Lord
+Macaulay is even now under criticism for his use of the plays of the
+seventeenth century. Letters are generally true on certain points. The
+least veracious man will tell truly the colour of his coat, the hour of
+his dinner, the materials of his shoes. The unconscious delineation of a
+recurring and familiar life is beyond the reach of a fraudulent fancy.
+Horace Walpole was not a very scrupulous narrator; yet it was too much
+trouble even for him to tell lies on many things. His set stories and
+conspicuous scandals are no doubt often unfounded, but there is a gentle
+undercurrent of daily unremarkable life and manners which he evidently
+assumed as a datum for his historical imagination. Whence posterity will
+derive this for the times of Queen Victoria it is difficult to fancy.
+Even memoirs are no resource; they generally leave out the common life,
+and try at least to bring out the uncommon events.
+
+It is evident that this species of composition exactly harmonised with
+the temperament and genius of Cowper. Detail was his forte and quietness
+his element. Accordingly, his delicate humour plays over perhaps a
+million letters, mostly descriptive of events which no one else would
+have thought worth narrating, and yet which, when narrated, show to
+us, and will show to persons to whom it will be yet more strange, the
+familiar, placid, easy, ruminating, provincial existence of our great
+grandfathers. Slow, Olney might be,—indescribable, it certainly was not.
+We seem to have lived there ourselves.
+
+The most copious subject of Cowper’s correspondence is his translation
+of Homer. This was published by subscription, and it is pleasant to
+observe the healthy facility with which one of the shyest men in the
+world set himself to extract guineas from every one he had ever heard of.
+In several cases he was very successful. The University of Oxford, he
+tells us, declined, as of course it would, to recognise the principle of
+subscribing towards literary publications; but other public bodies and
+many private persons were more generous. It is to be wished that their
+aid had contributed to the production of a more pleasing work. The fact
+is, Cowper was not like Agamemnon. The most conspicuous feature in the
+Greek heroes is a certain brisk, decisive activity, which always strikes
+and always likes to strike. This quality is faithfully represented in the
+poet himself. Homer is the briskest of men. The Germans have denied that
+there was any such person; but they have never questioned his extreme
+activity. ‘From what you tell me, sir,’ said an American, ‘I should like
+to have read Homer. I should say he was a go-ahead party.’ Now this is
+exactly what Cowper was not. His genius was domestic, and tranquil, and
+calm. He had no sympathy, or little sympathy, even with the common,
+half-asleep activities of a refined society; an evening party was too
+much for him; a day’s hunt a preposterous excitement. It is absurd to
+expect a man like this to sympathise with the stern stimulants of a
+barbaric age, with a race who fought because they liked it, and a poet
+who sang of fighting because he thought their taste judicious. As if to
+make matters worse, Cowper selected a metre in which it would be scarcely
+possible for any one, however gifted, to translate Homer. The two kinds
+of metrical composition most essentially opposed to one another are
+ballad poetry and blank verse. The very nature of the former requires a
+marked pause and striking rhythm. Every line should have a distinct end
+and a clear beginning. It is like martial music, there should be a tramp
+in the very versification of it:—
+
+    ‘Armour rusting in his halls
+    On the blood of Clifford calls;
+    “Quell the Scot,” exclaims the lance,
+    Bear me to the heart of France,
+    Is the longing of the shield:
+    Tell thy name, thou trembling field,
+    Field of death, where’er thou be,
+    Groan thou with our victory.’
+
+And this is the tone of Homer. The grandest of human tongues marches
+forward with its proudest steps: the clearest tones call forward—the most
+marked of metres carries him on:—
+
+    ‘Like a reappearing star,
+    Like a glory from afar—’
+
+he ever heads, and will head, ‘the flock of war.’ Now blank verse is
+the exact opposite of all this. Dr. Johnson laid down that it was verse
+only to the eye, which was a bold dictum. But without going this length
+it will be safe to say, that of all considerable metres in our language
+it has the least distinct conclusion, least decisive repetition, the
+least trumpet-like rhythm; and it is this of which Cowper made choice.
+He had an idea that extreme literalness was an unequalled advantage,
+and logically reasoned that it was easier to do this in that metre
+than in any other. He did not quite hold with Mr. Cobbett that the
+‘gewgaw fetters of rhyme were invented by the monks to enslave the
+people;’ but as a man who had due experience of both, he was aware
+that it is easier to write two lines of different endings than two
+lines of the same ending, and supposed that by taking advantage of
+this to preserve the exact grammatical meaning of his author, he was
+indisputably approximating to a good translation. ‘Whether,’ he writes,
+‘a translation of Homer may be best executed in blank verse or in rhyme
+is a question in the decision of which no man finds difficulty who has
+ever duly considered what translation ought to be, or who is in any
+degree practically acquainted with those kinds of versification.... No
+human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with
+sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only
+the full sense, of the original.’ And if the true object of translation
+were to save the labour and dictionaries of construing schoolboys, there
+is no question but this slavish adherence to the original would be the
+most likely to gain the approbation of those diminutive but sure judges.
+But if the object is to convey an idea of the general tone, scope, and
+artistic effect of the original, the mechanical copying of the details
+is as likely to end in a good result as a careful cast from a dead man’s
+features to produce a living and speaking being. On the whole, therefore,
+the condemnation remains, that Homer is not dull, and Cowper is.
+
+With the translation of Homer terminated all the brightest period of
+Cowper’s life. There is little else to say. He undertook an edition
+of Milton—a most difficult task, involving the greatest and most
+accurate learning, in theology, in classics, in Italian—in a word, in
+all ante-Miltonic literature. By far the greater portion of this lay
+quite out of Cowper’s path. He had never been a hard student, and his
+evident incapacity for the task troubled and vexed him. A man who had
+never been able to assume any real responsibility was not likely to
+feel comfortable under the weight of a task which very few men would be
+able to accomplish. Mrs. Unwin too fell into a state of helplessness
+and despondency; and instead of relying on her for cheerfulness and
+management, he was obliged to manage for her, and cheer her. His mind
+was unequal to the task. Gradually the dark cloud of melancholy, which
+had hung about him so long, grew and grew, and extended itself day by
+day. In vain Lord Thurlow, who was a likely man to know, assured him
+that his spiritual despondency was without ground; he smiled sadly, but
+seemed to think that at any rate he was not going into Chancery. In vain
+Hayley, a rival poet, but a good-natured, blundering, well-intentioned,
+incoherent man, went to and fro, getting the Lord Chief Justice and
+other dignitaries to attest, under their hands, that they concurred in
+Thurlow’s opinion. In vain, with far wiser kindness, his relatives,
+especially many of his mother’s family, from whom he had been long
+divided, but who gradually drew nearer to him as they were wanted,
+endeavoured to divert his mind to healthful labour and tranquil society.
+The day of these things had passed away—the summer was ended. He became
+quite unequal to original composition, and his greatest pleasure was
+hearing his own writings read to him. After a long period of hopeless
+despondency he died on April 25, in the first year of this century; and
+if he needs an epitaph, let us say, that not in vain was he Nature’s
+favourite. As a higher poet sings:—
+
+    ‘And all day long I number yet,
+    All seasons through, another debt,
+    Which I, wherever thou art met,
+        To thee am owing;
+    An instinct call it, a blind sense,
+    A happy, genial influence,
+    Coming one knows not how nor whence,
+        Nor whither going.’
+
+    ...
+
+    ‘If stately passions in me burn,
+    And one chance look to thee should turn,
+    I drink out of an humbler urn,
+        A lowlier pleasure;
+    The homely sympathy that heeds
+    The common life our nature breeds;
+    A wisdom fitted to the needs
+        Of hearts at leisure.’
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX.
+
+
+
+
+LETTERS ON THE FRENCH COUP D’ÉTAT OF 1851.
+
+(_Addressed to the Editor of ‘THE INQUIRER.’_)
+
+
+LETTER I.
+
+_THE DICTATORSHIP._
+
+                                                      PARIS: Jan. 8, 1852.
+
+SIR,—You have asked me to tell you what I think of French affairs. I
+shall be pleased to do so; but I ought perhaps to begin by cautioning
+you against believing, or too much heeding, what I say. However, I do
+not imagine that I need do so; for with your experience of the public
+journals, you will be quite aware that it is not difficult to be an
+‘occasional correspondent.’ Have your boots polished in a blacking-shop,
+and call the interesting officiator an ‘intelligent _ouvrier_;’ be
+shaved, and cite the _coiffeur_ as ‘a person in rather a superior
+station;’ call your best acquaintance ‘a well-informed person,’ and all
+others ‘persons whom I have found to be occasionally not in error,’
+and—abroad, at least—you will soon have matter for a newspaper letter.
+I should quite deceive you if I professed to have made these profound
+researches; nor, like Sir Francis Head, ‘do I no longer know where I
+am,’ because the French President has asked me to accompany him in his
+ride. My perception of personal locality has not as yet been so tried. I
+only know what a person who is in a foreign country during an important
+political catastrophe cannot avoid knowing, what he runs against, what is
+beaten into him, what he can hardly help hearing, seeing, and reflecting.
+
+That Louis Napoleon has gone to Notre Dame to return thanks to God
+for the seven millions and odd suffrages of the French people—that
+he has taken up his abode at the Tuileries, and that he has had new
+napoleons coined in his name—that he has broken up the trees of liberty
+for firewood—that he has erased, or is erasing (for they are many),
+_Liberté_, _Egalité_, and _Fraternité_ from the National buildings,—all
+these things are so easy and so un-English, that I am pretty sure, with
+you, they will be thought signs of pompous impotence, and I suppose
+many people will be inclined to believe the best comment to be the one
+which I heard—‘_Mon Dieu, il a sauvé la France: la rue du Coq s’appelle
+maintenant la rue de l’Aigle!_’[33]
+
+I am inclined, however, to imagine that this idea would be utterly
+erroneous; that, on the contrary, the President is just now, at least,
+really strong and really popular; that the act of December 2nd did
+succeed and is succeeding; that many, that most, of the inferior people
+do really and sincerely pray _Domine Salvum fac Napoleonem_.
+
+In what I have seen of the comments of the English press upon recent
+events here, two things are not quite enough kept apart—I mean the
+temporary dictatorship of Louis Napoleon to meet and cope with the
+expected crisis of ’52, and the continuance of that dictatorship
+hereafter,—the new, or as it is called, the _Bas_-Empire—in a word, the
+coming Constitution and questionable political machinery with which ‘the
+nephew of my uncle’ is now proposing to endow France. Of course, in
+reality these two things _are_ separate. It is one thing to hold that a
+military rule is required to meet an urgent and temporary difficulty:
+another, to advocate the continuance of such a system, when so critical a
+necessity no longer exists.
+
+It seems to me, or would seem, if I did not know that I was contradicted
+both by much English writing and opinion, and also by many most
+competent judges here, that the first point, the temporary dictatorship,
+is a tolerably clear case; that it is not to be complicated with the
+perplexing inquiry what form of government will permanently suit the
+French people;—that the President was, under the actual facts of
+the case, quite justified in assuming the responsibility, though of
+course I allow that responsibility to be tremendous. My reasons for so
+believing I shall in this letter endeavour to explain, except that I
+shall not, I fancy, have room to say much on the moral defensibility or
+indefensibility of the _coup d’état_; nor do I imagine that you want
+from me any ethical speculation—that is manufactured in Printing-house
+Square; but I shall give the best account I can of the matter-of-fact
+consequences and antecedents of the New Revolution, of which, in some
+sense, a resident in France may feel without presumption that he knows
+something hardly so well known to those at home.
+
+The political justification of Louis Napoleon is, as I apprehend, to be
+found in the state of the public mind which immediately preceded the
+_coup d’état_. It is very rarely that a country expects a revolution at
+a given time; indeed, it is perhaps not common for ordinary persons in
+any country to anticipate a revolution at all; though profound people
+may speculate, the mass will ever expect to-morrow to be as this day
+at least, if not more abundant. But once name the day, and all this
+is quite altered. As a general rule the very people who would be most
+likely to neglect general anticipation are exactly those most likely to
+exaggerate the proximate consequences of a certain impending event. At
+any rate, in France five weeks ago, the tradespeople talked of May, ’52,
+as if it were the end of the world. Civilisation and Socialism might
+probably endure, but buying and selling would surely come to an end; in
+fact, they anticipated a worse era than February, ’48, when trade was
+at a standstill so long that it has hardly yet recovered, and when the
+Government stocks fell 40 per cent. It is hardly to be imagined upon
+what petty details the dread of political dissolution at a fixed and
+not distant time will condescend to intrude itself. I was present when
+a huge _Flamande_, in appearance so intrepid that I respectfully pitied
+her husband, came to ask the character of a _bonne_. I was amazed to hear
+her say, ‘I hope the girl is strong, for when the revolution comes next
+May, and I have to turn off my helper, she will have enough to do.’ It
+seemed to me that a political apprehension must be pretty general, when
+it affected that most non-speculative of speculations, the _reckoning_ of
+a housewife. With this feeling, everybody saved their money: who would
+spend in luxuries that which might so soon be necessary and invaluable!
+This economy made commerce,—especially the peculiarly Parisian trade,
+which is almost wholly in articles that _can_ be spared—worse and worse;
+the more depressed trade became, the more the traders feared, and the
+more they feared, the worse all trade inevitably grew.
+
+I apprehend that this feeling extended very generally among all the
+classes who do not find or make a livelihood by literature or by
+politics. Among the clever people, who understood the subject, very
+likely the expectation was extremely different; but among the stupid
+ones who mind their business, and have a business to mind, there was a
+universal and excessive tremor. The only notion of ’52 was ‘_on se battra
+dans la rue_.’ Their dread was especially of Socialism; they expected
+that the followers of M. Proudhon, who advisedly and expressly maintains
+‘anarchy’ to be the best form of Government, would attempt to carry out
+their theories in action, and that the division between the Legislative
+and Executive power would so cripple the party of order as to make
+their means of resistance for the moment feeble and difficult to use.
+The more sensible did not, I own, expect the annihilation of mankind:
+civilisation dies hard; the organised sense in all countries is strong;
+but they expected vaguely and crudely that the party which in ’93 ruled
+for many months, and which in June ’48 fought so fanatically against
+the infant republic, would certainly make a desperate attack,—_might_
+for some time obtain the upper hand. Of course, it is now matter of
+mere argument whether the danger was real or unreal, and it is in some
+quarters rather the fashion to quiz the past fear, and to deny that
+any Socialists anywhere exist. In spite of the literary exertions of
+Proudhon and Louis Blanc, in spite of the prison quarrels of Blanqui and
+Barbès—there are certainly found people who question whether anybody buys
+the books of the two former, or cares for the incarcerated dissensions
+of the two latter. But however this may be, it is certain that two days
+after the _coup d’état_ a mass of persons thought it worth while to
+erect some dozen barricades, and among these, and superintending and
+directing their every movement, there certainly were, for I saw them
+myself, men whose physiognomy and accoutrements exactly resembled the
+traditional Montagnard, sallow, stern, compressed, with much marked
+features, which expressed but resisted suffering, and brooding one-ideaed
+thought, men who from their youth upward had for ever imagined, like
+Jonah, that they did well—immensely well—to be angry, men armed to the
+teeth, and ready, like the soldiers of the first Republic, to use their
+arms savagely and well in defence of theories broached by a Robespierre,
+a Blanqui, or a Barbès, gloomy fanatics, over-principled ruffians. I
+may perhaps be mistaken in reading in their features the characters of
+such men, but I know that when one of them disturbed my superintendence
+of barricade-making with a stern _allez vous-en_, it was not too slowly
+that I departed, for I _felt_ that he would rather shoot me than not.
+Having seen these people, I conceive that they exist. But supposing that
+they were all simply fabulous, it would not less be certain that they
+were _believed_ to be, and to be active; nor would it impair the fact
+that the quiet classes awaited their onslaught in morbid apprehension,
+with miserable and craven, and I fear we ought to say, _commercial_
+disquietude.
+
+You will not be misled by any highflown speculations about liberty or
+equality. You will, I imagine, concede to me that the first duty of
+a government is to ensure the security of that industry which is the
+condition of social life and civilised cultivation; that especially in so
+excitable a country as France it is necessary that the dangerous classes
+should be saved from the strong temptation of long idleness; and that
+no danger could be more formidable than six months’ beggary among the
+revolutionary _ouvriers_, immediately preceding the exact period fixed
+by European as well as French opinion for an apprehended convulsion.
+It is from this state of things, whether by fair means or foul, that
+Louis Napoleon has delivered France. The effect was magical. Like people
+who have nearly died because it was prophesied they would die at a
+specified time, and instantly recovered when they found or thought that
+the time was gone and past, so France, timorously anticipating the fated
+revolution, in a moment revived when she found or fancied that it was
+come and over. Commerce instantly improved; New Year’s Day, when all the
+Boulevards are one continued fair, has not (as I am told) been for some
+years so gay and splendid; people began to buy, and consequently to sell;
+for though it is quite possible, or even probable, that new misfortunes
+and convulsions may be in store for the French people, yet no one can say
+when they will be, and to wait till revolutions be exhausted is but the
+best Parisian for our old acquaintance _Rusticus expectat_. Clever people
+may now prove that the dreaded peril was a simple chimera, but they can’t
+deny that the fear of it was very real and painful, nor can they dispute
+that in a week after the _coup d’état_ it had at once, and apparently for
+ever, passed away.
+
+I fear it must be said that no legal or constitutional act could have
+given an equal confidence. What was wanted was the assurance of an
+audacious Government, which would stop at nothing, scruple at nothing,
+to secure its own power and the tranquillity of the country. That
+assurance all now have; a man who will in this manner dare to dissolve
+an assembly constitutionally his superiors, then prevent their meeting
+by armed force; so well and so sternly repress the first beginning of an
+outbreak, with so little misgiving assume and exercise sole power,—may
+have enormous other defects, but is certainly a bold ruler—most probably
+an unscrupulous one—little likely to flinch from any inferior trial.
+
+Of Louis Napoleon, whose personal qualities are, for the moment, so
+important, I cannot now speak at length. But I may say that, with
+whatever other deficiencies he may have, he has one excellent advantage
+over other French statesmen—he has never been a professor, nor a
+journalist, nor a promising barrister, nor, by taste, a _littérateur_.
+He has not confused himself with history; he does not think in leading
+articles, in long speeches, or in agreeable essays. But he is capable
+of observing facts rightly, of reflecting on them simply, and acting on
+them discreetly. And his motto is Danton’s, _De l’audace et toujours de
+l’audace_, and this you know, according to Bacon, in time of revolution,
+will carry a man far, perhaps even to ultimate victory, and that
+ever-future millennium ‘_la consolidation de la France_.’
+
+But on these distant questions I must not touch. I have endeavoured to
+show you what was the crisis, how strong the remedy, and what the need of
+a dictatorship. I hope to have convinced you that the first was imminent,
+the second effectual, and the last expedient. I remain yours,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+
+LETTER II.
+
+_THE MORALITY OF THE COUP D’ÉTAT._
+
+                                                     PARIS: Jan. 15, 1852.
+
+SIR,—I know quite well what will be said about, or in answer to, my
+last letter. It will be alleged that I think everything in France is to
+be postponed to the Parisian commerce—that a Constitution, Equality,
+Liberty, a Representative Government, are all to be set aside if
+they interfere even for a moment with the sale of _étrennes_ or the
+manufacture of gimcracks.
+
+I, as you know, hold no such opinions: it would not be necessary for me
+to undeceive you, who would, I rather hope, never suspect me of _that_
+sort of folly. But as St. Athanasius aptly observes, ‘for the sake of
+the women who may be led astray, I will this very instant explain my
+sentiments.’
+
+Contrary to Sheridan’s rule, I commence by a concession. I certainly
+admit, indeed I would, upon occasion, maintain, _bonbons_ and bracelets
+to be things less important than common law and Constitutional action.
+A _coup d’état_ would, I may allow, be mischievously supererogatory if
+it only promoted the enjoyment of what a lady in the highest circles is
+said to call ‘bigotry and virtue.’ But the real question is not to be so
+disposed of. The Parisian trade, the jewellery, the baubles, the silks,
+the luxuries, which the Exhibition showed us to be the characteristic
+industry of France, are very dust in the balance if weighed against the
+hands and arms which their manufacture employs—the industrial habits
+which their regular sale rewards—the hunger and idle weariness which
+the certain demand for them prevents. For this is the odd peculiarity
+of commercial civilisation. The life, the welfare, the existence of
+thousands depend on their being paid for doing what seems nothing when
+done. That gorgeous dandies should wear gorgeous studs—that pretty
+girls should be prettily dressed—that pleasant drawing-rooms should
+be pleasantly attired—may seem, to people of our age, sad trifling.
+But grave as we are, we must become graver still when we reflect on
+the horrid suffering which the sudden cessation of large luxurious
+consumption would certainly create, if we imagine such a city as Lyons
+to be, without warning, turned out of work, and the population feelingly
+told ‘to cry in the streets when no man regardeth.’
+
+The first duty of society is the preservation of society. By the sound
+work of old-fashioned generations—by the singular painstaking of the
+slumberers in churchyards—by dull care—by stupid industry, a certain
+social fabric somehow exists; people contrive to go out to their work,
+and to find work to employ them actually until the evening, body and soul
+are kept together, and this is what mankind have to show for their six
+thousand years of toil and trouble.
+
+To keep up this system we must sacrifice everything. Parliaments,
+liberty, leading articles, essays, eloquence,—all are good, but they are
+secondary; at all hazards, and if we can, mankind must be kept alive. And
+observe, as time goes on, this fabric becomes a tenderer and a tenderer
+thing. Civilisation can’t bivouac; dangers, hardships, sufferings,
+lightly borne by the coarse muscle of earlier times, are soon fatal to
+noble and cultivated organisation. Women in early ages are masculine,
+and, as a return match, the men of late years are becoming women. The
+strong apprehension of a Napoleonic invasion has, perhaps, just now
+caused more substantial misery in England than once the wars of the Roses.
+
+To apply this ‘screed of doctrine’ to the condition of France. I do not
+at all say that, but for the late _coup d’état_, French civilisation
+would certainly have soon come to a final end. _Some_ people might have
+continued to take their meals. Even Socialism would hardly abolish _eau
+sucrée_. But I do assert that, according to the common belief of the
+common people, their common comforts were in considerable danger. The
+debasing torture of acute apprehension was eating into the crude pleasure
+of stupid lives. No man liked to take a long bill: no one could imagine
+to himself what was coming. Fear was paralysing life and labour, and as I
+said at length, in my last, fear, so intense, whether at first reasonable
+or unreasonable, will, ere long, invincibly justify itself. May 1852
+would, in all likelihood, have been an evil and bloody time, if it had
+been preceded by six months’ famine among the starvable classes.
+
+At present all is changed. Six weeks ago society was living from hand to
+mouth: now she feels sure of her next meal. And this, in a dozen words,
+is the real case—the political excuse for Prince Louis Napoleon. You ask
+me, or I should not do so, to say a word or two on the moral question
+and the oath. You are aware how limited my means of doing so are. I have
+forgotten Paley, and have never read the Casuists. But it certainly does
+not seem to me proved or clear, that a man who has sworn, even in the
+most solemn manner, to see another drown, is therefore quite bound, or
+even at liberty, to stand placidly on the bank. What ethical philosopher
+has demonstrated this? Coleridge said it was difficult to advance a new
+error in morals,—yet this, I think, would be one; and the keeping of
+oaths is peculiarly a point of mere science, for Christianity, in terms
+at least, only forbids them all. And supposing I am right, such certainly
+was the exact position of Louis Napoleon. He saw society, I will not say
+dying or perishing—for I hate unnecessarily to overstate my point,—in
+danger of incurring extreme and perhaps lasting calamities, likely not
+only to impair the happiness, but moreover to debase the character of the
+French nation, and these calamities he could prevent. Now who has shown
+that ethics require of him to have held his hand?
+
+The severity with which the riot was put down on the first Thursday in
+December has, I observe, produced an extreme effect in England; and with
+our happy exemption from martial bloodshed, it must, of course, do so.
+But better one _émeute_ now than many in May, be it ever remembered.
+There are things more demoralising than death, and among these is the
+sickly-apprehensive suffering for long months of an entire people.
+
+Of course you understand that I am not holding up Louis Napoleon as
+a complete standard either of ethical scrupulosity or disinterested
+devotedness; veracity has never been the family failing—for the great
+Emperor was a still greater liar. And Prince Louis has been long
+playing what, morality apart, is the greatest political misfortune to
+any statesman—a visibly selfish game. Very likely, too, the very high
+heroes of history—a Washington, an Aristides, by Carlyle profanely called
+‘favourites of Dryasdust,’ would have extricated the country more easily,
+and perhaps more completely from its scrape. Their ennobling rectitude
+would have kept M. de Girardin consistent, and induced M. Thiers to vote
+for the Revision of the Constitution; and even though, as of old, the
+Mountain were deafer than the uncharmed adder, a sufficient number of
+self-seeking Conservatives might have been induced by perfect confidence
+in a perfect President, to mend a crotchety performance, that was visibly
+ruining, what the poet calls, ‘The ever-ought-to-be-conserved-thing,’
+their country.
+
+I remember reading, several years ago, an article in the _Westminster
+Review_, on the lamented Armand Carrel, in which the author, well known
+to be one of our most distinguished philosphers, took occasion to
+observe that what the French most wanted was, ‘_un homme de caractère_.’
+Everybody is aware—for all except myself know French quite perfectly—that
+this expression is not by any means equivalent to our common phrase, a
+‘man of character,’ or ‘respectable individual,’ it does not at all refer
+to mere goodness: it is more like what we sometimes say of an eccentric
+country gentleman, ‘He is a character;’ for it denotes a singular
+preponderance of peculiar qualities, an accomplished obstinacy, an
+inveterate fixedness of resolution and idea that enables him to get done
+what he undertakes. The Duke of Wellington is, ‘_par excellence, homme de
+caractère_;’ Lord Palmerston rather so; Mr. Cobden a little; Lord John
+Russell not at all. Now exactly this, beyond the immense majority of
+educated men, Louis Napoleon is, as a pointed writer describes him:—‘The
+President is a superior man, but his superiority is of the sort that
+is hidden under a dubious exterior: his life is entirely internal; his
+speech does not betray his inspiration; his gesture does not copy his
+audacity; his look does not reflect his ardour; his step does not reveal
+his resolution; his whole mental nature is in some sort repressed by
+his physical: he thinks and does not discuss; he decides and does not
+deliberate; he acts without agitation; he speaks, and assigns no reason;
+his best friends are unacquainted with him; he obtains their confidence,
+but never asks it.’ Also his whole nature is, and has been, absorbed
+in the task which he has undertaken. For many months, his habitual
+expression has been exactly that of a gambler who is playing for his
+highest and last stake; in society it is said to be the same—a general
+and diffusive politeness, but an ever-ready reflection and a constant
+reserve. His great qualities are rather peculiar. He is not, like his
+uncle, a creative genius, who will leave behind him social institutions
+such as those which nearly alone, in this changeful country, seem to be
+always exempt from every change; he will suggest little; he has hardly an
+organising mind; but he will coolly estimate his own position and that
+of France; he will observe all dangers and compute all chances. He can
+act—he can be idle: he may work what is; he may administer the country.
+Any how _il fera son possible_, and you know, in the nineteenth century,
+how much and how rare that is.
+
+I see many people are advancing beautiful but untrue ethics about his
+private character. Thus I may quote as follows from a very estimable
+writer:—‘On the 15th of October, he requested his passports and left
+Aremberg for London. In this capital he remained from the end of 1838 to
+the month of August 1840. In these twenty months, instead of learning to
+command armies and govern empires, his days and nights, when not given
+to frivolous pleasures, were passed on the turf, in the betting-room, or
+in clubs where high play and desperate stakes roused the jaded energy of
+the _blasé_ gambler.’—(A. V. Kirwan, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, in _Fraser’s
+Magazine_.)
+
+The notion of this gentleman clearly is, that a betting man can’t
+in nature be a good statesman; that horse-racing is providentially
+opposed to political excellence; that ‘by an interesting illustration
+of the argument from design, we notice an antithesis alike marvellous
+and inevitable,’ between turf and tariffs. But, setting Paley for a
+moment apart, how is a man, by circumstances excluded from military
+and political life, and by birth from commercial pursuits, really and
+effectually to learn administration? Mr. Kirwan imagines that he should
+read all through Burke, common-place Tacitus, collate Cicero, and
+annotate Montesquieu. Yet take an analogous case. Suppose a man, shut out
+from trading life, is to qualify himself for the practical management
+of a counting-house. Do you fancy he will do it ‘by a judicious study
+of the principles of political economy,’ and by elaborately re-reading
+Adam Smith and John Mill? He had better be at Newmarket, and devote
+his _heures perdues_ to the Oaks and the St. Leger. He may learn there
+what he will never acquire from literary study—the instinctive habit
+of applied calculation, which is essential to a merchant and extremely
+useful to a statesman. Where, too, did Sir Robert Walpole learn business,
+or Charles Fox, or anybody in the eighteenth century? And after all, M.
+Michel de Bourges gave the real solution of the matter. ‘Louis Napoleon,’
+said the best orator of the Mountain, ‘may have had rather a stormy
+youth (laughter). But don’t suppose that any one in all France imagines
+you, you _Messieurs_, of the immaculate majority, to be the least better
+(sensation). I am not speaking to saints’ (uproar). If compared with
+contemporary French statesmen, and the practical choice is between him
+and them, the President will not seem what he appears when measured by
+the notions of a people who exact at least from inferior functionaries _a
+rigid decorum in the pettiest details of their private morals_.
+
+I have but one last point to make about this _coup d’état_, and then I
+will release you from my writing. I do not know whether you in England
+rightly realise the French Socialism. Take, for instance, M. Proudhon,
+who is perhaps their ideal and perfect type. He was _représentant de
+la Seine_ in the late Assembly, elected, which is not unimportant,
+after the publication of his books and on account of his opinions. In
+his ‘_Confessions d’un Révolutionnaire_,’ a very curious book—for he
+writes extremely well—after maintaining that our well-known but, as we
+imagine, advanced friends, Ledru Rollin, and Louis Blanc, and Barbès, and
+Blanqui are all _réactionnaires_, and clearly showing, to the grief of
+mankind, that once the legislator of the Luxembourg wished to preserve
+‘equilibrium,’ and the author of the provincial circulars to maintain the
+‘tranquillity,’ he gives the following _bonâ fide_ and amusing account of
+his own investigations:—
+
+    ‘I commenced my task of solitary conspiracy by the study
+    of the socialisms of antiquity, necessary, in my judgment,
+    to determine the law, whether practical or theoretical, of
+    progress. These socialisms I found in the Bible. A memoir
+    on the institution of the Sabbath—considered with regard to
+    morals, to health, and in its relation to the family and the
+    city—procured for me a bronze medal from my academy. From the
+    faith in which I had been reared, I had precipitated myself
+    head-long, head-foremost, into pure reason, and already, what
+    was wonderful and a good omen, when I made Moses a philosopher
+    and a socialist, I was greeted with applause. If I am now in
+    error, the fault is not merely mine. Was there ever a similar
+    seduction?
+
+    ‘But I studied, above all, with a view to action. I cared
+    little for academical laurels. I had no leisure to become
+    _savant_, still less a _littérateur_ or an archæologist. I
+    began immediately upon political economy.
+
+    ‘I had assumed as the rule of my investigations that every
+    principle which, pushed to its consequences, should end in a
+    contradiction, must be considered false and null; and that if
+    this principle had been developed into an institution, the
+    institution itself must be considered as factitious, as utopian.
+
+    ‘Furnished with this criterion, I chose for the subject of
+    investigation what I found in society the most ancient,
+    the most respectable, the most universal, the least
+    controverted,—property. Everybody knows what happened; after
+    a long, a minute, and, above all, an impartial analysis, I
+    arrived, as an algebraist guided by his equations, to this
+    surprising conclusion. Property, consider it as you will,—refer
+    it to what principle you may, is a contradictory idea; and as
+    the denial of property carries with it of necessity that of
+    authority, I deduced immediately from my first axiom also this
+    corollary, not less paradoxical, the true form of government
+    is _anarchy_. Lastly, finding by a mathematical demonstration
+    that no amelioration in the economy of society could be arrived
+    at by its natural constitution, or without the concurrence and
+    reflective adhesion of its members; observing, also, that there
+    is a definite epoch in the life of societies, in which their
+    progress, at first unreflecting, requires the intervention of
+    the free reason of man, I concluded that this spontaneous and
+    impulsive force (_cette force d’impulsion spontanée_), which
+    we call Providence, is not everything in the affairs of this
+    world: from that moment, without being an Atheist, I ceased to
+    worship God. He’ll get on without your so doing, said to me one
+    day the _Constitutionnel_. Well: perhaps he may.’
+
+These theories have been expanded into many and weary volumes, and
+condensed into the famous phrase, ‘_La Propriété c’est le vol_;’ and have
+procured their author, in his own sect, reputation and authority.
+
+The _Constitutionnel_ had another hit against M. Proudhon, a day or two
+ago. They presented their readers with two decrees in due official form
+(the walls were at the moment covered with those of the 2nd of December),
+as the last ideal of what the straightest sect of the Socialists
+particularly desire. It was as follows:—‘Nothing any longer exists.
+Nobody is charged with the execution of the aforesaid decree. Signed,
+Vacuum.’
+
+Such is the speculation of the new reformers—what their practices would
+be I can hardly tell you. My feeble income does not allow me to travel to
+the Basses Alpes and really investigate the subject; but if one quarter
+of the stories in circulation are in the least to be believed (we are
+quite dependent on oral information, for the Government papers deal in
+asterisks and ‘details unfit for publication,’ and the rest are devoted
+to the state of the navy and say nothing), the atrocities rival the
+nauseous corruption of what our liberal essayist calls ‘Jacobin carrion,’
+the old days of Carrier and Barère. This is what people here are afraid
+of; and that is why I write such things,—and not to horrify you, or amuse
+you, or bore you—anything rather than that; and they think themselves
+happy in finding a man who, with or without whatever other qualities or
+defects, will keep them from the vaunted Millennium and much-expected
+_Jacquerie_. I hope you think so, too—and that I am not, as they say in
+my native Tipperary, ‘Whistling jigs to a milestone.’ I am, sir, yours
+truly,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+P.S.—You will perhaps wish me to say something on the great event of
+this week, the exile of the more dangerous members of the late Assembly,
+and the transportation of the Socialists to Cayenne. Both measures were
+here expected; though I think that both lists are more numerous than was
+anticipated: but no one really knew what would be done by this silent
+Government. You will laugh at me when I tell you that both measures have
+been well received: but properly limited and understood, I am persuaded
+that the fact is so.
+
+Of course, among the friends of exiled _représentants_, among the
+_littérateurs_ throughout whose ranks these measures are intended to
+‘strike terror and inspire respect,’ you would hear that there never was
+such tyranny since the beginning of mankind. But among the mass of the
+industrious classes—between whom and the politicians there is internecine
+war—I fancy that on turning the conversation to either of the most recent
+events, you would hear something of this sort:—‘_Ça ne m’occupe pas_.’
+‘What is that _to me_?’ ‘_Je suis pour la tranquillité, moi._’ ‘I sold
+four brooches yesterday.’ The Socialists who have been removed from
+prison to the colony, it is agreed were ‘pestilent fellows perverting
+the nation,’ and forbidding to pay tribute to M. Bonaparte. Indeed, they
+can hardly expect commercial sympathy. ‘Our national honour rose—our
+stocks fell,’ is Louis Blanc’s perpetual comment on his favourite events,
+and it is difficult to say which of its two clauses he dwells upon with
+the intenser relish. It is generally thought by those who think about
+the matter, that both the transportation, and in all cases, certainly,
+the exile will only be a temporary measure, and that the great mass of
+the people in both lists will be allowed to return to their homes when
+the present season of extreme excitement has passed over. Still, I am
+not prepared to defend the _number_ of the transportations. That strong
+measures of the sort were necessary, I make no doubt. If Socialism
+exist, and the fear of it exist, something must be done to re-assure
+the people. You will understand that it is not a judicial proceeding
+either in essence or in form; it is not to be considered as a punishment
+for what men have done, but as a perfect precaution against what they
+may do. Certainly, it is to be regretted that the cause of order is so
+weak as to need such measures; but if it _is_ so weak, the Government
+must no doubt take them. Of course, however, ‘our brethren,’ who are
+retained in such numbers to write down Prince Louis, are quite right
+to use without stint or stopping this most un-English proceeding; it
+is their case, and you and I from old misdeeds know pretty well how it
+is to be managed. There will be no imputation of reasonable or humane
+motives to the Government, and no examination of the existing state of
+France:—let both these come from the other side—but elegiac eloquence
+is inexhaustibly exuded—the cruel corners of history are ransacked
+for petrifying precedents—and I observe much excellent weeping on the
+Cromwellian deportations and the ten years’ exile of Madame de Staël.
+But after all they have missed the tempting parallel—I mean the ‘rather
+long’ proscription list which Octavius—‘_l’ancien neveu de l’ancien
+oncle_’—concocted with Mark Antony in the marshes of Bononia, and whereby
+they thoroughly purged old Rome of its turbulent and revolutionary
+elements. I suspect our estimable contemporaries regret to remember of
+how much good order, long tranquillity, ‘_beata pleno copia cornu_’ and
+other many ‘little comforts’ to the civilised world that very ‘strong’
+proceeding, whether in ethics justifiable or not, certainly was in fact
+the beginning and foundation.
+
+The fate of the African generals is much to be regretted, and the
+Government will incur much odium if the exile of General Changarnier
+is prolonged any length of time. He is doubtless ‘dangerous’ for the
+moment, for his popularity with the army is considerable, and he divides
+the party of order; he is also a practical man and an unpleasant enemy,
+but he is much respected and little likely (I fancy) to attempt anything
+against any settled Government.
+
+As for M. Thiers and M. Emile de Girardin—the ablest of the exiles—I
+have heard no one pity them; they have played a selfish game—they have
+encountered a better player—they have been beaten—and this is the whole
+matter. You will remember that it was the adhesion of these two men that
+procured for M. Bonaparte a large part of his _first_ six millions.
+M. de Girardin, whom General Cavaignac had discreetly imprisoned and
+indiscreetly set free, wrote up the ‘opposition candidate’ daily, in the
+_Presse_ (he has since often and often tried to write him down,) and M.
+Thiers was his Privy Councillor. ‘_Mon cher Prince_,’ they say, said the
+latter, ‘your address to the people won’t do at all. I’ll get one of the
+_rédacteurs of the Constitutionnel_ to draw you up something tolerable.’
+You remember the easy patronage with which Cicero speaks in his letter
+of the ‘boy’ that was outwitting him all the while. But, however, observe
+I do not at all, notwithstanding my Latin, insinuate or assert that
+Louis Napoleon, though a considerable man, is exactly equal to keep the
+footsteps of Augustus. A feeble parody may suffice for an inferior stage
+and not too gigantic generation. Now I really _have_ done.
+
+
+LETTER III.
+
+_ON THE NEW CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE, AND THE APTITUDE OF THE FRENCH
+CHARACTER FOR NATIONAL FREEDOM._
+
+                                                  Paris: January 20, 1852.
+
+SIR,—We have now got our Constitution. The Napoleonic era has commenced;
+the term of the dictatorship is fixed and the consolidation of France
+is begun. You will perhaps anticipate from the conclusion of the last
+letter, that _à propos_ of this great event, I should gratify you with
+bright anticipations of an Augustan age, and a quick revival of Catonic
+virtue, with an assurance that the night is surely passed and the day
+altogether come, with a solemn invocation to the rising luminary, and an
+original panegyric on the ‘golden throned morning.’
+
+I must always regret to disappoint any one; but I feel obliged to
+entertain you instead with torpid philosophy, constitutional details, and
+a dull disquisition on national character.
+
+The details of the new institutions you will have long ago learnt from
+the daily papers. I believe they may be fairly and nearly accurately
+described as the Constitution of the Consulate, _minus_ the ideas of the
+man who made it. You will remember that, besides the First Magistrate,
+the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Council of State (which
+we may call, in legal language, the ‘common form’ of continental
+constitution), the ingenious Abbé Sièyes had devised some four principal
+peculiarities, which were to be remembered to all time as master-pieces
+of political invention. These were the utter inaction of the First
+Magistrate, copied, as I believe, from the English Constitution—the
+subordination to him of two Consuls, one to administer peace and the
+other war, who were intended to be the real hands and arms of the
+Government—the silence of the Senate—the double and very peculiar
+election of the House of Representatives. Napoleon the Great, as we
+are now to speak, struck out the first of these, being at the moment
+working some fifteen hours a day at the reorganisation of France. He said
+plainly and rather sternly that he had no intention of doing nothing—the
+_idéologue_ went to the wall—the ‘excellent idea’ put forth in happy
+forgetfulness of real facts and real people was instantly abandoned—for
+the Grand Elector was substituted a First Consul, who, so far from being
+nothing, was very soon the whole Government. Napoleon the Little, as
+I fear the Parisian multitude may learn to call him, has effaced the
+other three ‘strokes of statesmanship.’ The new Constitution of France
+is exactly the ‘common form’ of political conveyancing, _plus_ the _Idée
+Napoléonienne_ of an all-suggesting and all-administering mind.
+
+I have extremely little to tell you about its reception; it has made no
+‘sensation,’ not so much as even the ‘fortified camps’ which his Grace
+is said to be devising for the defence of our own London. Indeed, ‘_Il a
+peur_’ is a very common remark (conceivable to everybody who knows ‘the
+Duke,’) and it would seem even a refreshing alleviation of their domestic
+sorrows. In fact, home politics are now _the_ topic; geography and the
+state of foreign institutions are not, indeed, the true Parisian line—but
+it has, in fine, been distinctly discovered that there are no _salons_
+in Cayenne, which, once certain, the logical genius of the nation, with
+incredible swiftness, deduced the clear conclusion that it was better
+not to go there. Seriously, I fancy—for I have no data on which to found
+real knowledge of so delicate a point—the new Constitution is regarded
+merely as what Father Newman would call a ‘preservative addition’ or
+a ‘necessary development,’ essential to the ‘chronic continuance’ of
+the Napoleonic system; for the moment the mass of the people wish the
+President to govern them, but they don’t seem to me to care how. The
+political people, I suppose, hate it, because for some time it will
+enable him, if not shot, to govern effectually. I say, if not shot—for
+people are habitually recounting under their breath some new story of
+an attempt at assassination, which the papers suppress. I am inclined
+to think that these rumours are pure lies; but they show the feeling.
+You know, according to the Constitution of 1848, the President would now
+be a mere outlaw, and whoever finds him may slay him, if he can. It is
+true that the elaborate masterpiece of M. Marrast is already fallen into
+utter oblivion (it is no more remembered than yesterday’s _Times_, or the
+political institutions of Saxon Mercia); but nevertheless such, according
+to the antediluvian _régime_, would be the law, and it is possible that
+a mindful Montagnard may upon occasion recall even so insignificant a
+circumstance.
+
+I have a word to say on the Prologue of the President. When I first began
+to talk politics with French people, I was much impressed by the fact to
+which he has there drawn attention. You know that all such conversation,
+when one of the interlocutors is a foreigner, speaking slowly and but
+imperfectly the language of the country in which he is residing, is
+pretty much in the style of that excellent work which was the terror
+of our childhood—Joyce’s ‘Scientific Dialogues’—wherein, as you may
+remember, an accomplished tutor, with a singular gift of scholastic
+improvisation, instructs a youthful pupil exceedingly given to feeble
+questions and auscultatory repose. Now, when I began in Parisian society
+thus to enact the _rôle_ of ‘George’ or ‘Caroline,’ I was, I repeat, much
+struck with the fact that the Emperor had done everything: to whatever
+subject my diminutive inquiry related, the answer was nearly universally
+the same—an elegy on Napoleon. Nor is this exactly absurd; for whether
+or not ‘the nephew’ is right in calling the uncle the greatest of modern
+statesmen, he is indisputably the modern statesman who has founded the
+greatest number of existing institutions. In the pride of philosophy and
+in the madness of an hour, the Constituent Assembly and the Convention
+swept away not only the monstrous abuses of the old _régime_, but that
+_régime_ itself—its essence and its mechanism, utterly and entirely. They
+destroyed whatever they could lay their hands on. The consequence was
+certain—when they tried to construct they found they had no materials.
+They left a vacuum. No greater benefit could have been conferred on
+politicians gifted with the creative genius of Napoleon. It was like the
+fire of London to Sir Christopher Wren. With a fertility of invention and
+an obstinacy in execution, equalling, if not surpassing, those of Cæsar
+and Charlemagne, he had before him an open stage, more clear and more
+vast than in historical times fortune has ever offered to any statesman.
+He was nearly in the position of the imagined legislator of the Greek
+legends and the Greek philosophers—he could enact any law, and rescind
+any law. Accordingly, the educational system, the banking system, the
+financial system, the municipal system, the administrative system, the
+civil legislation, the penal legislation, the commercial legislation
+(besides all manner of secondary creations—public buildings and public
+institutions without number), all date from the time, and are more or
+less deeply inscribed with the genius, the firm will, and unresting
+energies of Napoleon. And this, which is the great strength of the
+present President, is the great difficulty—I fear the insurmountable
+difficulty—in the way of Henry the Fifth. The first revolution is to
+the French what the deluge is to the rest of mankind; the whole system
+then underwent an entire change. A French politician will no more cite
+as authority the domestic policy of Colbert or Louvois than we should
+think of going for ethics and æsthetics to the bigamy of Lamech, or the
+musical accomplishments of Tubal Cain. If the Comte de Chambord be (as it
+is quite on the cards that he may be), within a few years restored, he
+must govern by the instrumentality of laws and systems, devised by the
+politicians whom he execrates and denounces, and devised, moreover, often
+enough, especially to keep out him and his. It is difficult to imagine
+that a strong Government can be composed of materials so inharmonious.
+Meanwhile, to the popular imagination, ‘the Emperor’ is the past; the
+House of Bourbon is as historical as the House of Valois; a peasant is
+little oftener reminded of the ‘third dynasty’ than of the long-haired
+kings.
+
+In discussing any Constitution, there are two ideas to be first got rid
+of. The first is the idea of our barbarous ancestors—now happily banished
+from all civilised society, but still prevailing in old manor-houses, in
+rural parsonages, and other curious repositories of mouldering ignorance,
+and which in such arid solitudes is thus expressed: ‘Why can’t they have
+Kings, Lords and Commons, _like we have_? What fools foreigners are.’
+The second pernicious mistake is, like the former, seldom now held upon
+system, but so many hold it in bits and fragments, and without system,
+that it is still rather formidable. I allude to the old idea which
+still here creeps out in conversation, and sometimes in writing,—that
+politics are simply a subdivision of immutable ethics; that there are
+certain rights of men in all places and all times, which are the sole and
+sufficient foundation of all government, and that accordingly a single
+stereotype Government is to make the tour of the world—that you have
+no more right to deprive a Dyak of his vote in a ‘possible’ Polynesian
+Parliament, than you have to steal his mat.
+
+Burke first taught the world at large, in opposition to both, and
+especially to the latter of these notions, that politics are made of
+time and place—that institutions are shifting things, to be tried by
+and adjusted to the shifting conditions of a mutable world—that, in
+fact, politics are but a piece of business—to be determined in every
+case by the exact exigencies of that case; in plain English—by sense and
+circumstances.
+
+This was a great step in political philosophy—though it _now_ seems the
+events of 1848 have taught thinking persons (I fancy) further. They
+have enabled us to say that of all these circumstances so affecting
+political problems, by far and out of all question the most important is
+_national character_. In that year the same experiment—the experiment,
+as its friends say, of Liberal and Constitutional Government—as its
+enemies say, of Anarchy and Revolution—was tried in every nation of
+Europe—with what varying futures and differing results! The effect
+has been to teach men—not only speculatively to know, but practically
+to feel, that no absurdity is so great as to imagine the same species
+of institutions suitable or possible for Scotchmen and Sicilians, for
+Germans and Frenchmen, for the English and the Neapolitans. With a
+well-balanced national character (we now know) liberty is a stable thing.
+A really practical people will work in political business, as in private
+business, almost the absurdest, the feeblest, the most inconsistent
+set of imaginable regulations. Similarly, or rather reversely, the
+best institutions will not keep right a nation that _will_ go wrong.
+Paper is but paper, and no virtue is to be discovered in it to retain
+within due boundaries the undisciplined passions of those who have
+never set themselves seriously to restrain them. In a word—as people
+of ‘large roundabout common-sense’ will (as a rule) somehow get on in
+life—(no matter what their circumstances or their fortune)—so a nation
+which applies good judgment, forbearance, a rational and compromising
+habit to the management of free institutions, will certainly succeed;
+while the more eminently gifted national character will but be a source
+and germ of endless and disastrous failure, if, with whatever other
+eminent qualities, it be deficient in these plain, solid, and essential
+requisites.
+
+The formation of _this_ character is one of the most secret of marvellous
+mysteries. Why nations have the character we see them to have is,
+speaking generally, as little explicable to our shallow perspicacity,
+as why individuals, our friends or our enemies, for good or for evil,
+have the character which they have; why one man is stupid and another
+clever—why another volatile and a fourth consistent—this man by
+instinct generous, that man by instinct niggardly. I am not speaking
+of actions, you observe, but of tendencies and temptations. These and
+other similar problems daily crowd on our observation in millions and
+millions, and only do not puzzle us because we are too familiar with
+their difficulty to dream of attempting their solution. Only this much
+is most certain,—all men and all nations have a character, and that
+character, when once taken, is, I do not say unchangeable—religion
+modifies it, catastrophe annihilates it—but the least changeable thing
+in this ever-varying and changeful world. Take the soft mind of the boy,
+and (strong and exceptional aptitudes and tendencies excepted) you may
+make him merchant, barrister, butcher, baker, surgeon, or apothecary.
+But once make him an apothecary, and he will never afterwards bake
+wholesome bread—make him a butcher, and he will kill too extensively,
+even for a surgeon—make him a barrister, and he will be dim on double
+entry, and crass on bills of lading. Once conclusively form him to one
+thing, and no art and no science will ever twist him to another. Nature,
+says the philosopher, has no Delphic daggers!—no men or maids of all
+work—she keeps one being to one pursuit—to each is a single choice
+afforded, but no more again thereafter for ever. And it is the same with
+nations. The Jews of to-day are the Jews in face and form of the Egyptian
+sculptures; in character they are the Jews of Moses—the negro is the
+negro of a thousand years—the Chinese, by his own account, is the mummy
+of a million. ‘Races and their varieties,’ says the historian, ‘seem to
+have been created with an inward _nisus_ diminishing with the age of
+the world.’ The people of the South are yet the people of the South,
+fierce and angry as their summer sun—the people of the North are still
+cold and stubborn like their own North wind—the people of the East ‘mark
+not, but are still’—the people of the West ‘are going through the ends
+of the earth, and walking up and down in it.’ The fact is certain, the
+cause beyond us. The subtle system of obscure causes, whereby sons and
+daughters resemble not only their fathers and mothers, but even their
+great-great-grandfathers and their great-great-grandmothers, may very
+likely be destined to be very inscrutable. But as the fact is so, so
+moreover, in history, nations have one character, one set of talents, one
+list of temptations, and one duty—to use the one and get the better of
+the other. There are breeds in the animal man just as in the animal dog.
+When you hunt with greyhounds and course with beagles, then, and not till
+then, may you expect the inbred habits of a thousand years to pass away,
+that Hindoos can be free, or that Englishmen will be slaves.
+
+I need not prove to you that the French _have_ a national character.
+Nor need I try your patience with a likeness of it. I have only to
+examine whether it be a fit basis for national freedom. I fear you will
+laugh when I tell you what I conceive to be about the most essential
+mental quality for a free people, whose liberty is to be progressive,
+permanent, and on a large scale; it is much _stupidity_. I see you are
+surprised—you are going to say to me, as Socrates did to Polus, ‘My
+young friend, _of course_, you are right; but will you explain what you
+mean?—as yet you are not intelligible.’ I will do so as well as I can, or
+endeavour to make good what I say—not by an _à priori_ demonstration of
+my own, but from the details of the present, and the facts of history.
+Not to begin by wounding any present susceptibilities, let me take
+the Roman character—for, with one great exception—I need not say to
+whom I allude—they are the great political people of history. Now, is
+not a certain dullness their most visible characteristic? What is the
+history of their speculative mind?—a blank. What their literature?—a
+copy. They have left not a single discovery in any abstract science;
+not a single perfect or well-formed work of high imagination. The
+Greeks, the perfection of narrow and accomplished genius, bequeathed to
+mankind the ideal forms of self-idolising art—the Romans imitated and
+admired; the Greeks explained the laws of nature—the Romans wondered and
+despised; the Greeks invented a system of numerals second only to that
+now in use—the Romans counted to the end of their days with the clumsy
+apparatus which we still call by their name; the Greeks made a capital
+and scientific calendar—the Romans began their month when the Pontifex
+Maximus happened to spy out the new moon. Throughout Latin literature,
+this is the perpetual puzzle—Why are we free and they slaves? we prætors
+and they barbers? Why do the stupid people always win, and the clever
+people always lose? I need not say that, in real sound stupidity, the
+English are unrivalled. You’ll hear more wit, and better wit, in an Irish
+street row than would keep Westminster Hall in humour for five weeks. Or
+take Sir Robert Peel—our last great statesman, the greatest Member of
+Parliament that ever lived, an absolutely perfect transacter of public
+business—the type of the nineteenth century Englishman, as Sir R. Walpole
+was of the eighteenth. Was there ever such a dull man? Can any one,
+without horror, foresee the reading of his memoirs? A _clairvoyante_,
+with the book shut, may get on; but who now, in the flesh, will ever
+endure the open _vision_ of endless recapitulation of interminable
+Hansard. Or take Mr. Tennyson’s inimitable description:—
+
+    ‘No little lily-handed Baronet he,
+    A great broad-shouldered genial Englishman,
+    A lord of fat prize oxen and of sheep,
+    A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
+    A patron of some thirty charities,
+    A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,
+    A quarter sessions chairman, abler none.’
+
+Whose company so soporific? His talk is of truisms and bullocks; his head
+replete with rustic visions of mutton and turnips, and a cerebral edition
+of Burn’s ‘Justice!’ Notwithstanding, he is the salt of the earth, the
+best of the English breed. Who is like him for sound sense? But I must
+restrain my enthusiasm. You don’t want me to tell you that a Frenchman—a
+real Frenchman—can’t be stupid; _esprit_ is his essence, wit is to him
+as water, _bons-mots_ as _bonbons_. He reads and he learns by reading;
+levity and literature are essentially his line. Observe the consequence.
+The outbreak of 1848 was accepted in every province in France; the
+decrees of the Parisian mob were received and registered in all the
+municipalities of a hundred cities; the Revolution ran like the fluid of
+the telegraph down the _Chemin de fer du Nord_; it stopped at the Belgian
+frontier. Once brought into contact with the dull phlegm of the stupid
+Fleming, the poison was powerless. You remember what the Norman butler
+said to Wilkin Flammock, of the fulling mills, at the castle of the Garde
+Douloureuse: ‘that draught which will but warm your Flemish hearts,
+will put wildfire into Norman brains; and what may only encourage your
+countrymen to man the walls, will make ours fly over the battlements.’
+_Les braves Belges_, I make no doubt, were quite pleased to observe what
+folly was being exhibited by those very clever French, whose tongue they
+want to speak, and whose literature they try to imitate. In fact, what
+we opprobriously call stupidity, though not an enlivening quality in
+common society, is nature’s favourite resource for preserving steadiness
+of conduct and consistency of opinion. It enforces concentration; people
+who learn slowly, learn only what they must. The best security for
+people’s doing their duty is, that they should not know anything else to
+do; the best security for fixedness of opinion is, that people should be
+incapable of comprehending what is to be said on the other side. These
+valuable truths are no discoveries of mine. They are familiar enough to
+people whose business it is to know them. Hear what a dense and aged
+attorney says of your peculiarly promising barrister:—‘Sharp! oh yes,
+yes! he’s too sharp by half. He is not _safe_; not a minute, isn’t that
+young man.’ ‘What style, sir,’ asked of an East India Director some
+youthful aspirant for literary renown, ‘is most to be preferred in the
+composition of official despatches?’ ‘My good fellow,’ responded the
+ruler of Hindostan, ‘the style _as we_ like is the Humdrum.’ I extend
+this, and advisedly maintain that nations, just as individuals, may be
+too clever to be practical, and not dull enough to be free.
+
+How far this is true of the French, and how far the gross deficiency I
+have indicated is modified by their many excellent qualities, I hope at a
+future time to inquire.
+
+                          I am, sir, yours truly,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+
+LETTER IV.
+
+_ON THE APTITUDE OF THE FRENCH CHARACTER FOR NATIONAL SELF-GOVERNMENT._
+
+                                                     Paris: Jan. 29, 1852.
+
+SIR,—There is a simple view of the subject on which I wrote to you last
+week, that I wish to bring under your notice. The experiment (as it is
+called) of establishing political freedom in France is now sixty years
+old; and the best that we can say of it is, that it is an experiment
+still. There have been perhaps half-a-dozen new beginnings—half-a-dozen
+complete failures. I am aware that each of these failures can be
+excellently explained—each beginning shown to be quite necessary. But
+there are certain reasonings which, though outwardly irrefragable,
+the crude human mind is always most unwilling to accept. Among these
+are different and subtle explications of several apparently similar
+facts. Thus, to choose an example suited to the dignity of my subject,
+if a gentleman from town takes a day’s shooting in the country, and
+should chance (as has happened) at first going off, to miss some six
+times running, how luminously soever he may ‘explain’ each failure
+as it occurs, however ‘expanded a view’ he may take of the whole
+series, whatever popular illustrations of projectile philosophy he
+may propound to the bird-slaying agriculturists—the impression on the
+crass intelligence of the gamekeeper will quite clearly be ‘He beint
+noo shot homsoever—aint thickeer.’ Similarly, to compare small things
+with great, when I myself read in Thiers and the many other philosophic
+historians of this literary country, various and excellent explanations
+of their many mischances;—of the failure of the constitution of 1791—of
+the constitution of the year 3—of the constitution of the year 5—of
+the _charte_—of the system of 1830—and now we may add, of the second
+republic—the annotated constitution of M. Dupin,—I can’t help feeling
+a suspicion lingering in my crude and uncultivated intellect—that some
+common principle is at work in all and each of these several cases—that
+over and above all odd mischances, so many bankruptcies a little suggest
+an unfitness for the trade; that besides the ingenious reasons of
+ingenious gentlemen, there is some lurking quality, or want of a quality,
+in the national character of the French nation which renders them but
+poorly adapted for the form of freedom and constitution which they have
+so often, with such zeal and so vainly, attempted to establish.
+
+In my last letter I suggested that this might be what I ventured to call
+a ‘want of stupidity.’ I will now try to describe what I mean in more
+accurate, though not, perhaps, more intelligible words.
+
+I believe that I am but speaking what is agreed on by competent
+observers, when I say that the essence of the French character is a
+certain mobility; that is, as it has been defined, a certain ‘excessive
+sensibility to _present_ impressions,’ which is sometimes ‘levity,’—for
+it issues in a postponement of seemingly fixed principles to a momentary
+temptation or a transient whim; sometimes ‘impatience’—as leading to
+an exaggerated sense of existing evils; often excitement,’—a total
+absorption in existing emotion; oftener ‘inconsistency’—the sacrifice of
+old habits to present emergencies; and yet other unfavourable qualities.
+But it has also its favourable side. The same man who is drawn aside
+from old principles by small pleasures, who can’t bear pain, who forgets
+his old friends when he ceases to see them, who is liable in time of
+excitement to be a one-idea being, with no conception of anything but the
+one exciting object, yet who nevertheless is apt to have one idea to-day
+and quite another to-morrow (and this, and more than this, may I fancy be
+said of the ideal Frenchman) may and will have the subtlest perception
+of existing niceties, the finest susceptibility to social pleasure, the
+keenest tact in social politeness, the most consummate skilfulness in
+the details of action and administration,—may, in short, be the best
+companion, the neatest man of business, the lightest _homme de salon_,
+the acutest diplomat of the existing world.
+
+It is curious to observe how this reflects itself in their literature.
+‘I will believe,’ remarks Montaigne, ‘in anything rather than in any
+man’s consistency.’ What observer of English habits—what person inwardly
+conscious of our dull and unsusceptible English nature, would ever say
+so. Rather in our country obstinacy is the commonest of the vices, and
+perseverance the cheapest of the virtues. Again, when they attempt
+history, the principal peculiarity (a few exceptions being allowed for)
+is an utter incapacity to describe graphically a long-passed state of
+society. Take, for instance—assuredly no unfavourable example—M. Guizot.
+His books, I need not say, are nearly unrivalled for eloquence, for
+philosophy and knowledge; you read there, how in the middle age there
+were many ‘principles:’ the principle of Legitimacy, the principle of
+Feudalism, the principle of Democracy; and you come to know how one
+grew, and another declined, and a third crept slowly on; and the mind is
+immensely edified, when perhaps at the 315th page a proper name occurs,
+and you mutter, ‘Dear me, why, if there were not _people_ in the time of
+Charlemagne! Who would have thought that?’ But in return for this utter
+incapacity to describe the people of past times, a Frenchman has the gift
+of perfectly describing the people of his own. No one knows so well—no
+one can tell so well—the facts of his own life. The French memoirs, the
+French letters are, and have been, the admiration of Europe. Is not now
+Jules Janin unrivalled at pageants and _prima donnas_?
+
+It is the same in poetry. As a recent writer excellently remarks, ‘A
+French Dante, or Michael Angelo, or Cervantes, or Murillo, or Goethe,
+or Shakespeare, or Milton, we at once perceive to be a mere anomaly; a
+supposition which may indeed be proposed in terms, but which in reality
+is inconceivable and impossible.’ Yet, in requital as it were of this
+great deficiency, they have a wonderful capacity for expressing and
+delineating the poetical and voluptuous element of every-day life.
+We know the biography of De Béranger. The young ladies whom he has
+admired—the wine that he has preferred—the fly that buzzed on the
+ceiling, and interrupted his delicious and dreaming solitude, are as well
+known to us as the recollections of our own lives. As in their common
+furniture, so in their best poetry. The materials are nothing; reckon up
+what you have been reading, and it seems a _congeries_ of stupid trifles;
+begin to read,—the skill of the workmanship is so consummate, the art
+so high and so latent, that while time flows silently on, our fancies
+are enchanted and our memories indelibly impressed. How often, asks Mr.
+Thackeray, have we read De Béranger—how often Milton? Certainly, since
+Horace, there has been no such manual of the philosophy of this world.
+
+I will not say that the quality which I have been trying to delineate
+is exactly the same thing as ‘cleverness.’ But I do allege that it is
+sufficiently near it for the rough purposes of popular writing. For this
+_quickness_ in taking in—so to speak—the present, gives a corresponding
+celerity of intellectual apprehension, an amazing readiness in catching
+new ideas and maintaining new theories, a versatility of mind which
+enters into and comprehends everything as it passes, a concentration
+in what occurs, so as to use it for every purpose of illustration, and
+consequently (if it happen to be combined with the least fancy), quick
+repartee on the subject of the moment, and _bons-mots_ also without
+stint and without end—and these qualities are rather like what we style
+cleverness. And what I call a proper stupidity keeps a man from all the
+defects of this character; it chains the gifted possessor mainly to his
+old ideas; it takes him seven weeks to comprehend an atom of a new one;
+it keeps him from being led away by new theories—for there is nothing
+which bores him so much; it restrains him within his old pursuits, his
+well-known habits, his tried expedients, his verified conclusions, his
+traditional beliefs. He is not tempted to ‘levity,’ or ‘impatience,’
+for he does not see the joke, and is thick-skinned to present evils.
+Inconsistency puts him out,—‘What I says is this here, as I was a
+saying yesterday,’ is his notion of historical eloquence and habitual
+discretion. He is very slow indeed to be ‘excited,’—his passions, his
+feelings, and his affections are dull and tardy strong things, falling in
+a certain known direction, fixing on certain known objects, and for the
+most part acting in a moderate degree, and at a sluggish pace. You always
+know where to find his mind.
+
+Now this is exactly what, in politics at least, you do not know about
+a Frenchman. I like—I have heard a good judge say—to hear a Frenchman
+talk. He strikes a light, but what light he will strike it is impossible
+to predict. I think he doesn’t know himself. Now, I know you see at once
+how this would operate on a Parliamentary Government, but I give you a
+gentle illustration. All England knows Mr. Disraeli, the witty orator,
+the exceedingly clever _littérateur_, the versatile politician; and
+all England has made up its mind that the stupidest country gentleman
+would be a better Home Secretary than the accomplished descendant of the
+‘Caucasian race.’ Now suppose, if you only can, a House of Commons all
+Disraelis, and do you imagine that Parliament would work? It would be
+what M. Proudhon said of some French assemblies, ‘a box of matches.’
+
+The same quality acts in another way, and produces to English ideas a
+most marvellous puzzle, both in the philosophical literature and the
+political discussion of the French. I mean their passion for logical
+deduction. The habitual mode of argument is to get hold of some
+large principle; to begin to deduce immediately; and to reason down
+from it to the most trivial details of common action. _Il faut être
+conséquent avec soi-même_—is their fundamental maxim; and in a world
+the essence of which is compromise, they could not well have a worse. I
+hold, metaphysically perhaps, that this is a consequence of that same
+impatience of disposition to which I have before alluded. Nothing is such
+a bore as looking for your principles—nothing so pleasant as working them
+out. People who have thought, know that inquiry is suffering. A child a
+stumbling timidly in the dark is not more different from the same child
+playing on a sunny lawn, than is the philosopher groping, hesitating,
+doubting and blundering about his primitive postulates, from the same
+philosopher proudly deducing and commenting on the certain consequences
+of his established convictions. On this account Mathematics have been
+called the paradise of the mind. In Euclid at least, you have your
+principles, and all that is required is acuteness in working them out.
+The long annals of science are one continued commentary on this text.
+Read in Bacon, the beginner of intellectual philosophy in England, and
+every page of the ‘Advancement of Learning’ is but a continued warning
+against the tendency of the human mind to start at once to the last
+generalities from a few and imperfectly observed particulars. Read in
+the ‘Meditations’ of Descartes, the beginner of intellectual philosophy
+in France, and in every page (once I read five) you will find nothing
+but the strictest, the best, the most lucid, the most logical deduction
+of all things actual and possible, from a few principles obtained
+without evidence, and retained in defiance of probability. Deduction
+is a game, and induction a grievance. Besides, clever impatient people
+want not only to learn, but to teach. And instruction expresses at least
+the alleged possession of knowledge. The obvious way is to shorten the
+painful, the slow, the tedious, the wearisome process of preliminary
+inquiry—to assume something pretty—to establish its consequences—discuss
+their beauty—exemplify their importance—extenuate their absurdities.
+A little vanity helps all this. Life is short—art is long—truth lies
+deep—take some side—found your school—open your lecture-rooms—tuition is
+dignified—learning is low.
+
+I do not know that I can exhibit the way these qualities of the French
+character operate on their opinions, better than by telling you how
+the Roman Catholic Church deals with them. I have rather attended to
+it since I came here; it gives sermons almost an interest, their being
+in French—and to those curious in intellectual matters it is worth
+observing. In other times, and even now in out-of-the-way Spain, I
+suppose it may be so, the Catholic Church was opposed to inquiry and
+reasoning. But it is not so now, and here. Loudly—from the pens of a
+hundred writers—from the tongues of a thousand pulpits—in every note of
+thrilling scorn and exulting derision, she proclaims the contrary. Be she
+Christ’s workman, or Antichrist’s, she knows her work too well.—‘Reason,
+Reason, Reason!’—exclaims she to the philosophers of this world—‘Put
+in practice what you teach, if you would have others believe it; be
+consistent; do not prate to us of private judgment when you are but
+yourselves repeating what you heard in the nursery—ill-mumbled remnants
+of a Catholic tradition. No! exemplify what you command, inquire and
+make search—seek, though we warn you that ye will never find—yet do as
+ye will. Shut yourself up in a room—make your mind a blank—go down (as
+ye speak) into the “depths of your consciousness”—scrutinise the mental
+structure—inquire for the elements of belief—spend years, your best
+years, in the occupation; and at length—when your eyes are dim, and your
+brain hot, and your hand unsteady—then reckon what you have gained: see
+if you cannot count on your fingers the certainties you have reached:
+reflect which of them you doubted yesterday, which you may disbelieve
+to-morrow; or rather, make haste—assume at random some essential
+_credenda_—write down your inevitable postulates—enumerate your necessary
+axioms—toil on, toil on—spin your spider’s web—adore your own souls—or,
+if you prefer it, choose some German nostrum—try the intellectual
+intuition, or the “pure reason,” or the “intelligible” ideas, or the
+mesmeric _clairvoyance_—and when so or somehow you have attained your
+results, try them on mankind. Don’t go out into the highways and
+hedges—it’s unnecessary. Ring the bell—call in the servants—give them a
+course of lectures—cite Aristotle—review Descartes—panegyrise Plato—and
+see if the bonne will understand you. It is you that say “_Vox populi—Vox
+Dei_;” but you see the people reject you. Or, suppose you succeed—what
+you call succeeding—your books are read; for three weeks, or even a
+season, you are the idol of the _salons_; your hard words are on the
+lips of women; then a change comes—a new actress appears at the Théâtre
+Français or the Opéra—her charms eclipse your theories; or a great
+catastrophe occurs—political liberty (it is said) is annihilated—_il faut
+se faire mouchard_, is the observation of scoffers. Any how, _you_ are
+forgotten—fifty years may be the gestation of a philosophy, not three
+its life—before long, before you go to your grave, your six disciples
+leave you for some newer master, or to set up for themselves. The poorest
+priest in the remote region of the _Basses Alpes_ has more power over
+men’s souls than human cultivation; his ill-mouthed masses move women’s
+souls—can you? Ye scoff at Jupiter. Yet he at least was believed in—you
+never have been; idol for idol, the _de_throned is better than the
+_un_throned. No, if you would reason—if you would teach—if you would
+speculate, come to us. We have our _premises_ ready; years upon years
+before you were born, intellects whom the best of you delight to magnify,
+toiled to systematise the creed of ages; years upon years after you are
+dead, better heads than yours will find new matter there to define, to
+divide, to arrange. Consider the hundred volumes of Aquinas—which of you
+desire a higher life than that? To deduce, to subtilise, discriminate,
+systematise, and decide the highest truth, and to be believed. Yet such
+was his luck, his enjoyment. He was what you would be. No, no—_Credite,
+credite_. Ours is the life of speculation—the cloister is the home for
+the student. Philosophy is stationary—Catholicism progressive. You
+call—we are heard,’ &c., &c., &c. So speaks each preacher according to
+his ability. And when the dust and noise of present controversies have
+passed away, and in the silence of the night, some grave historian writes
+out the tale of half-forgotten times, let him not forget to observe that
+skilfully as the mediæval church subdued the superstitious cravings of
+a painful and barbarous age—in after years she dealt more discerningly
+still with the feverish excitement, the feeble vanities, and the dogmatic
+impatience of an over-intellectual generation.
+
+And as in religion—so in politics, we find the same desire to teach
+rather than to learn—the same morbid appetite for exhaustive and original
+theories. It is as necessary for a public writer to have a system as it
+is for him to have a pen. His course is obvious; he assumes some grand
+principle—the principle of Legitimacy, or the principle of Equality, or
+the principle of Fraternity—and thence he reasons down without fear or
+favour to the details of every-day politics. Events are judged of, not by
+their relation to simple causes, but by their bearing on a remote axiom.
+Nor are these speculations mere exercises of philosophic ingenuity. Four
+months ago, hundreds of able writers were debating with the keenest
+ability and the most ample array of generalities, whether the country
+should be governed by a Legitimate Monarchy, or an illegitimate; by a
+Social, or an old-fashioned Republic; by a two-chambered Constitution,
+or a one-chambered Constitution; on ‘Revision,’ or Non-revision; on
+the claims of Louis Napoleon, or the divine right of the national
+representation. Can any intellectual food be conceived more dangerous
+or more stimulating for an over-excitable population? It is the same in
+Parliament. The description of the Church of Corinth may stand for a
+description of the late Assembly: every one had a psalm, had a doctrine,
+had a tongue, had a revelation, had an interpretation. Each member of
+the Mountain had his scheme for the regeneration of mankind; each member
+of the vaunted majority had his scheme for newly consolidating the
+Government; Orleanist hated Legitimist, Legitimist Orleanist; moderate
+Republican detested undiluted Republican; scheme was set against scheme,
+and theory against theory. No two Conservatives would agree what to
+conserve; no Socialist could practically associate with any other. No
+deliberative assembly can exist with every member wishing to lead, and no
+one wishing to follow. Not the meanest Act of Parliament could be carried
+without more compromise than even the best French statesmen were willing
+to use on the most important and critical affairs of their country.
+Rigorous reasoning would not manage a parish-vestry, much less a great
+nation. In England, to carry half your own crotchets, you must be always
+and everywhere willing to carry half another man’s. Practical men must
+submit as well as rule, concede as well as assume. Popular government has
+many forms, a thousand good modes of procedure; but no one of those modes
+can be worked, no one of those forms will endure, unless by the continual
+application of sensible heads and pliable judgments to the systematic
+criticism of stiff axioms, rigid principles, and incarnated propositions.
+I am, &c.,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+P.S.—I was in hopes that I should have been able to tell you of the
+withdrawal of the decree relative to the property of the Orleans family.
+The withdrawal was announced in the _Constitutionnel_ of yesterday; but I
+regret to add was contradicted in the _Patrie_ last evening. I need not
+observe to you that it is an act for which there is no defence, moral or
+political. It has immensely weakened the Government.
+
+The change of Ministry is also a great misfortune to Louis Napoleon.
+M. de Morny, said to be a son of Queen Hortense (if you believe the
+people in the _salons_, the President is not the son of his father, and
+everybody else is the son of his mother), was a statesman of the class
+best exemplified in England by the late Lord Melbourne—an acute, witty,
+fashionable man, acquainted with Parisian persons and things, and a
+consummate judge of public opinion. M. Persigny was in exile with the
+President, is said to be much attached to him, to repeat his sentiments
+and exaggerate his prejudices. I need not point out which of the two is
+just now the sounder counsellor.
+
+
+LETTER V.
+
+_ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PRINCE-PRESIDENT._
+
+SIR,—The many failures of the French in the attempt to establish a
+predominantly Parliamentary Government have a strong family likeness.
+Speaking a little roughly, I shall be right in saying that the
+Constitutions of France have perished, both lately and formerly, either
+in a street-row or under the violence of a military power, aided and
+abetted by a diffused dread of impending street-rows, and a painful
+experience of the effects of past ones. Thus the Constitution of 1791
+(the first of the old series) perished on August 10, amid the exultation
+of the brewer Santerre. The last of the old series fell on the 18
+Brumaire, under the hands of Napoleon, when the 5 per cents. were at
+12, the whole country in disorder, and all ruinable persons ruined. The
+Monarchy of 1830 began in the riot of the three days, and ended in the
+riot of February 24; the Republic of February perished but yesterday,
+mainly from terror that Paris might again see such days as the ‘days of
+June.’
+
+I think all sensible Englishmen who review this history (the history of
+more than sixty years) will not be slow to divine a conclusion peculiarly
+agreeable to our orderly national habits, viz., that the first want
+of the French is somebody or something able and willing to keep down
+street-rows, to repress the frightful elements of revolution and disorder
+which, every now and then, astonish Europe; capable of maintaining, and
+desirous to maintain, the order and tranquillity which are (all agree)
+the essential and primary prerequisites of industry and civilisation. If
+any one seriously and calmly doubts this, I am afraid nothing that I can
+further say will go far in convincing him. But let him read the account
+of any scene in any French revolution, old or new, or, better, let him
+come here and learn how people look back to the time I have mentioned
+(to June, 1848), when the Socialists,—not under speculative philosophers
+like Proudhon or Louis Blanc, but under practical rascals and energetic
+murderers, like Sobrier and Caussidière—made their last and final stand,
+and against them, on the other side, the National Guard (mostly solid
+shopkeepers, three-parts ruined by the events of February) fought (I will
+not say bravely or valiantly, but) furiously, frantically, savagely, as
+one reads in old books that half-starved burgesses in beleaguered towns
+have sometimes fought for the food of their children; let any sceptic
+hear of the atrocities of the friends of order and the atrocities of the
+advocates of disorder, and he will, I imagine, no longer be sceptical
+on two points,—he will hope that if he ever have to fight it will not
+be with a fanatic Socialist, nor against a demi-bankrupt fighting for
+‘his shop;’ and he will admit, that in a country subject to collisions
+between two such excited and excitable combatants, no earthly blessing is
+in any degree comparable to a power which will stave off, long delay, or
+permanently prevent the actual advent and ever-ready apprehension of such
+bloodshed. I therefore assume that the first condition of good government
+in this country is a really strong, a reputedly strong, a continually
+strong Executive power.
+
+Now, on the face of matters, it is certainly true that such a power
+is perfectly consistent with the most perfect, the most ideal type
+of Parliamentary government. Rather I should say, such and so strong
+an executive is a certain consequence of the existence of that ideal
+and rarely found type. If there is among the people, and among their
+representatives, a strong, a decided, an unflinching preference for
+particular Ministers, or a particular course of policy, that course of
+policy can be carried out, and will be carried out, as certainly as
+by the Czar Nicholas, whose Ministers can do exactly what they will.
+There was something very like this in the old days of King George III.,
+of Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Perceval. In those times, I have been told, the
+great Treasury official of the day, Mr. George Rose (still known to the
+readers of Sydney Smith) had a habit of observing, upon occasion of
+anything utterly devoid of decent defence, ‘Well, well, this is a little
+too bad; we must apply our _majority_ to this difficulty.’ The effect
+is very plain; while Mr. George Rose and his betters respected certain
+prejudices and opinions, then all but universal in Parliament, they in
+all other matters might do precisely what they would; and in all out
+of the way matters, in anything that Sir John could not understand, on
+a point of cotton-spinning or dissent, be as absolute as the Emperor
+Napoleon. But the case is (as we know by experience of what passes under
+our daily observation) immensely altered, when there is no longer this
+strong, compact, irrefragable, ‘following;’ no distinctly divided,
+definite faction, no regular opposition to be daily beaten, no regular
+official party to be always victorious—but, instead, a mere aggregate
+of ‘independent members,’ each thinking for himself, propounding, as
+the case may be, his own sense or his own nonsense—one, profound ideas
+applicable to all time; another, something meritorious from the Eton
+Latin grammar, and a mangled republication of the morning’s newspaper;
+some exceedingly philosophical, others only crotchetty, but, what
+is my point, each acting on his own head, assuming not Mr. Pitt’s
+infallibility, but his own. Again, divide a political assembly into three
+parties, any two of which are greater than the third, and it will be
+always possible for an adroit and dexterous intriguer (M. Thiers has his
+type in most assemblies) to combine, three or four times a fortnight, the
+two opposition parties into a majority on some interesting question—on
+some matter of importance. The best government possible under the
+existing circumstances will be continually and, in a hazardous state of
+society, even desperately and fatally weakened. We have had in our own
+sensible House of Commons—aye, and among the most stupid and sensible
+portion of it, the country gentlemen—within these few years, a striking
+example of how far party zeal, the heat of disputation, and a strong
+desire for a deep revenge will carry the best intentioned politicians in
+destroying the executive efficiency of an obnoxious Government. I mean
+the division of the House of Commons on the Irish Army Bill, which ended
+in the resignation of Sir Robert Peel. You remember on that occasion
+the country party, under the guidance of Lord G. Bentinck, in the teeth
+of the Irish policy which they had been advocating and supporting all
+their lives, and which they would advocate and support again now, in the
+teeth of their previous votes, and (I am not exaggerating the history)
+almost of their avowed present convictions, defeated a Government, not
+on a question of speculative policy or recondite importance, but upon
+the precautionary measures necessary (according to every idea that a
+Tory esquire is capable of entertaining) for preventing a rebellion, the
+occurrence of which they were told (and as the event proved, told truly)
+might be speedy, hourly, and immediate. Of course I am not giving any
+opinion of my own about the merits of the question. The Whigs may be
+right; it may be good to have shown the world how little terrible is the
+bluster of Irish agitation. But I cite the event as a striking example of
+an essential evil in a three-sided Parliamentary system, as practically
+showing that a generally well-meaning opposition will, in defiance of
+their own habitual principles, cripple an odious executive, even in a
+matter of street-rows and rebellions. I won’t weary you with tediously
+pointing the moral. If such things are done in the green tree, what may
+be done in the dry? If party zeal and disputation excitement so hurry
+men away in our own grave, business-like experienced country—what may we
+expect from a vain, a volatile, an ever-changing race?
+
+Nor am I drawing a French Assembly from mere history, or from my own
+imagination. In the late Chamber, the great subject of the very last
+_Annual Register_, there were not only three parties but four. There
+was a perpetually shifting element of 200 members, calling itself the
+Mountain, which had in its hands the real casting vote between the
+President’s Government and the Constitutional opposition. In the very
+last days of the Constitution they voted against, and thereby negatived,
+the proposition of the questors for arming the Assembly; partly because
+they disliked General Changarnier, and detested General Cavaignac; partly
+because, being extreme Socialists, they would not arm anybody who was
+likely to use his arms against their friends on the barricades. The
+same party was preparing to vote for the Bill on the Responsibility of
+the President, actually, and according to the design of its promoters,
+in the nature of a bill of indictment against him, because they feared
+his rigour and efficiency in repressing the anticipated convulsion. The
+question, the critical question, _Who_ shall prevent a new revolution?
+was thus actually, and owing to the lamentable divisions of the friends
+of order, in the hands of the Parliamentary representatives of the very
+men who wished to effect that revolution, was determined, I may say,
+ultimately, and in the last resort by the party of disorder.
+
+Nor on lesser questions was there any steady majority, any distinctive
+deciding faction, any administering phalanx, anybody regularly voting
+with anybody else, often enough, or in number enough, to make the
+legislative decision regular, consistent, or respectable. Their very
+debates were unseemly. On anything not pleasing to them, the Mountain
+(as I said) a yellow and fanatical generation—had (I am told) an
+engaging knack of rising _en masse_ and screaming until they were tired.
+It will be the same, I do not say in degree (for the Mountain would
+certainly lose several votes now, and the numbers of the late Chamber
+were unreasonably and injudiciously large), but, in a measure, you will
+be always subject to the same disorder—a fluctuating majority, and a
+minority, often a ruling minority, favourable to rebellion. The cause, as
+I believe, is to be sought in the peculiarities of the French character,
+on which I dwelt, prolixly, I fear, and _ad nauseam_, in my last two
+letters. If you have to deal with a _mobile_, a clever, a versatile,
+an intellectual, a dogmatic nation, inevitably, and by necessary
+consequence, you will have conflicting systems—every man speaking his
+own words, and always giving his own suffrage to what seems good in his
+own eyes—many holding to-day what they will regret to-morrow—a crowd of
+crotchetty theories and a heavy percentage of philosophical nonsense—a
+great opportunity for subtle stratagem and intriguing selfishness—a
+miserable division among the friends of tranquillity, and a great power
+thrown into the hands of those who, though often with the very best
+intentions, are practically, and in matter of fact, opposed both to
+society and civilisation. And, moreover, beside minor inconveniences
+and lesser hardships, you will indisputably have periodically—say three
+or four times in fifty years—a great crisis; the public mind much
+excited, the people in the streets swaying to and fro with the breath of
+every breeze, the discontented _ouvriers_ meeting in a hundred knots,
+discussing their real sufferings and their imagined grievances, with
+lean features and angry gesticulations; the Parliament, all the while in
+permanence, very ably and eloquently expounding the whole subject, one
+man proposing this scheme, and another that; the Opposition expecting to
+oust the Ministers, and ride in on the popular commotion; the Ministers
+fearing to take the odium of severe or adequate repressive measures,
+lest they should lose their salary, their places and their majority:
+finally, a great crash, a disgusted people, overwhelmed by revolutionary
+violence, or seeking a precarious, a pernicious, but after all a precious
+protection from the bayonets of military despotism. Louis Philippe met
+these dangers and difficulties in a thoroughly characteristic manner.
+He bought his majority. Being a practical and not over sentimental
+public functionary, he went into the market and purchased a sufficient
+number of constituencies and members. Of course the _convenances_ were
+carefully preserved; grossness of any kind is too jarring for French
+susceptibility; the purchase money was not mere coin (which indeed the
+buyers had not to offer), but a more gentlemanly commodity—the patronage
+of the Government. The electoral colleges were extremely small, the
+number of public functionaries is enormous; so that a very respectable
+body of electors could always be expected to have, like a four-year
+old barrister (since the County Courts), an immense prejudice for the
+existing Government. One man hoped to be _Maire_, another wanted his
+son got into St. Cyr or the Polytechnic School, and this could be got,
+and was daily got (I am writing what is hardly denied) by voting for
+the Government candidate. In a word, a sufficient proportion of the
+returns of the electoral colleges resembled the returns from Harwich
+or Devonport, only that the Government was the only bidder; for there
+are not, I fancy, in any country but England, people able and willing
+to spend, election after election, great sums of money for procuring
+the honour of a seat in a representative assembly. In fact, to copy the
+well-known phrase, just as in the time of Burke, certain gentlemen had
+the expressive nickname of the King’s friends, so these constituencies
+may aptly be called the King’s constituencies. Of course, on the face of
+it, this system worked, as far as business went, excellently well. For
+eighteen years the tranquillity was maintained. France, it may be, has
+never enjoyed so much calm civilisation, so much private happiness; and
+yet, after all such and so long blessings, it fell in a mere riot—it fell
+unregretted. It is a system which no wise man can wish to see restored;
+it was a system of regulated corruption.
+
+But it does not at all follow, nor I am sure will you be apt so to
+deduce, that because I imagine that France is unfit for a Government
+in which a House of Commons is, as with us, the sovereign power in the
+State, I therefore believe that it is fit for no freedom at all. Our own
+constitutional history is the completest answer to any such idea. For
+centuries, the House of Commons was habitually, we know, but a third-rate
+power in the State. First the Crown, then the House of Lords, enjoyed the
+ordinary and supreme dominion; and down almost to our own times the Crown
+and House of Lords, taken together, were much more than a sufficient
+match for the people’s House; but yet we do not cease to proclaim, daily
+and hourly, in season and out of season, that the English people never
+have been slaves. It may, therefore, well be that our own country having
+been free under a Constitution in which the representative element
+was but third-rate in power and dignity, France and other nations may
+contrive to enjoy the advantage from institutions in which it is only
+second-rate.
+
+Now, of this sort is the Constitution of Louis Napoleon. I am not going
+now, after prefacing so much, to discuss its details; indeed, I do not
+feel competent to do so. What should we say to a Frenchman’s notion of
+a 5_l._ householder, or the fourth and fifth clauses of the New Reform
+Bill? and I quite admit that a paper building of this sort can hardly be
+safely criticised till it is carried out on _terra firma_, till we see
+not only the theoretic ground-plan, but the actual inhabited structure.
+The life of a constitution is in the spirit and disposition of those
+who work it; and we can’t yet say in the least what that, in this case,
+will be; but so far as the constitution shows its meaning on the face
+of it, it clearly belongs to the class which I have named. The _Corps
+Législatif_ is not the administering body, it is not even what perhaps
+it might with advantage have been, a petitioning and remonstrating body;
+but it possesses the Legislative veto, and the power of stopping _en
+masse_ the supplies. It is not a working, a ruling, or an initiative, or
+supremely decisive, but an immense checking power. It will be unable to
+change Ministers, or aggravate the course of revolutions; but it could
+arrest an unpopular war—it could reject an unpopular law—it is, at least
+in theory, a powerful and important drag-chain. Out of the mouths of its
+adversaries this system possesses what I have proved, or conjectured, or
+assumed to be the prime want of the French nation—a strong executive. The
+objection to it is that the objectors find nothing else in it. We confess
+there is no doubt now of a power adequate to repress street-rows and
+revolutions.
+
+At the same time, I guard myself against intimating any opinion on the
+particular minutiæ of this last effort of institutional invention. I do
+not know enough to form a judgment; I sedulously, at present, confine
+myself to this one remark, that the new Government of France belongs,
+in theory at least, to the right class of Constitutions—the class
+that is most exactly suited to French habits, French nature, French
+social advantages, French social dangers—the class I mean, in which the
+representative body has a consultative, a deliberative, a checking and a
+minatory—not as with us a supreme, nearly an omnipotent, and exclusively
+initiatory function.
+
+                             I am, yours, &c.
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+P.S.—You may like five words on a French invasion. I can’t myself
+imagine, and what is more to the point, I do not observe that anybody
+here has any notion of, any such inroad into England as was contemplated
+and proposed by General Changarnier. No one in the actual conduct of
+affairs, with actual responsibility for affairs, not, as the event
+proved, even Ledru Rollin, could, according to me, encounter the risk and
+odium of such a hateful and horribly dangerous attempt. But, I regret
+to add, there is a contingency which sensible people here (so far as I
+have had the means of judging) do not seem to regard as at all beyond the
+limits of rational probability, by which a war between England and France
+would most likely be superinduced; that is, a French invasion of Belgium.
+I do not mean to assure you that this week or next the Prince-President
+will make a razzia in Brussels. But I do mean that it is thought not
+improbable that somehow or other, on some wolf-and-the-lamb pretext,
+he may pick a quarrel with King Leopold, and endeavour to restore to
+the French the ‘natural limit’ of the Rhine. Now, I have never seen the
+terms of the guarantee which the shrewd and cautious Leopold exacted
+from England before he would take the throne of Belgium; but as the
+only real risk was a French aggression upon this tempting territory, I
+do not make any doubt but that the expressions of that instrument bind
+us to go to war in defence of the country whose limits and independence
+we have guaranteed. And in this case, an invasion of England would be
+as admissible a military movement as an invasion of France. I hope,
+therefore, you will use your best rhetoric to induce people to put our
+pleasant country in a state of adequate and tolerable defence.
+
+I see by the invaluable _Galignani_, that some excellent people at
+Manchester are indulging in a little arithmetic. ‘Suppose,’ say they,
+‘all the French got safe, and each took away 50_l._, now how much do you
+fancy it would come to (40,000 men by 50_l._, nought’s nought is nought,
+nought and carry two)—compared to the _existing_ burden of the National
+Debt?’ Was there ever such amiable infatuation! It is not what the French
+could carry off, but what they would leave behind them, which is in the
+reasonable apprehension of reasonable persons. The funds at 50—broken
+banks—the _Gazette_ telling you who had _not_ failed—Downing-street
+_vide_ Wales—destitute families, dishonoured daughters, one-legged
+fathers—the mourning shops utterly sacked—the customers in tears—a
+pale widow in a green bonnet—the Exchange in ruins—five notches on St.
+Paul’s—and a big hole in the Bank of England;—these, though but a few of
+the certain consequences of a French visit to London, are quite enough to
+terrify even an adamantine editor and a rather reckless correspondent.
+
+
+LETTER VI.
+
+_THE FRENCH NEWSPAPER PRESS._
+
+                                                           PARIS: Feb. 10.
+
+SIR,—We learn from an Oriental narrative in considerable circulation,
+that the ancient Athenians were fond of news. Of course they were. It is
+in the nature of a mass of clever and intellectual people living together
+to want something to talk about. Old ideas—common ascertained truths—are
+good things enough to live by, but are very rare, and soon sufficiently
+discussed. Something else—true or false, rational or nonsensical—is quite
+essential; and, therefore, in the old literary world men gathered round
+the travelling sophist, to learn from him some thought, crotchet, or
+speculation. And what the vagabond speculators were once, that, pretty
+exactly, is the newspaper now. To it the people of this intellectual
+capital look for that daily mental bread, which is as essential to them
+as the less ethereal sustenance of ordinary mortals. With the spread
+of education this habit travels downward. Not the literary man only,
+but the _ouvrier_ and the _bourgeois_, live on the same food. This
+day’s _Siècle_ is discussed not only in gorgeous drawing-rooms, but in
+humble reading-rooms, and still humbler workshops. According to the
+printed notions of us journalists, this is a matter of pure rejoicing.
+The influence of the Press, if you believe writers and printers, is
+the one sufficient condition of social well-being. Yet there are many
+considerations which make very much against this idea: I can’t go into
+several of them now, but those that I shall mention are suggested at
+once by matters before me. First, newspaper people are the only traders
+that thrive upon convulsion. In quiet times, who cares for the paper?
+In times of tumult, who does not? Commonly, the _Patrie_ (the _Globe_
+of this country) sells, I think, for three sous: on the evening of the
+_coup d’état_, itinerant ladies were crying under my window, ‘_Demandez
+la_ Patrie—_Journal du soir—trente sous—Journal du soir_;’ and I remember
+witnessing, even in our sober London, in February 1848, how bald fathers
+of families paid large sums, and encountered bare-headed the unknown
+inclemencies of the night air, that they might learn the last news of
+Louis Philippe, and, if possible, be in at the death of the revolutionary
+Parisians. ‘Happy,’ says the sage, ‘are the people whose annals are
+vacant;’ but ‘woe! woe! woe!’ he might add, ‘to the wretched journalists
+that have to compose and sell leading articles therein.’
+
+I am constrained to say that, even in England, this is not without its
+unfavourable influence on literary morals. Take in the _Times_, and you
+will see it assumed that every year ought to be an era. ‘The Government
+does nothing,’ is the indignant cry, and simple people in the country
+don’t know that this is merely a civilised _façon de parler_ for ‘I have
+nothing to say.’ Lord John Russell must alter the suffrage, that we may
+have something pleasant in our columns.
+
+I am afraid matters are worse here. The leading French journalist is,
+as you know, the celebrated Emile de Girardin, and, so far as I can
+learn anything about him, he is one of the most fickle politicians in
+existence. Since I have read the _Presse_ regularly, it has veered from
+every point of the compass well-nigh to every other—now for, now against,
+the revision of the constitution,—now lauding Louis Napoleon to the
+skies—now calling him plain M. Bonaparte, and insinuating that he had
+not two ideas, and was incapable of moral self-government—now connected
+with the Red party, now praising the majority; but all and each of
+these veerings and shiftings determined by one most simple and certain
+principle—to keep up the popular excitement, to maintain the gifted M. de
+Girardin at the head of it. Now a man who spends his life in stimulating
+excitement and convulsion is really a political incendiary; and however
+innocent and laudable his brother exiles may be, the old editor and
+founder of the _Presse_ is, as I believe, now only paying the legitimate
+penalty of systematic political _arson_.
+
+When a foreigner—at least an Englishman—begins to read the French papers,
+his first idea is ‘How well these fellows write! Why, every one of them
+has a style, and a good style too. Really, how clear, how acute, how
+clever, how perspicuous; I wish our journalists would learn to write
+like this;’ but a little experience will modify this idea—at least I
+have found it so. I read for a considerable time these witty periodicals
+with pleasure and admiration; after a little while I felt somehow that
+I took them up with an effort, but I fancied, knowing my disposition,
+that this was laziness; when on a sudden, in the waste of _Galignani_,
+I came across an article of the _Morning Herald_. Now you’ll laugh at
+me, if I tell you it was a real enjoyment. There was no toil, no sharp
+theory, no pointed expression, no fatiguing brilliancy, in fact, what
+the man in Lord Byron desired, ‘no nothing,’ but a dull, creeping,
+satisfactory sensation that now, at least, there was nothing to admire.
+As long walking in picture galleries makes you appreciate a mere wall, so
+I felt that I understood for the first time that really dulness had its
+interest. I found a pure refreshment in coming across what possibly might
+be latent sense, but was certainly superficial stupidity.
+
+I think there is nothing we English hate like a clever but prolonged
+controversy. Now this is the life and soul of the Parisian press.
+Everybody writes against everybody. It is not mere sly hate or solemn
+invective, nothing like what we occasionally indulge in, about the
+misdemeanours of a morning contemporary. But they take the other side’s
+article piece by piece, and comment on him, and, as they say in libel
+cases, _innuendo_ him, and satisfactorily show that, according to his
+arithmetic, two and two make five; useful knowledge that. It is really
+good for us to know that some fellow (you never heard of him) it rather
+seems can’t add up. But it interests people here—_c’est logique_ they
+tell you, and if you are trustful enough to answer ‘_Mon Dieu, c’est
+ennuyeux, je n’en sais rien_,’ they look as if you sneered at the
+Parthenon.
+
+It is out of these controversies that M. de Girardin has attained his
+power and his fame. His articles (according to me, at least) have no
+facts and no sense. He gives one all pure reasoning—little scrappy
+syllogisms; as some one said most unjustly of old Hazlitt, he ‘writes
+pimples.’ But let an unfortunate writer in the _Assemblée Nationale_, or
+anywhere else, make a little refreshing blunder in his logic, and next
+morning small punning sentences (one to each paragraph like an equation)
+come rattling down on him: it is clear as noonday that somebody said
+‘something followed,’ and it does not follow, and it is so agreed in all
+the million _cabinets de lecture_ after due gesticulation; and, moreover,
+that M. de Girardin is the man to expose it, and what clever fellows they
+are to appreciate him; but what the truth is, who cares? The subject is
+forgotten.
+
+Now all this, to my notion, does great harm. Nothing destroys
+common-place like the habit of arguing for arguing’s sake; nothing is
+so bad for public matters as that they should be treated, not as the
+data for the careful formation of a sound judgment, but as a topic or
+background for displaying the shining qualities of public writers. It is
+no light thing this. M. de Girardin for many years has gained more power,
+more reputation, more money than any of his rivals; not because he shows
+more knowledge—he shows much less; not because he has a wiser judgment—he
+has no fixed judgment at all; but because he has a more pointed, sharp
+way of exposing blunders, intrinsically paltry, obvious to all educated
+men; and does not care enough for any subject to be diverted from this
+logical trifling by a serious desire to convince anybody of anything.
+
+Don’t think I wish to be hard on this accomplished gentleman. I am not
+going to require of hack-writers to write only on what they understand—if
+that were the law, what a life for the sub-editor; I should not be
+writing these letters, and how seldom and how timidly would the morning
+journals creep into the world. Nor do I expect, though I may still, in
+sentimental moods, desire, middle-aged journalists to be buoyed up by
+chimerical visions of improving mankind.
+
+You know what our eminent _chef_ (by Thackeray profanely called Jupiter
+Jeames) has been heard to say over his gin and water, in an easy and
+voluptuous moment: ‘Enlightenment be ——, I want the fat fool of a
+thick-headed reader to say, “Just _my own_ views,” else he ain’t pleased,
+and may be he stops the paper.’ I am not going to require supernatural
+excellence from writers. Yet there are limits. If I were a chemist, I
+should not mind, I suppose, selling now and then, a deleterious drug on
+a due affidavit of rats, then and there filed before me; yet I don’t
+feel as if I could live comfortably on the sale of mere arsenic. I fancy
+I should like to sell something wholesome occasionally. So, though one
+might, upon occasion, egg on a riot, or excite to a breach of the peace,
+I should not like to be every day feeding on revolutionary excitement.
+Nor should I like to be exclusively selling diminutive, acute, quibbling
+leaders (what they call in the Temple special demurrers), certain to
+occupy people with small fallacies, and lead away their minds from the
+great questions actually at issue.
+
+Sometimes I might like to feel as if I understood what I wrote on, but
+of course with me this indulgence must be very rare. You know in France
+journalism is not only an occupation, it is a career. As in far-off
+Newcastle a coalfitter’s son looks wistfully to the bar, in the notion
+that he too may emulate the fame and fortune of Lord Eldon or Lord
+Stowell, so in fair Provence, a pale young aspirant packs up his little
+bundle in the hope of rivalling the luck and fame of M. Thiers; he comes
+to Paris—he begins, like the great historian, by dining for thirty sous
+in the Palais Royal, in the hope that after long years of labour and
+jealousy he, too, may end by sleeping amid curtains of white muslin lined
+with pink damask. Just consider for a moment what a difference this one
+fact shows between France and England. Here a man who begins life by
+writing in the newspapers, has an appreciable chance of arriving to be
+Minister of Foreign Affairs. The class of public writers is the class
+from which the equivalent of Lord Aberdeen, Lord Palmerston, or Lord
+Granville will most likely be chosen. Well, well, under that _régime_
+you and I might have been important people; we might have handled a red
+box, we might have known what it was to have a reception, to dine with
+the Queen, to be respectfully mystified by the _corps diplomatique_. But
+angry Jove forbade—of course we can hardly deny that he was wrong,—and
+yet if the revolutions of 1848 have clearly brought out any fact, it
+is the utter failure of newspaper statesmen. Everywhere they have been
+tried: everywhere they have shown great talents for intrigue, eloquence,
+and agitation—how rarely have they shown even fair aptitude for ordinary
+administration; how frequently have they gained a disreputable renown by
+a laxity of principle surpassing the laxity of their aristocratic and
+courtly adversaries! Such being my imperfect account of my imperfect
+notions of the French press, I can’t altogether sympathise in the extreme
+despondency of many excellent persons at its temporary silence since the
+_coup d’état_. I might even rejoice at it, if I thought that the Parisian
+public could in any manner be broken of their dependence on the morning’s
+article. But I have no such hope; the taste has got down too deep into
+the habits of the people; some new thing will still be necessary; and
+every Government will find some of its most formidable difficulties in
+their taste for political disputation and controversial excitement. The
+ban must sooner or later be taken off; the President sooner or later
+must submit to censure and ridicule, and whatever laws he may propose
+about the press, there is none which scores of ingenious men—now animated
+by the keenest hatred, will not try every hazard to evade. What he
+may do to avoid this is as yet unknown. One thing, however, I suppose
+is pretty sure, and I fancy quite wise. The press will be restrained
+from discussing the principles of the Government. Socialists will not
+be allowed to advocate a Democratic Republic. Legitimists will not be
+allowed to advocate the cause of Henri Cinq, nor Orleanists the cause of
+the Comte de Paris. Such indulgence might be tolerable in more temperate
+countries, but experience shows that it is not safe now and here.
+
+A really sensible press, arguing temperately after a clear and
+satisfactory exposition of the facts, is a great blessing in any country.
+It would be still more a blessing in a country where, as I tried to
+explain formerly, the representative element must play (if the public
+security is to be maintained) a rather secondary part. It would then be
+a real stimulus to deliberate inquiry and rational judgment upon public
+affairs; to the formation of common-sense views upon the great outlines
+of public business; to the cultivation of sound moral opinions and
+convictions on the internal and international duties of the State. Even
+the actual press which we may expect to see here, may not be pernicious.
+It will doubtless stimulate to many factious proceedings, and many
+interruptions of the public prosperity; it may very likely conduce to
+drive the President (contrary, if not to his inclination, at least
+to his personal interest) into foreign hostilities and international
+aggression; but it may be, notwithstanding, useful in preventing private
+tyranny, in exposing wanton oppression, in checking long suffering
+revenge; it may prevent acts of spoliation like what they call here _le
+premier vol de l’aigle_—the seizure of the Orleans property;—in a word,
+being certain to oppose the executive, where the latter is unjust its
+enemy will be just.
+
+I had hopes that this letter would be the last with which I should tease
+you; but I find I must ask you to be so kind as to find room for one, and
+only for one more.
+
+                             I am, yours, &c.,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+_CONCLUDING LETTER._
+
+                                                     PARIS: Feb. 19, 1852.
+
+SIR,—There is a story of some Swedish Abbé, in the last century, who
+wrote an elaborate work to prove the then constitution of his country to
+be immortal and indestructible. While he was correcting the proof sheets,
+a friend brought him word that—behold! the King had already destroyed
+the said polity. ‘Sir,’ replied the gratified author, ‘our Sovereign,
+the illustrious Gustavus, may certainly overthrow the Constitution, but
+never _my book_.’ I beg to parody this sensible remark; for I wish to
+observe to you, that even though Louis Napoleon should turn out a bad and
+mischievous ruler, he won’t in the least refute these letters.
+
+What I mean is as follows. Above all things, I have designed to prove to
+you that the French are by character unfit for a solely and predominantly
+Parliamentary government; that so many and so great elements of
+convulsion exist here, that it will be clearly necessary that a strong,
+vigorous, anti-barricade executive should, at whatever risk and cost,
+be established and maintained; that such an Assembly as the last is
+irreconcileable with this; in a word, that riots and revolutions must, if
+possible, come to an end, and only such a degree of liberty and democracy
+be granted to the French nation, as is consistent with the consolidated
+existence of the order and tranquillity which are equally essential to
+rational freedom and civilised society.
+
+In order to combine the maintenance of order and tranquillity with
+the maximum of possible liberty, I hope that it may in the end be
+found possible to admit into a political system a representative and
+sufficiently democratic Assembly, without that Assembly assuming and
+arrogating to itself those nearly omnipotent powers, which in our country
+it properly and rightfully possesses, but which in the history of the
+last sixty years, we have, as it seems to me, so many and so cogent
+illustrations that a French Chamber is, by genius and constitution,
+radically incapable to hold and exercise. I hope that some checking,
+Consultative, petitioning Assembly—some βουλή, in the real sense of the
+term,—some _Council_, some provision by which all grave and deliberate
+public opinion (I do not speak more definitely, because an elaborate
+Constitution, from a foreigner, must be an absurdity) may organise and
+express itself—yet at the same time, without utterly hampering and
+directing—and directing amiss—those more simple elements of national
+polity on which we must, after all, rely for the prompt and steady
+repression of barricade-making and bloodshed.
+
+I earnestly desire to believe that some such system as this may be found
+in practice possible; for otherwise, unless I quite misread history, and
+altogether mistake what is under my eyes, after many more calamities,
+many more changes, many more great Assemblies abounding in Vergniauds
+and Berryers, the essential deficiencies of debating Girondin statesmen
+will become manifest, the uncompact, unpractical, over volatile, over
+logical, indecisive, ineffectual rule of Gallican Parliaments will be
+unequivocally manifest (it is _now_ plain, I imagine, but a truth so
+humiliating must be written large in letters of blood before those that
+run will read it), and no medium being held or conceived to be possible,
+the nation will sink back, not contented but discontented, not trustfully
+but distrustfully, under the rule of a military despot; and if they yield
+to this, it will be from no faith, no loyalty, no credulity; it will be
+from a sense—a hated sense—of unqualified failure, a miserable scepticism
+in the probable success and the possible advantages of long-tried and
+ill-tried rebellion.
+
+Now, whether the Constitution of Louis Napoleon is calculated to realise
+this ideal and intermediate system, is, till we see it at work, doubtful
+and disputable. It is not the question so much of what it may be at
+this moment, as of what it may become in a brief period, when things
+have begun to assume a more normal state, and the public mind shall be
+relaxed from its present and painful tension. However, I should be
+deceiving you, if I did not inform you that the state of men’s minds
+towards the Prince-President is not, so far as I can make it out, what
+it was the day after the _coup d’état_. The measures taken against
+the Socialists are felt to have been several degrees too severe, the
+list of exiles too numerous; the confiscation of the Orleans’ property
+could not but be attended with the worst effect: the law announced
+by the Government organs respecting or rather against the Press, is
+justly (though you know from my last letter I have no partiality for
+French newspapers) considered to be absurdly severe, and likely to
+countenance much tyranny and gross injustice; above all, instead of
+maintaining mere calm and order, the excessive rigour, and sometimes
+the injustice, of the President’s measures, have produced a breathless
+pause (if I may so speak) in public opinion; political conversation is
+a whispered question, what will he do next? Firstly, the Government is
+dull, and the French want to be amused; secondly, it is going to spoil
+the journals (depreciate newspapers to a Frenchman, disparage nuts to
+a monkey); thirdly, it is producing (I do not say it has yet produced,
+but it has made a beginning in producing) a habit of apprehension;—in
+fact, I believe the French opinion of the Prince-President is near about
+that of the interesting damsel in George Sand’s comedy, concerning her
+uninteresting _prétendu_: ‘_Vous l’aimez? n’est-ce pas?’ ‘Oui, oui,
+oui, certainement je l’aime. Oui, oui, mille fois, oui, Je dis que oui.
+Je vous assure. AU MOINS je fais mon possible à l’aimer_:’ the first
+attachment is not extinct, but people have begun—awful symptom—to add
+the withering and final saving clause. Yet it is, I imagine, a great
+mistake to suppose that the present Constitution, if it work at all, will
+permanently work as a despotism, or that the _Corps Législatif_ will be
+without a measure of popular influence; the much more helpless _Tribunal_
+was not so in the much more troublesome times of the Consulate. And
+the source of such influence and the manner of its operation may be, I
+imagine, well enough traced in the nature of the forces whereby Louis
+Napoleon holds his power.
+
+A truly estimable writer says, I know, ‘that the Legislative body cannot
+have, by possibility, any analogy with the consultative and petitioning
+senate of the Plantagenets,’ nor can any one deny that the likeness
+is extremely faint (no illustration ever yet ran on all fours), the
+practical differences clear and convincing. But yet, according to the
+light which is given me now, I affirm that for one vital purpose,—the
+resisting and criticising any highly unpopular acts of a highly unpopular
+Government,—the _Corps Législatif_ of Louis Napoleon must, and will,
+inevitably possess a power compared with which the forty-day followers
+of the feudal _noblesse_ seem as impotent as a congregation of Quakers;
+a force the peculiarity of which is that you can’t imprison, can’t
+dissolve, can’t annihilate it—I mean, of course, the moral power of
+civilised opinion. You may put down newspapers, dissolve Parliaments,
+imprison agitators, almost stop conversation, but you can’t stop thought.
+You can’t prevent the silent, slow, creeping, stealthy progress of
+hatred, and scorn, and shame. You can’t attenuate easily the stern
+justice of a retarded retaliation. These influences affect the great
+reservoir of physical force—they act on the army. A body of men enlisted
+daily from the people take to the barracks the notions of the people; in
+spite of new associations, the first impressions are apt to be retained;
+you overlay them, but they remain. What is believed elsewhere and out of
+doors gives them weight. Each soldier has relations, friends, a family—he
+knows what they think. Much more with the officers. These are men moving
+in Parisian society, accessible to its influences, responsible to its
+opinion, apt to imbibe its sentiments. Certainly _esprit de corps_—the
+habit of obedience, the instinct of discipline, are strong, and will
+carry men far; but certainly, also, they have natural limits. Men won’t
+stand being cut, being ridiculed, being detested, being despised, daily
+and for ever, and that for measures which their own understandings
+disapprove of. Remember there is not here any question of barbarous
+bands overawing a civilised and imperial city; no question of ugly
+Croats keeping down cultivated Italians; it is but a question of French
+gentlemen and French peasantry in uniform acting in opposition to other
+French gentlemen and other French peasants without uniform. Already
+there has been talk (I do not say well-founded, but still the matter
+was named) of breaking two or three hundred officers, for speaking
+against the Orleans decrees. Do you fancy that can be done every day?
+Do you imagine that a Parliament, whatever its nominal functions may be
+(remember those of the old _régime_), speaking the sense of the people
+about the question of the day, in a time of convulsion, and in a critical
+hour, would not be attended to, or at any rate thought of and considered,
+by an army taken from the people—commanded by men selected from and
+every day mixing with common society and very ordinary mankind. The 2nd
+of December showed how readily such troops will support a decided and
+popular President against an intriguing, divided, impotent Chamber. But
+such hard blows won’t bear repetition. Soldiers—French soldiers, I take
+it especially, from their quickness and intelligence, are neither deaf
+nor blind. If there be truth in history or speculation, national forces
+can’t long be used against the nation: they are unmerciful, and often
+cruel to feeble minorities; they are ready now for a terrible onslaught
+on mere Socialists, just as of old they turned out cheerfully for awful
+dragonnades on the ill-starred Protestants; but once let them know and
+feel that everybody is against them—that they are alone, that their acts
+are contemned and their persons despised,—and gradually, or all at once,
+discipline and habit surely fail, men murmur or desert, officers hesitate
+or disobey, one regiment is dismissed to the Cabyles, another relegated
+to rural solitudes; at last, most likely in the decisive moment of the
+whole history, the rulers, who relied only on their troops, are afraid to
+call them out; they hesitate, send spies and commissioners to inquire.
+‘_Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!_’—the black and roaring multitude
+rises and comes on; but two seconds, and the obnoxious institutions are
+lost in the flood; nothing is heard but the cry of the hour, sounding
+shrill and angry over the waste of Revolution—‘_Vive le Diable!_’ With
+such a force behind them, a French Parliament, of whatever nature, with
+whatever written duties, is, if at the head of the movement, in the
+critical hour, apt to be stronger than the strongest of the Barons.
+
+Nor do I concur with those who censure the President for ‘recommending’
+avowedly the candidates he approves. It is a part of the great question,
+How is universal suffrage to be worked successfully in such a country as
+France? The peasant proprietors have but one political idea that they
+wish the Prince to govern them;—they wish to vote for the candidate most
+acceptable to him, and they wish nothing else. Why is he wrong in telling
+them which candidate that is?
+
+Still, no doubt, the reins are now strained a great deal too tight. It
+is possible, quite possible, that a majority in this Parliament may
+be packed, but what I would impress on you is that it can’t always be
+packed. Sooner or later constituencies who wish to oppose the Government
+will, in spite of _maires_ and _préfets_, elect the opposition candidate:
+it is in the nature of any, even the least vigorous system of popular
+election, to struggle forwards and progressively attain to some fair and
+reasonable correspondence with the substantial views and opinions of the
+constituent people.
+
+I therefore fall back on what I told you before—my essential view or
+crotchet about the mental aptitudes and deficiencies of the French
+people. The French, said Napoleon, are _des machines nerveuses_.
+
+The point is, can their excitable, volatile, superficial, over-logical,
+uncompromising character be managed and manipulated as to fit them
+for entering on a practically uncontrolled system of Parliamentary
+Government? Will not any large and omnipotent Assembly resemble the
+stormy Constituent and the late Chamber, rather than the business-like,
+formal, ennui-diffusing Parliament to which in our free and dull country
+we are felicitously accustomed? Can one be so improved as to keep
+down a riot? I foresee a single and but a single objection. I fancy,
+indeed I know, that there is a school of political thinkers not yet
+in possession of any great influence, but, perhaps, a little on the
+way thereto, which has improved or invented a capital panacea, whereby
+all nations are, within very moderate limits of time, to be surely and
+certainly fitted for political freedom; and that no matter how formed—how
+seemingly stable—how long ago cast and constructed, be the type of
+popular character to which the said remedy is sought to be applied. This
+panacea is the foundation or restoration of provincial municipalities.
+Now, I am myself prepared to go a considerable length with the school
+in question. I do myself think, that a due and regular consideration of
+the knotty points of paving and lighting, and the deciding in the last
+resort upon them, is a valuable discipline of national character. It
+exercises people’s minds on points they know, in things of which there
+is a test. Very few people are good judges of a good Constitution; but
+everybody’s eyes are excellent judges of good light; every man’s feet
+are profound in the theory of agreeable stones. Yet I can’t altogether
+admit, nevertheless, that municipalities are the sufficient and sole,
+though they may be very likely an essential prerequisite of political
+freedom. There is the great instance of Hindostan to the contrary.
+The whole old and national system of that remarkable country—a system
+in all probability as ancient as the era of Alexander, is a village
+system; and one so curious, elaborate, I fancy I might say so profound,
+that the best European observers—Sir Thomas Munro, and that sort of
+people—are most strenuous for its being retained unimpaired. According
+to them, the village hardly heard of the Imperial Government, except
+for the purpose of Imperial taxation. The business of life through
+that whole vast territory has always been practically determined by
+potails and parish-vestries, and yet nevertheless and in spite of this
+capital and immemorial municipal system, our subjects, the Hindoos,
+are still slaves and still likely to be slaves; still essentially
+slavish, and likely, I much fear, very long indeed to remain so. It is
+therefore quite certain that rural and provincial institutions won’t
+so alter and adapt all national characters, as to fit all nations for
+a Parliamentary Constitution; consequently, the _onus probandi_ is on
+those who assert that it will so alter and mould the French. Again, I
+assure you that the French do think of paving and lighting; not enough,
+perhaps, but still they have begun. The country is, as you know, divided
+into departments, arrondissements, and communes; in each of these there
+is a council, variously elected, but, in all cases, popularly and from
+the district, which has the sole control over the expenditure of the
+particular locality for every special and local purpose, and which, if
+I am rightly informed, has, in theory at least, the sole initiative in
+every local improvement. The defect, I fancy, is that in the exercise
+of these, considerable bodies are hampered and controlled by the veto
+and supervision of the central authority. The rural councils discuss
+and decide what in their judgment should be then done and what money
+should be so spent; the better sort of the agricultural population have
+much more voice in the latter than have the corresponding class in
+England, in the determination and imposition of our own county rate; but
+it is the central authority which decides whether such proposals and
+recommendations shall in fact be carried out. In a word, the provinces
+have to _ask leave_ of the Parisian Ministry of the Interior. Now I
+admit this is an abuse. I should maintain that elderly gentlemen with
+bald heads and local influence ought to feel that they, in the final
+resort, settle and determine all truly local matters. Human nature
+likes its own road, its own bridge, its own lapidary obstacles, its own
+deceptive luminosity. But I ask again, can you fancy that these luxuries,
+to whatever degree indulged in, alter and modify in any essential
+particular, the levity and volatility of the French character? How much
+light to how much logic? How many paving stones to how much mobility? I
+can’t foresee any such change. And even if so, what in the meantime?
+
+We are left then, I think, to deal with the French character pretty much
+as we find it. What stealthy, secret, unknown, excellent forces may,
+in the wisdom of Providence, be even now modifying this most curious
+intellectual fabric, neither you nor I can know or tell. Let us hope
+they may be many. But if we indulge, and from the immense records of
+revolutionary history, I think, with due distrust, we may legitimately
+and even beneficially indulge, in system-building and speculation, we
+must take the _data_ which we have, and not those which we desire or
+imagine. Louis Napoleon has proposed a system: English writers by the
+thousand (if I was in harness instead of holiday-making I should be most
+likely among them) proclaim his system an evil one. What then? Do you
+know what Father Newman says to the religious reformers, rather sharply,
+but still well, ‘Make out first of all where you stand—draw up your
+creed—write down your catechism.’ So I answer to the English eloquence,
+‘State first of all what you would have—draw up your novel system for
+the French Government—write down your political Constitution.’ Don’t
+criticise but produce; do not find fault but propose—and when you have
+proposed upon theory and have created upon paper, let us see whether the
+system be such a one as will work, in fact, and be accepted by a wilful
+nation in reality—otherwise your work is nought.
+
+And mind, too, that the system to be sketched out must be fit to protect
+the hearths and homes of men. It is easy to compose polities if you do
+but neglect this one essential condition. Four years ago, Europe was in
+a ferment with the newest ideas, the best theories, the most elaborate,
+the most artistic Constitutions. There was the labour, and toil, and
+trouble, of a million intellects, as good, taken on the whole, perhaps,
+as the world is likely to see,—of old statesmen, and literary gentlemen,
+and youthful enthusiasts, all over Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the
+Mediterranean, from the frontiers of Russia to the Atlantic Ocean. Well,
+what have we gained? A Parliament in Sardinia! Surely this is a lesson
+against proposing politics which won’t work, convening assemblies that
+can’t legislate, constructing executives that aren’t able to keep the
+peace, founding Constitutions inaugurated with tears and eloquence, soon
+abandoned with tears and shame; beginning a course of fair auguries and
+liberal hopes, but one from whose real dangers and actual sufferings a
+frightened and terrified people, in the end, flee for a temporary, or may
+be a permanent, refuge under a military and absolute ruler.
+
+Mazzini sneers at the selfishness of shopkeepers—I am for the shopkeepers
+against him. There are people who think because they are Republican there
+shall be no more ‘cakes and ale.’ Aye, verily, but there will though; or
+else stiffish ginger will be hot in the mouth. Legislative Assemblies,
+leading articles, essay eloquence—such are good—very good,—useful—very
+useful. Yet they can be done without. We can want them. Not so with all
+things. The selling of figs, the cobbling of shoes, the manufacturing
+of nails,—these are the essence of life. And let whoso frameth a
+Constitution of his country think on these things.
+
+I conclude, as I ought, with my best thanks for the insertion of these
+letters; otherwise I was so full of the subject that I might have
+committed what Disraeli calls ‘the extreme act of human fatuity,’ I might
+have published a pamphlet: from this your kindness has preserved me, and
+I am proportionally grateful.
+
+                               I am, yours,
+
+                                                                   AMICUS.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+_CÆSARISM AS IT EXISTED IN 1865._
+
+    [Lest the preceding letters should be supposed to express Mr.
+    Bagehot’s complete and final judgment on the character of the
+    imperial _régime_ of Louis Napoleon, it has been thought well
+    to publish a paper which he contributed to the _Economist_
+    after a visit to France in 1865, of a nature to correct the
+    misapprehensions to which the somewhat youthful essays which
+    precede might give rise. It appeared soon after the publication
+    of the Emperor’s Life of Julius Cæsar.]
+
+
+That the French Emperor should have spare leisure and unoccupied
+reflection to write a biography, is astonishing, but if he wished to
+write a biography, his choice of a subject is very natural. Julius
+Cæsar was the first who tried on an imperial scale the characteristic
+principles of the French Empire,—as the first Napoleon revived them,
+as the third Napoleon has consolidated them. The notion of a demagogue
+ruler, both of a fighting demagogue and a talking demagogue, was indeed
+familiar to the Greek Republics; but their size was small, and their
+history unemphatic. On the big page of universal history, Julius Cæsar is
+the first instance of a democratic despot. He overthrew an aristocracy—a
+corrupt, and perhaps effete aristocracy, it is true, but still an
+aristocracy—by the help of the people, of the unorganised people. He said
+to the numerical majority of Roman citizens, ‘I am your advocate and
+your leader: make me supreme, and I will govern for your good, and in
+your name.’ This is exactly the principle of the French Empire. No one
+will ever make an approach to understanding it, who does not separate it
+altogether, and on principle, from the despotisms of feudal origin and
+legitimate pretensions. The old Monarchies claim the obedience of the
+people upon grounds of duty. They say they have consecrated claims to
+the loyalty of mankind. They appeal to conscience, even to religion. But
+Louis Napoleon is a Benthamite despot. He is for the ‘greatest happiness
+of the greatest number.’ He says, ‘I am where I am, because I know better
+than any one else what is good for the French people, and they know that
+I know better.’ He is not the Lord’s anointed; he is the people’s agent.
+
+We cannot here discuss what the effect of this system was in ancient
+times. These columns are not the best place for an historical
+dissertation; but we may set down very briefly the results of some close
+and recent observation of the system as it now exists, as it is at work
+in France. Part of its effects are well understood in England, but a part
+of them are, we think, but mistily seen and imperfectly apprehended.
+
+In the first place, the French Empire is really the _best finished_
+democracy which the world has ever seen. What the many at the moment
+desire is embodied with a readiness, and efficiency, and a completeness
+which has no parallel, either in past history or present experience. An
+absolute Government with a popular instinct has the unimpeded command
+of a people renowned for orderly dexterity. A Frenchman will have
+arranged an administrative organisation really and effectually, while an
+Englishman is still bungling, and a German still reflecting. An American
+is certainly as rapid, and in some measure as efficient, but his speed
+is a little head-long, and his execution is very rough; he tumbles
+through much, but he only tumbles. A Frenchman will not hurry; he has a
+deliberate perfection in detail, which may always be relied on, for it
+is never delayed. The French Emperor knows well how to use these powers.
+His bureaucracy is not only endurable, but pleasant. An idle man who
+wants his politics done for him, has them done for him. The welfare of
+the masses—the present good of the present multitude—is felt to be the
+object of the Government and the law of the polity. The Empire gives to
+the French the full gratification of their main wishes, and the almost
+artistic culture of an admirable workmanship, of an administration
+finished as only Frenchmen can finish it, and as it never was finished
+before.
+
+It belongs to such a Government to care much for material prosperity, and
+it does care. It makes the people as comfortable as they will permit.
+If they are not more comfortable, it is their own fault. The Government
+would give them free trade, and consequent diffused comfort, if it could.
+No former French Government has done as much for free trade as this
+Government. No Government has striven to promote railways, and roads, and
+industry, like this Government. France is much changed in twelve years.
+Not exactly by the mere merit of the Empire, for it entered into a great
+inheritance; it succeeded to the silent work of the free monarchy which
+revolution had destroyed and impeded. There were fruitful and vigorous
+germs of improvement ready to be elicited—ready to start forth—but under
+an unintelligent Government they would not have started forth; they would
+have lain idle and dead, but under the adroit culture of the present
+Government, they have grown so as to amaze Europe and France itself.
+
+If, indeed, as is often laid down, the _present happiness_ of the
+greatest number was the characteristic object of the Government, it would
+be difficult to make out that any probable French Government would be
+better, or indeed nearly so good, as the present. The intelligence of the
+Emperor on economical subjects—on the bread and meat of the people—is
+really better than that of the classes opposed to him. He gives the
+present race of Frenchmen more that is good than any one else would give
+them, and he gives it them in their own name. They have as much as they
+like of all that is good for them. But if not the present happiness of
+the greatest number, but _their future elevation_, be, as it is, the true
+aim and end of Government, our estimate of the Empire will be strangely
+altered. It is an admirable Government for present and coarse purposes,
+but a detestable Government for future and refined purposes.
+
+In the first place, it stops the _teaching apparatus_, it stops the
+effectual inculcation of important thought upon the mass of mankind. All
+other mental effort but this, the Empire not only permits but encourages.
+The high intellect of Paris is as active, as well represented, as that
+of London, and it is even more keen. Intellect still gives there, and
+has always given, a distinctive position. To be a _Membre de l’Institut_
+is a recognised place in France; but in London, it is an ambiguous
+distinction to be a ‘clever fellow.’ The higher kinds of thought are
+better discussed in Parisian society than in London society, and better
+argued in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ than in any English periodical.
+The speculative thought of France has not been killed by the Empire; it
+is as quick, as rigorous, as keen as ever. But though still alive, it is
+no longer powerful; it cannot teach the mass. The _Revue_ is permitted,
+but newspapers—effectual newspapers—are forbidden. A real course of free
+lectures on popular subjects would be impossible in Paris. _Agitation_ is
+forbidden, and it is agitation, and agitation alone, which teaches. The
+crude mass of men bear easily philosophical treatises, refined articles,
+elegant literature; there are but two instruments penetrative enough to
+reach their opaque minds—the newspaper article and the popular speech,
+and both of these are forbidden.
+
+In London the reverse is true. We may say that only the loudest sort of
+expression is permitted to attain its due effect. The popular organs of
+literature so fill men’s minds with incomplete thoughts, that deliberate
+treatment, that careful inquiry, that quiet thought have no hearing.
+People are so deafened with the loud reiteration of many half truths,
+that they have neither curiosity nor energy for elaborate investigation.
+The very word ‘elaborate’ is become a reproach: elaboration produces
+something which the mass of men do not like, because it is above
+them,—which is tiresome, because it needs industry,—difficult, because
+it wants attention,—complicated, because it is true. On the whole,
+perhaps, English thought has rarely been so unfinished, so piecemeal,
+so _ragged_ as it is now. We have so many little discussions, that we
+get no full discussion; we eat so many sandwiches, that we spoil our
+dinner. And on the Continent, accordingly, the speculative thought of
+England is despised. It is believed to be meagre, uncultivated, and
+immature. We have only a single compensation. Our thought may be poor
+and rough and fragmentary, but it is effectual. With our newspapers and
+our speeches—with our clamorous multitudes of indifferent tongues—we
+beat the ideas of the few into the minds of the many. The head of France
+is a better head than ours, but it does not move her limbs. The head of
+England is in comparison a coarse and crude thing, but rules her various
+frame and regulates her whole life.
+
+France, _as it is_, may be happier because of the Empire, but France
+_in the future_ will be more ignorant because of the Empire. The daily
+play of the higher mind upon the lower mind is arrested. The present
+Government has given an instalment of free trade, but it could not endure
+an agitation for free trade. A democratic despotism is like a theocracy;
+it assumes its own correctness. It says, ‘I am the representative of the
+people; I am here because I know what they wish, because I know what they
+should have.’ As Cavaignac once said, ‘A Government which permits its
+principles to be questioned is a lost Government.’ All popular discussion
+whatever which aspires to teach the Government is radically at issue with
+the hypothesis of the Empire. It says that the Cæsar, the omniscient
+representative, is a mistaken representative, that he is not fit to be
+Cæsar.
+
+The deterioration of the future is one inseparable defect of the
+imperial organisation, but it is not the only one,—for the moment, it
+is not the greatest. The greatest is the corruption of the present. A
+greater burden is imposed by it upon human nature than human nature
+will bear. Everything requires the support, aid, countenance of the
+central Government, and yet that Government is expected to keep itself
+pure. Concessions of railways, concessions of the privilege of limited
+liability,—on a hundred subjects, legal permission, administrative help,
+are necessary to money-making. You concentrate upon a small body of
+leading official men the power of making men’s fortunes, and it is simple
+to believe they will not make their own fortunes. The very principle
+of the system is to concentrate power, and power is money. Sir Robert
+Walpole used to say, ‘No honest man could be a “Minister;”’ and in France
+the temptations would conquer all men’s honesty. The system requires
+angels to work it, and perhaps it has not been so fortunate as to find
+angels. The nod of a minister on the Bourse is a fortune, and somehow or
+other ministers make fortunes. The Bourse of Paris is still so small,
+that a leading capitalist may produce a great impression on it, and a
+leading capitalist working with a great minister, a vast impression.
+Accordingly, all that goes with sudden wealth; all that follows from
+the misuse of the two temptations of civilisation, money and women, is
+concentrated round the Imperial court. The Emperor would cure much of it
+if he could, but what can he do? They say he has said that he will not
+change his men. He will not substitute fleas that are hungry for fleas
+which at least are partially satisfied. He is right. The defect belongs
+to the system, to these men; an enormous concentration of power in an
+industrial system ensures an accumulation of pecuniary temptation.
+
+These are the two main disadvantages which France suffers from her
+present Government; the greater part of the price which she has to pay
+for her present happiness. She endures the daily presence of an efficient
+immorality; she sacrifices the educating apparatus which would elevate
+Frenchmen yet to be born. But these two disadvantages are not the only
+ones.
+
+France gains the material present, but she does not gain the material
+future. All that secures present industry, her Government confers; in
+whatever needs confidence in the future she is powerless. _Credit_ in
+France, to an Englishman’s eye, has almost to be created. The _country_
+deposits in the Bank of France are only 1,000,000_l._ sterling; that bank
+has fifty-nine branches, is immeasurably the greatest country bank in
+France. All discussions on the currency come back to the _cours forcé_,
+to the inevitable necessity of making inconvertible notes an irrefusable
+tender during a revolution. If you propose the simplest operations of
+credit to a French banker, he says, ‘You do not remember 1848; I do.’
+And what is the answer? The present Government avowedly depends on, is
+ostentatiously concentrated in, the existing Cæsar. Its existence depends
+on the permanent occupation of the Tuileries by an extraordinary man.
+The democratic despot—the representative despot—must have the sagacity
+to divine the people’s will and the sagacity to execute it. What is the
+likelihood that these will be hereditary? Can they be expected in the
+next heirs—a child for Emperor, and a woman for Regent? The present
+happiness of France is happiness on a short life-lease; it may end with
+the life of a man who is not young, who has not spared himself, who has
+always thought, who has always _lived_.
+
+Such are the characteristics of the Empire as it is. Such is the nature
+of Cæsar’s Government as we know it at the present. We scarcely expect
+that even the singular ability of Napoleon III. will be able to modify,
+by an historical retrospect, the painful impressions left by actual
+contact with a living reality.[34]
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+_MEMOIR OF THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WILSON._[35]
+
+
+Perhaps some of the subscribers to the _Economist_ would not be unwilling
+to read a brief memoir of Mr. Wilson, even if the events narrated were in
+no respect peculiar. They might possibly be interested in the biography
+of an author of whose writings they have read so many, even if the
+narrative related no marked transitions and no characteristic events.
+But there were in Mr. Wilson’s life several striking changes. The scene
+shifts from the manufactory of a small Scotch hatter in a small Scotch
+town, to London—to the Imperial Parliament—to the English Treasury—to the
+Council Board of India. Such a biography may be fairly expected to have
+some interest. The life perhaps of no _Political Economist_ has been more
+eventful.
+
+James Wilson was born at Hawick, in Roxburghshire, on June 3, 1805.
+His father, of whose memory he always spoke with marked respect, was a
+thriving man of business, extensively engaged in the woollen manufacture
+of that place. He was the fourth son in a family of fifteen children, of
+whom, however, only ten reached maturity. Of his mother, who died when he
+was very young, he scarcely retained any remembrance in after life. As to
+his early years little is now recollected, except that he was a very mild
+and serious boy, usually successful during school hours, but not usually
+successful in the play-ground.
+
+As Mr. Wilson’s father was an influential Quaker, he was sent when ten
+years old to a Quaker school at Ackworth, where he continued for four
+years. At that time—it may surprise some of those who knew him in later
+life to be told—he was so extremely fond of books as to wish to be a
+teacher; and as his father allowed his sons to choose their line in life,
+he was sent to a seminary at Earl’s Colne in Essex, to qualify himself
+for that occupation. But the taste did not last long. As we might expect,
+the natural activity of his disposition soon induced him to regret his
+choice of a sedentary life. He wrote to Hawick, ‘I would rather be the
+most menial servant in my father’s mill than be a teacher;’ and he was
+permitted to return home at once.
+
+Many years later he often narrated that, after leaving Earlscome, he had
+much wished to study for the Scottish bar, but the rules of the Society
+of Friends, as then understood, would not allow his father to consent
+to the plan. He was sometimes inclined half to regret that he had not
+been able to indulge this taste, and he was much pleased at being told
+by a great living advocate that ‘if he had gone to the bar he would
+have been very successful.’ But at the time there was no alternative,
+and at sixteen he accordingly commenced a life of business. He did not,
+however, lose at once his studious predilections. For some years at least
+he was in the habit of reading a good deal, very often till late in the
+night. It was indeed then that he acquired almost all the knowledge of
+books which he ever possessed. In later life he was much too busy to be
+a regular reader, and he never acquired the habit of catching easily
+the contents of books or even of articles in the interstices of other
+occupations. Whatever he did, he did thoroughly. He would not read even
+an article in a newspaper if he could well help doing so; but if he read
+it at all, it was with as much slow, deliberate attention as if he were
+perusing a Treasury minute.
+
+At the early age we have mentioned he commenced his business life by
+being apprenticed to a small hat manufacturer at Hawick; and it is still
+remembered that he showed remarkable care and diligence in mastering all
+the minutiæ of the trade. There was, indeed, nothing of the _amateur_ man
+of business about him at any time. After a brief interval, his father
+purchased his master’s business for him and for an elder brother, named
+William, and the two brothers in conjunction continued to carry it on
+at Hawick during two or three years with much energy. So small a town,
+however, as Hawick then was, afforded no scope for enterprise in this
+branch of manufacture, and they resolved to transfer themselves to London.
+
+Accordingly, in 1824, Mr. Wilson commenced a mercantile life in London
+(the name of the firm being Wilson, Irwin, & Wilson), and was very
+prosperous and successful for many years. His pecuniary gains were
+considerable, and to the practical instruction which he then obtained he
+always ascribed his success as an economist and a financier. ‘Before I
+was twenty years of age,’ he said at Devonport in 1859, ‘I was a partner
+in a firm in London, and I can only say if there is in my life one
+event which I regard with satisfaction more than another, it is that I
+had then an opportunity of obtaining experience by observation which
+has contributed in the main to what little public utility I have since
+been to my country. During these few years I became acquainted—well
+acquainted—with the middle classes of this country. I also became
+acquainted in some degree with the working classes; and also, to a great
+extent, with the foreign commerce of this country in pretty nearly all
+parts of the world; and I can only say the information and the experience
+I thus derived have been to me in my political career of greater benefit
+than I can now describe.’
+
+In 1831, the firm of Wilson, Irwin, & Wilson was dissolved by mutual
+consent. But Mr. Wilson (under the firm of James Wilson & Co.) continued
+to carry on the same kind of business, and continued to obtain the same
+success. He began in 1824 with 2,000_l._, the gift of his father, and in
+1837 was worth nearly 25,000_l._—a fair result for so short a period,
+and evincing a steady business-like capacity and judgment; for it was
+the fruit not of sudden success in casual speculation, but of regular
+attention during several years to one business. From circumstances which
+we shall presently state, he was very anxious that this part of his
+career should be very clearly understood.
+
+During these years Mr. Wilson led the usual life of a prosperous and
+intellectual man of business. He married,[36] and formed an establishment
+suitable to his means, first near his manufactory in London, and
+afterwards at Dulwich. He took great pleasure in such intellectual
+society as he could obtain; was specially fond of conversing on political
+economy, politics, statistics, and the other subjects with which he
+was subsequently so busily occupied.[37] Through life it was one of
+his remarkable peculiarities to be a _very animated_ man, talking by
+preference and by habit on _inanimate_ subjects. All the _verve_,
+vigour, and life which lively people put into exciting pursuits, he put
+into topics which are usually thought very dry. He discussed the Currency
+or the Corn Laws with a relish and energy which made them interesting
+to almost every one. ‘How pleasant it is,’ he used to say, ‘to talk a
+subject out,’ and he frequently suggested theories in the excitement
+of conversation upon his favourite topics which he had never thought
+of before, but to which he ever afterwards attached, as was natural,
+much importance. The instructiveness of his conversation was greatly
+increased as his mind progressed and his experience accumulated. But his
+genial liveliness and animated vigour were the same during his early
+years of business life as they were afterwards when he filled important
+offices of state in England and in Calcutta. Few men can have led a more
+continuously prosperous and happy life than he did during those years.
+Unfortunately it was not to continue.
+
+In 1836, or thereabouts, Mr. Wilson was unfortunately induced to commence
+a speculation in indigo, in conjunction with a gentleman in Scotland. It
+was expected that indigo would be scarce, and that the price would rise
+rapidly in consequence. Such would indeed appear to have been the case
+for a short period, since the first purchases in which Mr. Wilson took
+part yielded a profit. In consequence of this success, he was induced to
+try a larger venture,—indeed to embark most of his disposable capital.
+Unfortunately, the severe crisis of 1837 disturbed the usual course
+of all trades, and from its effect or from some other cause, indigo,
+instead of rising rapidly, fell rapidly. The effect on Mr. Wilson’s
+position may be easily guessed. A very great capitalist would have been
+able to hold till better times, but he was not. ‘On January 1,’ he said
+at Devonport, ‘in a given year, my capital was nearer 25,000_l._, than
+24,000_l._, and it was all lost.’ Numerous stories were long circulated
+most of them exaggerated, and the remainder wholly untrue, as to this
+period of misfortune in Mr. Wilson’s life; but the truth is very simple.
+As is usual in such cases, various arrangements were proposed and
+agreed to, were afterwards abandoned, and others substituted for them.
+A large bundle of papers carefully preserved by him records with the
+utmost accuracy the whole of the history. The final result will be best
+described in his own words at Devonport, which precisely correspond with
+the balance sheets and other documents still in existence. They are part
+of a speech in answer to a calumnious rumour that had been circulated in
+the town:—
+
+‘Now, how did I act on this occasion? and this is what this placard has
+reference to. By my own means alone, I was enabled at once to satisfy
+in full all claims against me individually, and to provide for the
+early payment of one-half of the whole of the demands against the firm,
+consisting of myself and three partners. I was further enabled, or the
+firm was enabled, at once to assign property of sufficient value, as was
+supposed, to the full satisfaction of the whole of the remainder of the
+liabilities. An absolute agreement was made, an absolute release was
+given to all the partners; there was neither a bankruptcy nor insolvency,
+neither was the business stopped for one day. The business was continued
+under the new firm, with which I remained a partner, and from which I
+ultimately retired in good circumstances. Some years afterwards it turned
+out that the foreign property which was assigned for the remaining half
+of the debts of the old firm, of which I was formerly a partner, proved
+insufficient to discharge them. The legal liability was, as you know,
+all gone; the arrangement had been accepted—an arrangement calculated
+and believed by all parties to be sufficient to satisfy all claims in
+full; but when the affairs of the whole concern were fully wound up,
+finding that the foreign property had not realised what was anticipated,
+I had it, I am glad to say, in my power to place at my banker’s, having
+ascertained the amount, a sum of money to discharge all the remainder
+of that debt, which I considered morally, though not legally, due. This
+I did without any kind of solicitation—the thing was not named to me,
+and I am quite sure never were the gentlemen more taken by surprise than
+when a friend of mine waited on them privately in London, and presented
+each of them with a cheque for the balance due to them. Now, perhaps,
+I have myself to blame for this anonymous attack. I probably brought
+it on myself, for I always felt that if this matter were made public,
+it might look like an act of ostentatious obtrusion on my part, and
+therefore, when I put aside the sum of money necessary for the purpose,
+I made a request, in the letter I wrote to my bankers, desiring them
+as an especial favour that they would instruct their clerks to mention
+the matter to no one; and in order that it should be perfectly private,
+I employed a personal friend of my own in the city of London, in whose
+care I placed the whole of the cheques, to wait on those gentlemen and
+present each of them with a cheque, and I obtained from him a promise,
+and he from them, not to name the circumstance to any one.’ The secrecy
+thus enjoined was well preserved. Many of the most intimate friends of
+Mr. Wilson, and his family also, were entirely unacquainted with what
+he had done, and learnt it only through, the accidental medium of an
+electioneering speech. It may be added, too, that some of those who
+knew the circumstances, and who have watched Mr. Wilson’s subsequent
+career, believe that at no part of his life did he show greater business
+ability, self command, and energy, than at the crisis of his mercantile
+misfortunes.
+
+It is remarkable that the preface to Mr. Wilson’s first pamphlet, on the
+‘Influences of the Corn Laws,’ is dated March 1, 1839, the precise time
+at which he was negotiating with his creditors for a proper arrangement
+of his affairs; and to those who have had an opportunity of observing
+how completely pecuniary misfortune unnerves and unmans men—mercantile
+men, perhaps, more than any others—it will not seem unworthy of remark
+that a careful pamphlet, with elaborate figures, instinct in every line
+with vigour and energy, should emanate from a man struggling with extreme
+pecuniary calamity, and daily harrassed with the painful details of it.
+
+After 1839 Mr. Wilson continued in business for several years, and with
+very fair success, considering that his capital was much diminished, and
+that the hat manufacture was in a state of transition. He finally retired
+in 1844, and invested most of his capital in the foundation and extension
+of the _Economist_.
+
+These facts prove, as we believe, the conclusion which he was very
+desirous to make clear—that, though unfortunate on a particular occasion,
+Mr. Wilson was by no means, as a rule, unsuccessful in business. He did
+not at all like to have it said that he was fit to lay down the rules and
+the theory of business, but not fit to transact business itself. And the
+whole of his life, on the contrary, proves that he possessed an unusual
+capacity for affairs—an extraordinary _transacting_ ability.
+
+It may, however, be admitted that Mr. Wilson was in several respects
+by no means an unlikely man to meet, especially in early life, with
+occasional misfortune. To the last hour of his life he was always
+sanguine. He naturally looked at everything in a bright and cheerful
+aspect; his tendency was always to form a somewhat too favourable
+judgment both of things and men. One proof of this may be sufficient:
+he was five years Secretary of the Treasury, and he did not leave it a
+suspicious man.
+
+Moreover, Mr. Wilson’s temperament was very active and his mind was
+very fertile. And though in many parts of business these gifts are very
+advantageous, in many also they are very dangerous, if not absolutely
+disadvantageous. Frequently they are temptations. Capital is always
+limited; often it is _very_ limited; and therefore a man of business,
+who is managing his own capital, has only defined resources, and can
+engage only in a certain number of undertakings. But a person of active
+temperament and fertile mind will soon chafe at that restriction. His
+inventiveness will show him many ways in which money might easily be
+made, and he cannot but feel that with his energies he would like to make
+it. If he have besides a sanguine temperament, he will believe that he
+can make it. The records of unfortunate commerce abound in instances of
+men who have been unsuccessful because they had great mind, great energy,
+and great hope, but had not money in proportion. Some part of this
+description was, perhaps, applicable to Mr. Wilson in 1839, but exactly
+how much cannot, after the lapse of so many years, be now known with any
+accuracy.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s position in middle life was by no means unsuitable to a
+writer on the subjects in which he afterwards attained eminence. He
+had acquired a great knowledge of business through a long course of
+industrious years; he had proved by habitual success in business that
+his habitual judgment on it was sound and good. If he had been a man of
+only ordinary energy and only ordinary ability, he would probably have
+continued to grow regularly richer and richer. But by a single error
+natural to a very sanguine temperament and a very active mind, he had
+destroyed a great part of the results of his industry. He had a new
+career to seek. He was willing to expend on it the whole of his great
+energies. He was ready to take all the pains which were necessary to fit
+himself for success. When he wrote his first pamphlet he used to say
+that he thought ‘the sentences never would come right.’ In later life
+he considered three leading articles in the _Economist_, full of facts
+and figures, an easy morning’s work, which would not prevent his doing a
+good deal else too. Mr. Wilson was a finished man of business obliged by
+necessity to become a writer on business. Perhaps no previous education
+and no temporary circumstances could be conceived more likely to train a
+great financial writer and to stimulate his powers.
+
+In 1839, Mr. Wilson published his ‘Influences of the Corn Laws;’ in 1840,
+the ‘Fluctuations of Currency, Commerce, and Manufactures;’ in 1841,
+‘The Revenue; or, What should the Chancellor do?’ in September, 1843, he
+established the ‘Economist.’ The origin of the latter may be interesting
+to our readers, Mr. Wilson proposed to the editor of the _Examiner_
+that he should furnish gratuitously a certain amount of writing to
+that journal on economical and financial subjects; but the offer was
+declined, though with some regret, on account of the expense of type and
+paper. A special paper was, therefore, established, which proved in the
+end as important as the _Examiner_ itself. From the first, Mr. Wilson
+was the sole proprietor of the _Economist_, though he obtained pecuniary
+assistance—especially from the kindness of Lord Radnor. He embarked some
+capital of his own in it from the first, and afterwards repaid all loans
+made to him for the purpose of establishing it.
+
+It would not be suitable to the design of this memoir to give any
+criticism of Mr. Wilson’s pamphlets, still less would it become
+the _Economist_ to pronounce in any manner a judgment on itself.
+Nevertheless, it is a part of the melancholy duty we have undertaken to
+give some account of Mr. Wilson’s characteristic position as a writer on
+Political Economy, and of the somewhat peculiar mode in which he dealt
+with that subject.
+
+Mr. Wilson dealt with Political Economy like a practical man. Persons
+more familiar with the literature of science might very easily be found.
+Mr. Wilson’s faculty of reading was small, nor had he any taste for
+the more refined abstractions in which the more specially scientific
+political economists had involved themselves. ‘Political Economy,’ said
+Sydney Smith, ‘is become, in the hands of Malthus and Ricardo, a school
+of metaphysics. All seem to agree what is to be done; the contention
+is how the subject is to be divided and defined. _Meddle with no such
+matters._’ We are far from alleging that this saying is just; nor would
+Mr. Wilson have by any means assented to it. But though he would have
+disavowed it in theory, it nevertheless embodies his instinctive feeling
+and characteristic practice. He ‘meddled with no such matters;’ though he
+did not deny the utility of theoretical refinements, he habitually and
+steadily avoided them.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s predominating power was what may be called a
+business-imagination. He had a great power of conceiving transactions.
+Political economy was to him the science of buying and selling, and
+of the ordinary bargains of men he had a very steady and distinct
+conception. In explaining such subjects he did not begin, as political
+economists have been wittily said to do, with ‘Suppose a a man upon
+an island,’ but ‘What they do in the city is this.’ ‘The real course
+of business is so and so.’ Most men of business will think this
+characteristic a great merit, and even a theoretical economist should
+not consider it a defect. The _practical_ value of the science of
+political economy (the observation is an old one as to _all_ sciences)
+lies in its ‘middle principles.’ The extreme abstractions from which such
+intermediate maxims are scientifically deduced lie at some distance
+from ordinary experience, and are not easily made intelligible to most
+persons, and when they _are_ made intelligible, most persons do not
+know how to use them. But the intermediate maxims themselves are not
+so difficult; they are easily comprehended and easily used. They have
+in them a practical life, and come home at once to the ‘business’ and
+the ‘bosoms’ of men. It was in these that Mr. Wilson excelled. His
+‘business-imagination’ enabled him to see ‘what men did,’ and ‘why they
+did it;’ ‘why they ought to do it,’ and ‘why they ought not to do it.’
+His very clear insight into the real nature of mercantile transactions
+made him a great and almost an instinctive master of _statistical
+selection_. He could not help picking out of a mass of figures those
+which would tell most. He saw which were really material; he put them
+prominently and plainly forward, and he left the rest alone. Even
+now if a student of Parliamentary papers should alight on a return
+‘moved for by Mr. Wilson,’ he will do well to give to it a more than
+ordinary attention, for it will be sure to contain something attainable,
+intelligible, and distinct.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s habit of always beginning with the facts, always arguing
+from the facts, and always ending with a result applicable to the facts,
+obtained for his writings an influence and a currency more extensive than
+would have been anticipated for any writings on political economy. It is
+not for the _Economist_ to speak of the _Economist_; but we may observe
+that through the pages of this journal certain doctrines, whether true or
+false, have been diffused, far more widely than they ever were in England
+before—far more widely than from their somewhat abstract nature we could
+expect them to be diffused—far more widely than they are diffused in any
+other country but this. The business-like method and vigorous simplicity
+of Mr. Wilson’s arguments converted very many ordinary men of business,
+who would have distrusted any theoretical and abstruse disquisition,
+and would not have appreciated any elaborate refinements. Nor was this
+special influence confined to mercantile men. It penetrated where it
+could not be expected to penetrate. The Duke of Wellington was, perhaps,
+more likely to be prejudiced against a theoretical political economist
+than any eminent man of his day; he belonged to the ‘prescientific
+period;’ he had much of the impatient practicality incident to military
+insight; he was not likely to be very partial to the ‘doctrines of
+Mr. Huskisson’;—nevertheless, the Duke early pointed out Mr. Wilson’s
+writings to Lord Brougham as possessing especial practical value; and
+when the Duke at a much later period was disposed to object to the
+repeal of the Navigation Laws, Mr. Wilson had a special interview to
+convince him of its expediency.
+
+Nor is this faculty of exposition by any means a trifling power. On many
+subjects it is a common saying ‘that he only discovers who proves;’
+but in practical politics we may almost say that he only discovers
+who convinces. It is of no use to have practical truths received by
+extraordinary men, unless they are also accepted by ordinary men. Whether
+Mr. Wilson was exactly a great writer, we will not discuss: but he was a
+great _belief producer_; he had upon his own subjects a singular gift of
+_efficient_ argument—a peculiar power of bringing home his opinions by
+convincing reasonings to convincible persons.
+
+The time at which Mr. Wilson commenced his career as an economical
+writer was a singularly happy one. An economical century has elapsed
+since 1839. The Corn Laws were then in full force, and seemed likely
+to continue so; the agriculturists believed in them, and other classes
+acquiesced in them; the tentative reforms of Mr. Huskisson were half
+forgotten; our tariff perhaps contained some specimen of every defect—it
+certainly contained many specimens of most defects; duties abounded which
+cramped trade, which contributed nothing to the exchequer, which were
+maintained that a minority might believe they profited at the expense of
+the majority; all the now settled principles of commercial policy were
+unsettled; the ‘currency’ was under discussion; the Bank of England had
+been reduced to accept a loan from the Bank of France; capitalists were
+disheartened and operatives disaffected; the industrial energies, which
+have since multiplied our foreign commerce, were then effectually impeded
+by legislative fetters and financial restraints. On almost all of these
+restraints Mr. Wilson had much to say.
+
+Upon the Corn Laws, Mr. Wilson developed a theory which was rare when
+he first stated it, but which was generally adopted afterwards, and
+which subsequent experience has confirmed. He was fond of narrating an
+anecdote which shows his exact position in 1839. There had just been a
+meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League at Manchester, and some speakers had
+maintained, with more or less vehemence, that the coming struggle was to
+be one of class against class, inasmuch as the Corn Laws were beneficial
+to the agriculturists, though they were injurious to manufacturers.
+The tendency of the argument was to set one part of the nation against
+another part. Mr. Wilson was travelling in the North, and was writing
+in a railway carriage part of the ‘Influences of the Corn Laws.’ By
+chance a distinguished member of the League, whom Mr. Wilson did not
+know, happened to travel with him, and asked him what he was about. ‘I
+am writing on the Corn Laws,’ said Mr. Wilson, ‘something in answer
+to the rubbish they have been talking at Manchester.’ ‘You are a bold
+man,’ was the reply; ‘Protection is a difficult doctrine to support by
+argument.’ But it soon appeared that Mr. Wilson was the better Free
+trader of the two. He held that the Corn Laws were injurious to all
+classes; that the agriculturists suffered from them as much as the
+manufacturers; that, in consequence, it was ‘rubbish’ to raise a class
+enmity on the subject, for the interest of all classes was the same. ‘We
+cannot too much lament,’ he says in his ‘Influences of the Corn Laws,’
+‘and deprecate the spirit of violence and exaggeration with which this
+subject has always been approached by each party, which no doubt has
+been the chief cause why so little of real truth or benefit has resulted
+from the efforts of either; the arguments on either side have been
+supported by such absurd and magnified statements of the influences of
+those prohibitory laws on their separate interests, as only to furnish
+each other with a good handle to turn the whole argument into ridicule.
+It therefore appears to be necessary to a just settlement of this great
+question, that these two parties should be first reconciled to a correct
+view of the real influences thus exerted over their interests, and the
+interests of the country at large; to a conviction that the imaginary
+fears of change on the one hand, and the exaggerated advantages expected
+on the other hand, are equally without foundation; that there are in
+reality no differences in the solid interests of either party; and that
+_individuals_, _communities_, or _countries_ can only be prosperous in
+proportion to the prosperity of the whole.’ And he proposed to prove
+‘that the agricultural interest has derived no benefit, but great injury,
+from the existing laws; and that the fears and apprehensions entertained
+of the ruinous consequences which would result to this interest by the
+adoption of a free and liberal policy with respect to the trade in corn,
+are without any foundation; that the value of this property, instead
+of being depreciated, in the aggregate, would be rather enhanced, and
+the general interests of the owners most decidedly enhanced thereby;’
+and, ‘that while incalculable benefit would arise to the manufacturing
+interest and the working population generally, in common with all classes
+of the community, from the adoption of such policy, nothing can be more
+erroneous than the belief that the price of provisions or labour would
+on the average be thereby cheapened, but that, on the contrary, the
+tendency would rather be to produce, by a state of generally increased
+prosperity, a higher average rate of each.’
+
+Whatever might be thought in 1839, in 1860 we can on one point have no
+doubt whatever. The repeal of the Corn Laws has been followed by the
+exact effect which Mr. Wilson anticipated. Whether his argument was
+right or wrong, the result has corresponded with his anticipation. The
+agriculturists have prospered more—the manufacturers, the merchants, the
+operatives, all classes in a word, have prospered more since the Corn
+Laws were repealed, than they ever did before. As to abstract questions
+of politics there will always be many controversies; but upon a patent
+contemporaneous fact of this magnitude there cannot be a controversy.
+
+It is indisputable also that, for the purposes of the Anti-Corn Law
+agitation, Mr. Wilson’s view was exceedingly opportune. Mr. Cobden said
+not long ago (we quote the substance correctly even if the words are
+wrong), ‘I never made any progress with the Corn Law question while it
+was stated as a question of class against class.’ And a careful inquirer
+will find that such is the real moral of the whole struggle. If it had
+continued to be considered solely or mainly as a manufacturer’s question,
+it might not have been settled to this hour. In support of this opinion,
+Mr. Wilson made many speeches at the meetings of the Anti-Corn Law
+League, though he had little taste for the task of agitation.
+
+We cannot give even an analysis of Mr. Wilson’s arguments—our space is
+too brief—but we will enumerate one or two of the principal points.
+
+He maintained that, under our protective laws, the agriculturists never
+had the benefit of a high price, and always suffered the evil of a low
+price. When our crop was scanty, it was necessary to sell the small
+quantity at a high price, or the farmer could not be remunerated. But
+exactly at that moment foreign corn was permitted by law to be imported.
+In consequence, during bad years the farmer was exposed to difficulty
+and disaster, which were greater because, in expectation of an English
+demand, large stocks were often hoarded on the Continent, and at once
+poured in to prevent the home-grower compensating himself for a bad
+harvest by an equivalent rise of price.
+
+Nor was the farmer better off in very plentiful years. There was a
+surplus in this country, and that surplus could not be exported, for the
+price of wheat was always lower abroad than here. The effect is evident.
+As corn is an article of the first necessity, a certain quantity of it
+will always be consumed, but more than that quantity will not be readily
+consumed. A slight surplus is, therefore, invariably found to lower the
+price of such articles excessively. In very good years the farmer had
+to sell his crop at an unremuneratingly low price, while in very bad
+years he was prevented from obtaining the high price which alone could
+compensate him for his outlay. Between the effects of the two sorts of
+years his condition was deplorable, and Parliamentary committees were
+constantly appointed to investigate it.
+
+Mr. Wilson also explained how much these fluctuations in price contracted
+the home demand for agricultural produce. The manufacturing districts
+were, he showed, subjected by the Corn Laws to alternate periods of great
+excitement and great depression. When corn was very cheap, the mass of
+the community had much to spend on other things; when corn was very
+dear, they had very little to spend on those things. In consequence, the
+producers of ‘other things’ were sometimes stimulated by a great demand,
+and at other times deadened by utter slackness. The labouring classes in
+the manufacturing districts acquired in periods of plenty a certain taste
+for what to them were luxuries, and in periods of scarcity were naturally
+soured at being deprived of them. The manufacturers were frequently
+induced to invest additional capital by sudden augmentations of demand,
+and were often ruined by its sudden cessation. It was therefore
+impossible that the manufacturing classes could be steady customers of
+the agriculturists, for their own condition was fluctuating and unsteady.
+
+Mr. Wilson also showed that if the landed interest was injured by the
+effects of the Corn Laws, this was of itself enough to injure the
+manufacturing interests.
+
+    ‘The connection,’ he wrote, ‘between the manufacturer and
+    the landed interest in this country is much closer than is
+    generally admitted or believed; not only is the manufacturer
+    dependent on the landed interest for the large portion of his
+    goods which they immediately consume, but also for a very large
+    portion of what he exports to the most distant countries. All
+    commerce is, either directly or indirectly, a simple exchange
+    of the surplus products of one country for those of another. It
+    is therefore a first essential that we should be able to take
+    the cotton of America, the sugar and coffee of India, the silk
+    and teas of China, before they can take our manufactures; and
+    if this be necessary, then must it follow that in proportion
+    to the extent to which we can take their produce, will they
+    be enabled to take our manufactures. Therefore, whatever
+    portion of these products is consumed in this country by the
+    landed interest, must to that extent enable the manufacturer
+    to export his goods in return; and thus any causes which
+    increase this ability on the part of the landed interest to
+    consume, must give a corresponding additional ability to the
+    manufacturers to export. Every pound of coffee or sugar, every
+    ounce of tea, every article of luxury, the produce of foreign
+    climes, whether consumed within the castles and halls of
+    our wealthiest landowners, or in the humble cottages of our
+    lowliest peasantry, alike represent some portion of the exports
+    of this country. On the other hand, the dependence of the
+    landowner is no less twofold on the manufacturer and merchant.
+    He is not only dependent upon them for their own immediate
+    consumption, but also for the consumption of whatever food
+    enters into the cost price of their goods. Although the English
+    farmer does not export his corn or his other produce in the
+    exact shape and form in which he produces them, they constitute
+    not the less on that account a distinct portion of the exports
+    of this country, and that in the best of all possible forms.
+    Just as much as the manufacturer exports the wool or the
+    silk which enters into the fabrics of those materials, does
+    he export the corn which paid for the labour of spinning and
+    weaving them. It would be an utter impossibility that this
+    country could consume its agricultural produce but for our
+    extensive manufacturing population; or that the value of what
+    would be consumed could be near its present rate. If without
+    this aid our agricultural produce were as great as it now is, a
+    large portion would have to seek a market in distant countries:
+    it would then have to be exported in the exact form in which it
+    is produced; the expenses of which being so large would reduce
+    very greatly from its value and net price, and the landed
+    interest would be immediately affected thereby. But, as it
+    is, the produce of the land is exported in the condensed form
+    of manufactured goods, at a comparatively trifling expense,
+    which secures a high value to it here. Thus, for example, a few
+    bales of silk or woollen goods may contain as much wheat in
+    their value as would freight a whole ship. To this advantage
+    the landed interest is indebted, exclusively, for the very
+    superior value of property and produce in this country to any
+    other; because, by our great manufacturing superiority, a
+    market is found for our produce over the whole world, conveyed
+    in the cheapest and most condensed form. While the Chinese,
+    or Indians, buy our cottons, our silks, or our woollens, they
+    buy a portion of the grain and other produce of the land of
+    this country; and therefore the producer here, while indulging
+    in the delicacies or luxuries of Oriental climes, may only be
+    consuming a portion of the golden heads of wheat which had
+    gracefully waved in his own fields at a former day. Is it not,
+    therefore, sufficiently clear that no circumstance whatever
+    can either improve or injure one of these interests without
+    immediately in the same way affecting the other? The connection
+    is so close that it is impossible to separate or distinguish
+    them. Any circumstance which limits our commerce must limit our
+    market for agricultural produce; and any possible circumstance
+    which deteriorates the condition of our agriculturists must
+    deteriorate our commerce, by limiting our imports, and
+    consequently our exports. These are general principles, and are
+    capable of extension to the whole world, in all places, and at
+    all times; and the same principle as is thus shown to connect
+    and combine the different interests of any one country, just
+    as certainly operates in producing a similar effect between
+    different countries; and we ardently hope, ere long, to find
+    not only the petty jealousies between different portions of the
+    same community entirely removed, but that all countries will
+    learn that a free and unrestricted co-operation with each other
+    in matters of commerce can only tend to the general benefit and
+    welfare of all.’
+
+We do not say that these propositions were exactly discoveries of Mr.
+Wilson. During the exciting discussion of a great public question,
+the most important truths which relate to it are ‘in the air’ of the
+age; many persons see them, or half-see them; and it is impossible to
+trace the precise parentage of any of them. But we do say that these
+opinions were exactly suited to the broad and practical understanding
+of Mr. Wilson; that they were very effectively illustrated by him—more
+effectively probably than by any other writer; that he thought them out
+for himself with but little knowledge of previous theories; that they,
+principally, raised Free Trade from a class question to a national
+question; that to them, whether advocated by Mr. Wilson or by others, the
+success of the Anti-Corn Law agitation was in a great measure owing; that
+whatever doubt may formerly have been felt, an ample trial has now proved
+them to be true.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s pamphlet entitled ‘The Revenue; or, What should the
+Chancellor do?’ which attracted considerable attention when it was
+published in 1841, is worth reading now, though dated so many years ago;
+for it contains an outline of the financial policy which Sir Robert
+Peel commenced, and which Mr. Gladstone has now almost completed. This
+pamphlet, which is not very short (it has 27 moderate pages), was begun
+as an article for the _Morning Chronicle_, but proved too long for that
+purpose. It was written with almost inconceivable rapidity—nearly all,
+we believe, in a single night—though its principles and its many figures
+will bear a critical scrutiny even now.
+
+In the briefest memoir of Mr. Wilson it is necessary to say something of
+the currency; but it will not be advisable to say very much. If, however,
+we could rely on the patience of our readers, we should say a good deal.
+On no subject, perhaps, did Mr. Wilson take up a more characteristic
+position. He saw certain broad principles distinctly and steadily, and to
+these he firmly adhered, no matter what refined theories were suggested,
+or what the opinion of others might be.
+
+Mr. Wilson was a stern bullionist. He held that a five-pound note was a
+promise to pay five pounds. He answered Sir R. Peel’s question, ‘What
+is a pound?’ with Sir Robert’s own answer. He said it was a certain
+specified quantity of gold metal. He held that all devices for aiding
+industry by issuing inconvertible notes were certainly foolish, and
+might perhaps be mischievous. He held that industry could only be really
+aided by additional _capital_—by new machines, new instruments, new raw
+material; that an addition to a paper _currency_ was as useless to aid
+deficient capital as it was to feed a hungry population.
+
+Mr. Wilson held, secondly, that the _sine quâ non_, the great
+prerequisite to a good paper currency, was the maintenance of an
+adequate reserve by the issuer. He believed that a banker should look
+at his liabilities as a whole—the notes which he has in circulation and
+the deposits he has in his ledger taken together; and should retain a
+sufficient portion of them (say one-third) in cash, or in something
+equivalent to cash, in daily readiness to pay them at once. Mr. Wilson
+considered that bankers might be trusted to keep such a reserve, as they
+would be ruined, sooner or later, if they did not; and if the notes
+issued by them were always convertible at the pleasure of the holder, he
+believed that the currency would never be depreciated.
+
+He thought, however, that, as bank-notes must pass from hand to hand in
+the market, and as in practice most persons—most traders, especially—must
+take them in payment whether they wish to do so or not, some special
+security might properly be required for their payment. He would have
+allowed any one who liked to issue bank-notes on depositing Consols to
+a sufficient amount—the amount, that is, of the notes issued, and an
+adequate percentage in addition.
+
+Lastly, Mr. Wilson believed that the bank-note circulation exercised
+quite a secondary and unimportant influence upon prices and upon
+transactions, in comparison with the auxiliary currency of cheques and
+credits, which has indefinitely augmented during the last thirty years.
+So far from regarding the public as constantly ready for an unlimited
+supply of bank-notes, he thought that it was only in times of extreme
+panic, when this auxiliary currency is diminished and disturbed, that the
+bank-notes in the hands of the public either could or would be augmented.
+He believed that the public only kept in their hands as many notes as
+they wanted for their own convenience, and that all others were in the
+present day paid back to the banker immediately and necessarily.
+
+Unfortunately, however, the currency is not discussed in England with
+very exact reference to abstract principles. The popular question of
+every thinker is, ‘Are you in favour of Peel’s Bill, or are you against
+it?’ And this mode of discussing the subject always placed Mr. Wilson in
+a position of some difficulty. He concurred in the aim of Sir R. Peel,
+but objected to his procedure. He wished to secure the convertibility
+of the bank-note. He believed that the Act of 1844 indirectly induced
+the Bank Directors to keep more bullion than they would keep otherwise,
+and in so far he thought it beneficial; but he also thought that the
+advantages obtained by it were purchased at a needless price; that they
+might have been obtained much more cheaply; that the machinery of the
+Act aggravated every panic; that it tended to fix the attention of the
+public on bank-notes, and so fostered the mischievous delusion that the
+augmented issue of paper currency would strengthen industry; that it
+neglected to take account of other forms of credit which are equally
+important with bank-notes; that, ‘_for one week in ten years_’—the week
+of panic—it created needless and intense apprehension, and so tended to
+cause the ruin of some solvent commercial men. In brief, though he fully
+believed the professed object of Sir R. Peel—the convertibility of the
+bank-note—to be beneficial and inestimable, he as fully believed the
+special means selected by him to be inconvenient and pernicious.
+
+Opinions akin to Mr. Wilson’s, if not identical with them, are very
+commonly now entertained, both by practical men of business and by
+professional economists. The younger school of thinkers who have had
+before them the working of the Act of 1844 and the events of 1847 and
+1857, and are not committed by any of the older controversies, are
+especially inclined to them. Yet from peculiar causes they have not been
+so popular as Mr. Wilson’s other opinions. His views of finance and of
+the effect of Free Trade, which were half heresies when he announced
+them, have now become almost axioms. But the truth of his currency theory
+is still warmly controverted. The reason is this:—Sir R. Peel’s Act
+is a sort of compromise which is suited to the English people. It was
+probably intended by its author as a preliminary step; it undoubtedly
+suits no strict theory; it certainly has great marks of incompleteness;
+but, ‘it works tolerably well;’ if it produces evils at a crisis, ‘crises
+come but seldom;’ in ordinary times commerce ‘goes on very fairly.’ The
+pressure of practical evil upon the English people has never yet been
+so great as to induce them to face the unpleasant difficulties of the
+abstract currency question. Mr. Wilson’s opinions have, therefore, never
+been considered by practical men for a practical object, and it is only
+when so considered that any opinions of his can be duly estimated. Their
+essentially moderate character, too, is unfavourable to them—not, indeed,
+among careful inquirers, but in the hubbub of public controversy. The
+only great party which has as yet attacked Sir Robert Peel’s Bill is
+that which desires an extensive issue of inconvertible currency; but
+to them Mr. Wilson was as much opposed as Sir Robert Peel himself. The
+two watchwords of the controversy are ‘caution’ and ‘expansion:’ the
+advocates of the Act of 1844 have seized on the former, the Birmingham
+school on the latter; the intermediate, and, as we think, juster opinions
+of Mr. Wilson have had no party cry to aid them, and they have not as
+yet therefore obtained the practical influence which he never ceased to
+anticipate and to hope for them. No more need be said upon the currency
+question—perhaps we have already said too much; but to those who knew Mr.
+Wilson well, no subject is more connected with his memory: he was so fond
+of expounding it, that its very technicalities are, in the minds of some,
+associated with his voice and image.
+
+But it was not by mere correctness of economical speculation that Mr.
+Wilson was to rise to eminence. A very accurate knowledge of even
+the more practical aspects of economical science is not of itself a
+productive source of income. By the foundation of the _Economist_ Mr.
+Wilson secured for himself, during the rest of his life, competence
+and comfort, but it was not solely or simply by writing good political
+economy in it. The organisation of a first-rate commercial paper in 1843
+required a great inventiveness and also a great discretion. Nothing of
+the kind then existed; it was not known what the public most wished to
+know on business interests; the best shape of communicating information
+had to be invented in detail. The labour of creating such a paper and
+of administering it during its early stages is very great; and might
+well deter most men even of superior ability from attempting it. At
+this period of his life Mr. Wilson used to superintend the whole of
+the _Economist_; to write all the important leaders, nearly all of the
+unimportant ones; to make himself master of every commercial question
+as it arose; to give practical details as to the practical aspects of
+it; to be on the watch for every kind of new commercial information; to
+spend hours in adapting it to the daily wants of commercial men. He often
+worked till far into the morning, and impressed all about him with wonder
+at the anxiety, labour, and exhaustion he was able to undergo. As has
+been stated, for some months after the commencement of the _Economist_
+he was still engaged in his former business; and after he relinquished
+that, he used to write the City article and also leaders for the _Morning
+Chronicle_, at the very time that he was doing on his own paper far more
+than most men would have had endurance of mind or strength of body for.
+Long afterwards he used to speak of this period as far more exhausting
+than the most exhausting part of a laborious public life. ‘Our public
+men,’ he once said, ‘do not know what anxiety means; they have never
+known what it is to have their own position dependent on their own
+exertions.’ In 1843, and for some time afterwards, he had himself to bear
+extreme labour and great anxiety together; and even his iron frame was
+worn and tired by the conjunction.
+
+Within seven years from the foundation of the _Economist_, Mr. Wilson
+dealt effectively and thoroughly with three first-rate subjects—the
+railway mania, the famine in Ireland, and the panic of 1847, in addition
+to the entire question of Free Trade, which was naturally the main
+topic of economical teaching in those years. On all these three topics
+he explained somewhat original opinions, which were novelties, if not
+paradoxes then, though they are very generally believed now. To his
+writings on the railway mania he was especially fond of recurring, since
+he believed that by his warnings, very effectively brought out and very
+constantly reiterated, he had ‘saved several men their fortunes’ at that
+time.
+
+The success of the _Economist_, and the advantage which the proprietor
+of it would derive from a first-hand acquaintance with political life,
+naturally led him to think of gaining a seat in Parliament, and an
+accidental conversation at Lord Radnor’s table fixed his attention on the
+borough of Westbury. After receiving a requisition, he visited the place,
+explained his political sentiments at much length ‘from an old cart,’
+and believed that he saw sufficient chances of success to induce him to
+take a house there. He showed considerable abilities in electioneering,
+and a close observer once said of him, ‘Mr. Wilson may or may not be the
+best political economist in England, but depend upon it he is the _only_
+political economist who would ever come in for the borough of Westbury.’
+Though nominally a borough, the constituency is half a rural one, much
+under the influence of certain Conservative squires. The Liberal party
+were in 1847 only endeavouring to emancipate themselves from a yoke to
+which they have now again succumbed. Except for Mr. Wilson’s constant
+watchfulness, his animated geniality, his residence on the spot, his
+knowledge of every voter by sight, the Liberal party might never have
+been successful there. A certain expansive frankness of manner and a
+wonderful lucidity in explaining his opinions almost to any one, gave
+Mr. Wilson great advantages as a popular candidate; and it was very
+remarkable to find these qualities connected with a strong taste for
+treating very dry subjects upon professedly abstract principles. So
+peculiar a combination had the success which it merited. In the summer of
+1847 he was elected to serve in Parliament for Westbury.
+
+Mr. Wilson made his first speech in the House of Commons on the motion
+for a Committee to inquire into the commercial distress at that time
+prevalent. And it was considered an act of intellectual boldness for
+a new member to explain his opinions on so difficult a subject as the
+currency, especially as they were definitely opposed to a measure
+supported by such overwhelming Parliamentary authority as the Act of
+1844 then was. Judging from the report in ‘Hansard,’ and from the
+recollections of some who heard it, the speech was a successful one. It
+is very clear and distinct, and its tone is very emphatic, without ever
+ceasing to be considerate and candid. It contains a sufficient account
+of Mr. Wilson’s tenets on the currency—so good an account, indeed, that
+when he read it ten years later, in the panic of 1857, he acknowledged
+that he did not think he could add a word to it. At the time, however,
+the test of its Parliamentary success was not the absolute correctness of
+its abstract principles, but, to use appropriate and technical language,
+‘its getting a rise out of Peel.’ Sir Robert had used some certainly
+inconclusive arguments in favour of his favourite measure, and Mr. Wilson
+made that inconclusiveness so very clear that he thought it necessary to
+rise ‘and explain,’ which, on such a subject, was deemed at the moment a
+great triumph for a first speech.
+
+As might be expected from so favourable a commencement, Mr. Wilson soon
+established a Parliamentary reputation. He was not a formal orator,
+and did not profess to be so. But he had great powers of exposition,
+singular command of telling details upon his own subjects, a very
+pleasing voice, a grave but by no means inanimate manner—qualities which
+are amply sufficient to gain the respectful attention of the House of
+Commons. And Mr. Wilson did gain it. But speaking is but half, and in
+the great majority of cases by far the smaller half, of the duties of a
+member of Parliament. Mr. Wilson was fond of quoting a saying of Sir R.
+Peel’s, ‘That the way to get on in the House of Commons was to take a
+place and sit there.’ He adopted this rule himself, was constant in his
+attendance at the House, a good listener to other men, and always ready
+to take trouble with troublesome matters. These plain and business-like
+qualities, added to his acknowledged ability and admitted acquaintance
+with a large class of subjects upon which knowledge is rare, gave Mr.
+Wilson a substantial influence in the House of Commons in an unusually
+short time. The Corn Laws had been repealed, the pitched battle of
+Free Trade had been fought and won, but much yet remained to be done in
+carrying out its principles with effective precision, in applying them
+to articles other than corn, in exposing the fallacies still abundantly
+current, and in answering the exceptional case, which every trade in
+succession set up for an exceptional protection. These were painful and
+complex matters of detail, wearisome to very many persons, and rewarding
+with no _éclat_ those who took the trouble to master and explain them.
+But Mr. Wilson shrank from no detail. For several years before he
+had a seat in the House, he had been used to explain such topics in
+countless conversations with the most prominent Free-traders and in the
+_Economist_. He now did so in the House of Commons, and his influence
+correspondingly increased. He was able to do an important work better
+than any one else could do it; and, in English public life, real work
+rightly done at the right season scarcely ever fails to meet with a real
+reward.
+
+That Mr. Wilson early acquired considerable Parliamentary reputation is
+evinced by the best of all proofs. He was offered office before he had
+been six months in the House of Commons, though he had, as the preceding
+sketch will have made evident, no aristocratic connections—though he was
+believed to be a poorer man than he really was—though writing political
+articles for newspapers has never been in England the sure introduction
+to political power which it formerly was in France—though, on the
+contrary, it has in general been found a hindrance. In a case like Mr.
+Wilson’s, the prize of office was a sure proof of evident prowess in the
+Parliamentary arena.
+
+The office which was offered to Mr. Wilson was one of the Secretaryships
+of the Board of Control. Mr. Wilson related at Hawick his reluctance to
+accept it, and his reason. Never having given any special attention to
+Indian topics, he thought it would be absurd and ridiculous in him to
+accept an office which seemed to require much special knowledge. But
+Lord John Russell, with ‘that knowledge of public affairs which long
+experience ensures,’ at once explained to him that a statesman, under
+our Parliamentary system, must be prepared to serve the Queen ‘whenever
+he may be called on;’ and accordingly that he must be ready to take any
+office which he can fill, without at all considering whether it is that
+which he can best fill. After some deliberation, Mr. Wilson acknowledged
+the wisdom of this advice, and accepted the office offered him. Long
+afterwards, in the speech at Hawick to which we have alluded, he said
+that without the preliminary knowledge of India which he acquired at
+the Board of Control, he should never have been able to undertake the
+regulation of her finances.
+
+When once installed in his office, he devoted himself to it with his
+usual unwearied industry. And at least on one occasion he had to deal
+with a congenial topic. The introduction of railways into India was
+opposed on many grounds, most of which are now forgotten—such as ‘the
+effect upon the native mind,’ ‘the impossibility of inducing the Hindoos
+to travel in that manner,’ and the like; and more serious difficulties
+occurred in considering the exact position which the Government
+should assume with regard to such great undertakings in such singular
+circumstances—the necessity on the one hand, in an Asiatic country
+where the State is the sole motive power, of the Government’s doing
+something—and the danger, on the other hand, of interfering with private
+enterprise, by its doing, or attempting to do, too much. Mr. Wilson
+applied himself vigorously to all these difficulties; he exercised the
+whole of his personal influence, and the whole of that which was given
+to him by his situation, in dissipating the fanciful obstacles which
+were alleged to be latent in the unknown tendencies of the Oriental
+mind; while he certainly elaborated—and he believed that he originally
+suggested—the peculiar form of State guarantee upon the faith of which so
+many millions of English capital have been sent to develop the industry
+of India.
+
+Besides discharging the duties of his office, Mr. Wilson represented
+the Government of the day on several Committees connected with his
+peculiar topics, and especially on one which fully investigated the
+Sugar question. Of the latter, indeed, he became so fully master that
+some people fancied he must have been in the trade; so complete was the
+familiarity which he displayed with ‘brown muscovado,’ ‘white clayed,’
+and all other technical terms which are generally inscrutably puzzling
+to Parliamentary statesmen. On a Parliamentary Committee Mr. Wilson
+appeared to great advantage. Though sufficiently confident of the truth
+of his own opinions, he had essentially a fair mind; he always had
+the greatest confidence that if the facts were probed the correctness
+of what he believed would be established, and, _therefore_, he was
+always ready to probe the facts to the bottom. He was likewise a great
+master of the Socratic art of inquiry; he was able to frame a series of
+consecutive questions which gradually brought an unwilling or a hostile
+witness to conclusions at which he by no means wished to arrive. His
+examination-in-chief, too, was as good as his cross-examination, and
+the animated interest which he evinced in the subject relieved the
+dreariness which a rehearsed extraction of premeditated answers commonly
+involves. The examination of Lord Overstone before the Committee of 1848
+on Commercial Distress, that of Mr. Weguelin before the Committee on the
+Bank Acts in 1857, and several of the examinations before the Committee
+on Life Insurance, of which he was the Chairman, may be consulted as
+models in their respective kinds. And it should be stated that no man
+could be less overbearing in examination or cross-examination; much was
+often extracted from a witness which he did not wish to state, but it was
+always extracted fairly, quietly, and by seemingly inevitable sequence.
+
+Mr. Wilson continued at the Board of Control till the resignation of
+Lord John Russell’s Cabinet in the spring of 1852. He took part in the
+opposition of the Liberal party to Lord Derby’s Government, and was very
+deeply interested in the final settlement of the Free Trade question
+which was effected by the accession of the Protectionist party to office.
+After a very severe contest he was re-elected for Westbury in July 1852,
+and on the formation of the Aberdeen Government he accepted the office
+of Financial Secretary to the Treasury, which he continued to hold for
+five years, until the dissolution of Lord Palmerston’s administration
+in the spring of 1857, and upon his efficiency in which his remarkable
+reputation as an official administrator was mainly based.
+
+The Financial Secretaryship of the Treasury is by no means one of the
+most conspicuous offices in the Government, and but few persons who
+have not observed political life closely are at all aware either of
+its difficulty or of its importance. The office is, indeed, a curious
+example of the half grotesque way in which the abstract theory of our
+historical Constitution contrasts with its practical working. In the
+theory of the Constitution—a theory which may still be found in popular
+compendiums—there is an officer called the Lord High Treasurer, who is
+to advise the Crown and be responsible to the country for all public
+moneys. In practice, there is no such functionary: by law his office is
+‘in commission.’ Certain Lords Commissioners are supposed to form a Board
+at which financial subjects are discussed, and which is responsible for
+their due administration. In practice, there is no such discussion and no
+such responsibility. The functions of the Junior Lords of the Treasury,
+though not entirely nominal, are but slight. The practical administration
+of our expenditure is vested in the First Lord of the Treasury, the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Financial Secretary of the
+Treasury. And of these three the constitutional rule is, that the First
+Lord of the Treasury is only officially responsible for decisions in
+detail when he chooses to interfere in those decisions. Accordingly, when
+a First Lord, as was the case with Sir R. Peel, takes a great interest in
+financial questions, the Chancellor of the Exchequer does the usual work
+of the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of the Treasury has
+in comparison nothing to do. But when, as was the case in the Governments
+of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister takes no special
+interest in finance, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is very fully
+employed in the transaction of his own proper business, and an enormous
+mass of work, some of it of extreme importance, falls to the Secretary
+of the Treasury. Of late years, the growth of the miscellaneous civil
+expenditure of the country has greatly augmented that work, great as it
+was before. In general, it may be said that the whole of the financial
+detail of our national expenditure is more or less controlled by the
+Secretary of the Treasury; that much of it is very closely controlled by
+him; and that he has vast powers of practical discretion, if only he be a
+man of ability, industry, and courage.
+
+For such an office as this Mr. Wilson had very peculiar qualifications.
+He was perfectly sure to be right in a plain case; and by far the larger
+part of the ordinary business of the Government, as of individuals,
+consists of plain cases. A man who is thoroughly sure to decide
+effectually and correctly the entire mass of easy, obvious cases, is a
+safer master of practical life than one eminently skilled in difficult
+cases, but deficient in the more rudimentary qualification. Nor is the
+power of certainly deciding plain cases rightly, by any means very
+common, especially among very intellectual men. A certain taint of
+subtlety, a certain tendency to be wise above the case in hand, mars the
+practical efficiency of many men whose conversation and whose powers
+would induce us to expect that they would be very efficient. Mr. Wilson
+had not a particle of these defects. He struck off each case with a
+certain sledge-hammer efficiency, and every plain case at least with
+infallible accuracy.
+
+It might seem overstrained eulogy—a eulogy which he would not have
+wished—to claim for Mr. Wilson an equally infallible power of deciding
+complicated cases. As to such cases there will always be a doubt. Plain
+matters speak for themselves: they do not require a dissertation to
+elucidate them: every man of business, as soon as he hears the right
+decision of them, knows that it is the right decision. But with more
+refined matters it is not so; as to points involving an abstract theory,
+like that of the currency, there will and must be differences of judgment
+to the end of time. We would not, therefore, whatever may be our own
+opinion, claim for Mr. Wilson as infallible a power of deciding difficult
+questions as he certainly possessed of deciding plain questions. But we
+do claim for him even in such matters the greatest secondary excellence,
+if, indeed, a secondary excellence it be. Mr. Wilson was perfectly
+certain to be _intelligible in the most difficult case_. Whether he did
+right or did wrong, must, as we have said, be from the nature of the
+subject-matter very arguable. But _what_ he did and _why_ he did it,
+was never in doubt for a moment. The archives of the Treasury contain
+countless minutes from his pen, many of them written with what most men
+would call rapidity, just while the matter was waiting for decision, and
+on all sorts of subjects, many of them very complicated ones—yet it may
+be doubted whether any one of those minutes contains a single sentence
+not thoroughly and conspicuously clear. The same excellence which has
+been shown in countless articles in the _Economist_ appears in his
+business-like documents. Wherever his leading articles were written and
+under whatever circumstances—and some of the most elaborate of them were
+written under rather strange circumstances (for he could catch up a pen
+and begin to write on the most involved topic, at any time, in any place,
+and, as a casual observer would think, without any premeditation)—but
+wherever and however these articles might be written, it may be safely
+asserted that they do not contain a sentence which a man of business
+need read twice over, or which he would not find easily and certainly
+intelligible. At the Treasury it was the same. However complicated or
+involved the matter to be decided might be—however much it might be
+loaded with detail or perplexed by previous controversy—Mr. Wilson never
+failed to make immediately clear the exact opinion he formed upon it, the
+exact grounds upon which he formed it, and the exact course of action
+which he thought should be adopted upon it. Many persons well acquainted
+with practical life will be disposed to doubt whether extreme accuracy
+of decision is not almost a secondary merit as compared with a perfect
+intelligibility. In many cases it may be better to have a decision which
+every one can understand, though with some percentage of error, than an
+elaborately accurate decision of which the grounds and reasons are not
+easily grasped, and a plan of action which, from its refined complexity,
+is an inevitable mystery to the greater number of practical persons.
+But, putting aside this abstract discussion, we say without fear of
+contradiction or of doubt, that Mr. Wilson added to his almost infallible
+power of deciding plain cases, an infallible certainty of being entirely
+intelligible in complicated cases. Men of business will be able to
+imagine the administrative capacity certain to be produced by the union
+of extreme excellence in both qualities.
+
+One subsidiary faculty that Mr. Wilson possessed, which was very useful
+to him in the multifarious business of the Treasury, was an extraordinary
+memory. On his own subjects and upon transactions in which he had taken
+a decisive part, he seemed to recollect anything and everything. He
+was able to answer questions as to business transacted at the Treasury
+after the lapse of months and even of years without referring to the
+papers, and with a perfect certainty of substantial accuracy. He would
+say, without the slightest effort and without the slightest idea that he
+was doing anything extraordinary: ‘Such and such a person came to me at
+the Treasury, and said so and so, and this is what I said to him.’ And
+it is quite possible that he might remember the precise sums of money
+which were the subject of conversation. A more useful memory for the
+purposes of life was perhaps never possessed by any one. In the case of
+great literary memories, such as that of Lord Macaulay and of others, the
+fortunate possessor has a continued source of pleasurable and constantly
+recurring recollections; he has a full mind constantly occupied with its
+own contents, recurring to its long loved passages from its favourite
+authors constantly and habitually. But Mr. Wilson never recurred to
+the transactions in which he had been engaged except when he was asked
+about them; he lived as little in the past perhaps as is possible for an
+intellectual person; but the moment the spring was touched by a question
+or by some external necessity, all the details of the past transaction
+started into his memory completely, vividly, and perfectly. He had thus
+the advantage of always remembering his business, and also the advantage
+of never being burdened by it. Very few persons can ever have had in
+equal measure the two merits of a fresh judgment and a full mind.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s memory was likewise assisted by a very even judgment. It was
+easier to him to remember what he had done, because, if he had to do the
+same thing again, he would be sure to do it in precisely the same way. He
+was not an intolerant person, but the qualities he tolerated least easily
+were flightiness and inconsistency of purpose. He had furnished his mind,
+so to say, with fixed principles, and he hated the notion of a mind which
+was unfurnished.
+
+All these mental qualities taken together go far to make up the complete
+idea of a perfect administrator of miscellaneous financial business, such
+as that of the English Treasury now is. And Mr. Wilson had the physical
+qualities also. An iron constitution which feared no labour, and was
+very rarely incapacitated even for an hour by any illness, enabled him
+to accomplish with ease and unconsciously an amount of work which few
+men would not have shrunk from. In the country, where his habits were
+necessarily more obvious, he habitually spent the whole day from eleven
+till eight, with some slight interval for a short ride in the middle of
+the day, over his Treasury bag; and as such was his notion of a holiday,
+it may be easily conceived that in London, when he had still more to
+do in a morning, and had to spend almost every evening in the House of
+Commons, his work was greater than an ordinary constitution could have
+borne. And it was work of a rather peculiar kind. Some men of routine
+habits spend many hours over their work, but do not labour very intensely
+at one time; other men of more excitable natures work impulsively, and
+clear off everything they do by eager efforts in a short time. But Mr.
+Wilson in some sense did both. Although his hours of labour were so very
+protracted, yet if a casual observer happened to enter his library at any
+moment, he would find him with his blind down to exclude all objects of
+external interest, his brow working eagerly, his eye fixed intently on
+the figures before him, and, very likely, his rapid pen passing fluently
+over the paper. He had all the labour of the chronic worker, and all the
+labour of the impulsive worker too. And those admitted to his intimacy
+used to wonder that he was never tired. He came out of his library in an
+evening more ready for vigorous conversation—more alive to all subjects
+of daily interest—more quick to gain new information—more ready to
+expound complicated topics, than others who had only passed an easy day
+of idleness or ordinary exertion.
+
+By the aid of this varied combination of powers, Mr. Wilson was able to
+grapple with the miscellaneous financial business of the country with
+very unusual efficiency. Most men would have found the office work of
+the Secretary of the Treasury quite enough, but he was always ready
+rather to take away labour and responsibilities from other departments
+than to throw off any upon them. Nor was his efficiency confined to the
+labours of his office. The Financial Secretary of the Treasury has a
+large part of the financial business of the House of Commons under his
+control, and is responsible for its accurate arrangement. The passing
+a measure through the House of Commons is a matter of detail; and in
+the case of the financial measures of the Government, a large part of
+this—the dullest part, and the most unenvied—falls to the Secretary of
+the Treasury. He is expected to be the right hand of the Chancellor of
+the Exchequer in all the most wearisome part of the financial business of
+the House of Commons; and we have the best authority for stating that,
+under two Chancellors of the Exchequer very different from one another in
+many respects, Mr. Wilson performed this part of his duties with singular
+efficiency, zeal, and judgment.
+
+The Financial Secretary of the Treasury is likewise expected to answer
+all questions asked in the House as to the civil estimates—a most
+miscellaneous collection of figures, as any one may satisfy himself
+by glancing at them. Mr. Wilson’s astonishing memory and great power
+of lucid exposition enabled him to fulfil this part of his duty with
+very remarkable efficiency. He gave the dates and the figures without
+any note, and his exposition was uniformly simple, emphatic, and
+intelligible, even on the most complicated subjects. The great rule, he
+used to say, was to answer exactly the exact question; if you attempted
+an elaborate exposition, collateral issues were necessarily raised, a
+debate ensued, and the time of the House was lost.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s mercantile knowledge and mercantile sympathies were found
+to be of much use in the consolidation of the Customs in 1853, and he
+took great interest in settling a scheme for the payment of the duties in
+cheques instead of bank-notes, by which the circulation has been largely
+economised and traders greatly benefited. During the autumn of 1857, his
+long study of the currency question, and his first-hand conversancy with
+the business of the City, were valuable aids to the Administration of the
+day in the anxious responsibilities and rapidly shifting scenes of an
+extreme commercial crisis. It would be impossible to notice the number of
+measures in which he took part as Secretary of the Treasury, and equally
+impossible to trace his precise share in them. That office ensures to its
+holder substantial power, but can rarely give him legislative fame.
+
+On two occasions during his tenure of office at the Treasury, Mr. Wilson
+was offered a different post. In the autumn of 1856 he was offered the
+Chairmanship of Inland Revenue, a permanent office of considerable value
+then vacant, which he declined because he did not consider the income
+necessary, and because (what some people would think odd) it did not
+afford sufficient occupation. It was a ‘good pillow,’ he said, ‘but
+he did not wish to lie down.’ The second office offered him was the
+Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade in 1855, which would have been
+a step to him in official rank, but which would have entailed a new
+election, and he did not feel quite secure that the electors of Westbury
+would again return him. He did not, however, by any means wish for the
+change, as the Vice-Presidency of the Board of Trade, though nominally
+superior, is in real power far inferior to the Secretaryship of the
+Treasury.
+
+In the general election of 1857, Mr. Wilson was returned for Devonport,
+for which place he continued to sit till his departure for India. He went
+out of office on the dissolution of Lord Palmerston’s Administration in
+the spring of 1858, and took an active part in the Liberal opposition
+to Lord Derby’s Government, though it may be remarked that he carefully
+abstained from using the opportunities afforded him by his long
+experience at the Treasury, of harassing his less experienced successors
+in financial office by needless and petty difficulties.
+
+On the return of the Liberal party to power, Mr. Wilson was asked to
+resume his post at the Treasury, but he declined, as, after five years
+of laborious service, he wished to have an office of which the details
+were less absorbing. He accepted, however, the Vice-Presidency of the
+Board of Trade—an office which is not in itself attractive, but which
+gives its possessor a sort of claim to be President of the Board at the
+next vacancy. The office of President is frequently accompanied by a seat
+in the Cabinet, and Mr. Wilson’s reputation on all subjects connected
+with trade was so firmly established that in his case it would have been
+practically impossible to pass him over, even if it had been wished.
+He had, however, secured so firm a position in official circles by his
+real efficiency, that the dispensers of patronage were, as he believed,
+likely to give him whatever he desired as soon as the exigencies of party
+enabled them to do so.
+
+He had not been long in office before he had good reason for thinking
+that he would be offered by the Government the office of Financial Member
+of the Council of India under very peculiar circumstances. There had
+never before been such an officer. One member of Council had since 1833
+been always sent out from England, but he had always been a lawyer, and
+his functions were those of a jurist and a regulative administrator, not
+those of a financier. The mutiny of the Sepoys in 1857 had, however, left
+behind it a deficit with which the financiers of India did not _seem_ to
+be able to cope, and which a cumbrous financial system did not give them
+the best means of vanquishing. There was a general impression that some
+one with an English training and English habits of business would have a
+better chance of overcoming the most pressing difficulty of India than
+any one on the spot. And there was an equally general impression that
+if any one were to be sent from England to India with such an object,
+Mr. Wilson was the right person. He united high financial reputation,
+considerable knowledge of India acquired at the Board of Control, tried
+habits of business, long experience at the English Treasury, to the
+sagacious readiness in dealing with new situations which self-made men
+commonly have, but which is commonly wanting in others.
+
+On personal grounds Mr. Wilson was disinclined to accept the office.
+He was on the threshold of the Cabinet here; he was entitled by his
+long tenure of office at the Treasury to a pension which would merge in
+the salary of Indian Councillor; the emoluments of the latter office
+were not necessary to him; his life was very heavily insured for the
+benefit of his family; though he had never during his tenure of office
+at the Treasury been connected directly or indirectly with any kind of
+commercial undertaking (the _Economist_ alone excepted), some investments
+which he made in land and securities, entirely beyond the range of
+politics, had been very fortunate; since the year 1844 everything of a
+pecuniary kind in which he had been concerned had not only prospered,
+but remarkably prospered; he felt himself sufficiently rich to pursue
+the career of prosperous usefulness and satisfied ambition that seemed
+to be before him here. There was no consideration of private interest
+which could induce him to undertake anxious and dangerous duties in
+India; he even ran some pecuniary risk in leaving this country, as it was
+possible that in the vicissitudes of newspaper property the _Economist_
+might again need the attention of its proprietor and founder. On public
+grounds, however, he believed that it was his duty to accept the office;
+he took a keen interest in Indian finance; believed that the difficulties
+of it might be conquered, and thought that in even _attempting_ to
+conquer them he would be doing the greatest and most lasting public
+service that it was in _his_ power to accomplish.
+
+He accordingly accepted the office of Financial Member of the Council of
+India, and proceeded to make somewhat melancholy arrangements for leaving
+this country. He broke up his establishment here, bade farewell to his
+constituents at Devonport and to the inhabitants of his native place,
+attended some influential public meetings in towns deeply interested
+in the commerce of India, and on October 20, 1859, left England, as it
+proved, for ever.
+
+Of Mr. Wilson’s policy in India it would not be proper to give more than
+a very brief sketch here. That policy is still fresh in the memory of
+the public; it has been very frequently explained and discussed in the
+_Economist_; it is still being tried; and, though he was fully persuaded
+of the expediency of his measures, he would not have wished for too warm
+a eulogy of them while they are as yet untested by the event. In almost
+the last letter which the present writer received from him, there was
+a sort of reprimand for permitting this journal to draw too great an
+attention to his plans, and to ascribe the merit of them too exclusively
+to him, and too little to the Government of which he was a member.
+
+On his arrival in India he found that the Governor-General was on a
+tour in the Upper Provinces of India, and before doing any business of
+importance at Calcutta he travelled thither. This journey he thought
+very advantageous, because it gave him a great insight into the nature
+of the country, and enabled him to consult the most experienced revenue
+officers of many large districts on their respective resources, and on
+the safest mode of making those resources available to the public. He was
+much struck with the capabilities of the country, and wrote to England in
+almost so many words ‘that it was a fine country to _tax_.’ On the other
+hand, however, he was well aware of the difficulty of his task. The only
+two possible modes of taxation are direct and indirect, and in the case
+of India there is a difficulty in adopting either. If we select indirect
+taxation and impose duties on consumable commodities, the natives of
+India meet us by declining to consume. Their wants are few, and they
+will forego most of them if a tax can be evaded thereby. On the other
+hand, if we adopt in India a direct tax on property or income, there is
+great difficulty in finding out what each man’s property or income is.
+In England we trust each person to tell us the amount of his income,
+but even here the results are not wholly satisfactory; and it would be
+absurd to fancy that we can place as much reliance upon the veracity of
+Orientals as upon that of Englishmen.
+
+These difficulties, however, Mr. Wilson was prepared to meet. On February
+18, 1860, he proposed his Budget to the Legislative Council at Calcutta,
+and the reception given to it by all classes was remarkably favourable.
+He announced, indeed, a scheme of heavy taxation, but the Indian public
+had been living for a considerable time under a sentence of indefinite
+taxation, and they were glad to know the worst. Anything distinct was
+better than vague suspense, and, as usual, Mr. Wilson contrived to
+make his meaning _very_ distinct. His bearing also exercised a great
+influence over the Anglo-Indian public. In England he had been remarkable
+among official men for his constant animation and thorough naturalness
+of manner: in his office he was as much himself as at a dinner-table or
+in the House of Commons: he had no tinge of supercilious politeness or
+artificial blandness. In any new scene of action—especially in such a
+scene as British India—these qualities were sure to tell beneficially.
+Plain directness and emphatic simplicity were the external qualities
+most likely to be useful at Calcutta, and these were Mr. Wilson’s most
+remarkable qualities.
+
+The principal feature of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was the Income Tax, which
+he avowedly framed after the English fashion. It is true that but little
+reliance can, perhaps, be placed on the statements of Orientals as to
+their wealth. It is very possible that the complicated machinery of forms
+and notices which is in use here may not be applicable in India. All this
+Mr. Wilson well knew. But he thought that our Indian subjects should have
+an opportunity of stating their income before they were taxed upon it.
+If they should state it untruly, or should decline to state it, it might
+be necessary to tax them arbitrarily. But he did not think, it would be
+decent—that it would be civilised—to begin with an arbitrary assessment.
+By the Income Tax Act which he framed, it is enacted that other modes may
+be substituted if in any instance the English mode of assessment should
+prove inapplicable. In other words, if our Oriental fellow-subjects will
+not tell us the truth when they are asked, we must tax them as best we
+can, and they cannot justly complain of unfairness and inequality. _We_
+would have been mathematically just, if _they_ had given us the means.
+
+The reception of Mr. Wilson’s Budget was universally favourable until the
+publication of the minute of Sir C. Trevelyan, which, as was inevitable,
+produced a serious reaction. Heavy taxation can never be very pleasant,
+and in the Presidency of Madras Sir Charles gave the sanction of the
+Government—of the highest authority the people saw—to the hope that
+they would not be taxed. The prompt recall of Sir Charles, however, did
+much to convince the natives of the firm determination of the English
+Government, and Mr. Wilson hoped that the ordeal of criticism through
+which his measures had to pass would ultimately be favourable to them.
+It certainly secured them from the accusation of being prepared in
+haste, but it purchased this benefit at the loss to the public of much
+precious time, and to Mr. Wilson of precious health. Of the substance
+of this minute it is sufficient to say that its fundamental theory that
+additional taxation of any sort was unnecessary in India, has scarcely
+been believed by any one except its author. Almost every one has deemed
+it too satisfactory to be true.
+
+On another point Mr. Wilson’s Budget has been criticised in England,
+though not in India. It has been considered to be a protective Budget.
+The mistake has arisen from not attending to what that Budget is. The
+changes made by Mr. Wilson in the import duties were two. ‘The first was
+a reduction from twenty to ten per cent. upon a long list of articles,
+including haberdashery, millinery, and hosiery, all part of the cotton
+trade; the second was an increase in the duty upon cotton yarn from five
+to ten per cent., thus creating a uniform tariff of ten per cent.’[38] Of
+these two, it is plain the reduction from twenty per cent. to ten was not
+a change that would operate as a protection to Indian industry; and the
+increase of the duty on yarn has a contrary tendency. Yarn is an earlier,
+cloth a later, stage of manufacture, and in Mr. Wilson’s own words, ‘it
+is a low duty on yarn and a high duty on cloth that encourages native
+weaving.’ For the effect of the general system of high Customs duties in
+India Mr. Wilson is not responsible, but his predecessors. What _he_ did
+has no protective tendency.
+
+If the Income Tax should, as may be fairly hoped, become a permanent part
+of the financial system of India, it will serve for a considerable period
+to keep Mr. Wilson’s name alive there. So efficient an expedient must
+always attract the notice of the public, and must in some degree preserve
+the remembrance of the Minister by whom it was proposed. Mr. Wilson,
+however, undertook two other measures of very great importance. One of
+these has been frequently described as the introduction into India of the
+English system of public accounts. But it would be more truly described
+as the introduction of a rational system of public accounts. There are
+three natural steps in national finance, which are certainly clearly
+marked in our English system, but which have a necessary existence
+independent of that recognition. These three are—first, the estimate
+of future expenditure; secondly, what we call the Budget, that is the
+official calculation of the income by which the coming expenditure is
+to be defrayed; thirdly, the audit which shows what the expenditure has
+been and how it has been met. The system of finance which Mr. Wilson
+found in India neglected these fundamental distinctions. There were
+no satisfactory estimates of future expenditure, and no satisfactory
+calculation of future income. In consequence, the calculations of the
+official departments have been wrong by millions sterling, and English
+statesmen have felt great difficulty not only in saying how the deficit
+was to be removed, but likewise in ascertaining what the amount of the
+deficit was. At the time of his death, Mr. Wilson was eagerly occupied in
+endeavouring to introduce a better system.
+
+Mr. Wilson will likewise be remembered as the first Minister who
+endeavoured to introduce into India a Government paper currency. On March
+3, 1860, he introduced into the Legislative Council an elaborate plan for
+this purpose, which, with a slight modification by Sir C. Wood—curious
+in the theory of the currency, but practically not very important—will
+speedily, it is probable, be the fundamental currency law—the ‘Peel’s
+Act’ of British India.
+
+The exact mode in which Mr. Wilson regarded these great objects, will
+perhaps be better explained by two extracts from his latest letters than
+by any other means. On July 4, he wrote to a friend:—
+
+    ‘Firmness and justice are the only policy for India: no
+    vacillation, or you are gone. They like to be governed; and
+    respect an iron hand, if it be but equal and just. I have,
+    I think, more confidence than ever that the taxes will be
+    established and collected, and without disturbance. But the
+    task is still an enormous one. I must retrench yet at least
+    three and a half millions, and get the same sum from my new
+    taxes to make both ends meet. I am putting the screw on very
+    strongly, but rather by an improved policy in army and police
+    than in reductions of salaries and establishments, which cannot
+    be made. I have set myself _five_ great points of policy to
+    introduce and carry out.
+
+    ‘1. To extend a system of sound taxation to the great trading
+    classes, who hitherto have been exempted, though chiefly
+    benefited by our enormously increased civil expenditure.
+
+    ‘2. To establish a paper currency.
+
+    ‘3. To reform and remodel our financial system, by a plan of
+    annual budgets and estimates, with a Pay Department to check
+    issues, and keep them within the authorised limits,—and an
+    effective audit.
+
+    ‘4. A great police system of semi-military organisation, but
+    usually of purely civil application, which, dear though it be,
+    will be cheaper by half a million than our present wretched and
+    expensive system,—and by which we shall be able to reduce our
+    native army to at least one-third;—and by which alone we can
+    utilise the natives as an arm of defence without the danger of
+    congregating idle organised masses.
+
+    ‘5. Public works and roads, with a view to increased production
+    of cotton, flax, wool, and European raw materials.
+
+    ‘The four first I have made great progress in: the latter must
+    follow. But you will call it “a large order.” However, you have
+    no idea of the increased capacity of the mind for undertaking
+    a special service of this kind when removed to a new scene of
+    action, and when one throws off all the cares of engagements
+    less or more trivial by which one is surrounded in ordinary
+    life, and throws one’s whole soul into such a special service,
+    and particularly when one feels assured of having the power to
+    carry it out. I cannot tell you with what ease one determines
+    the largest and gravest question here compared with in England;
+    and I am certain that the more one can exercise real power,
+    there is by far the greater tendency to moderation, care, and
+    prudence.’
+
+In a second letter, dated July 19, he wrote to the same friend from
+Barrackpore:—
+
+    ‘The Indian Exchequer is a huge machine. The English Treasury
+    is nothing to it for complexity, diversity, and remoteness
+    of the points of action. Our great enemies are time and
+    distance; and with all our frontier territories there is
+    scarcely a day passes that we have not an account of some row
+    or inroad. It is a most unwieldy Empire to be governed on
+    the principle of forcing civilisation at every point of it.
+    One day it is the frontier of Scinde and a quarrel with our
+    native chiefs, which our Resident must check; another, it is
+    an intrigue between Heraut and Cabul, with a report of Russian
+    forces in the background; the next, there is a raid upon our
+    Punjab frontiers to be chastised; then come some accounts of
+    coolness, or misunderstanding, or unreasonable demands from
+    our ally in Nepaul; then follow some inroads from the savage
+    tribes which inhabit the mountains to the rear of Assam and
+    up the Burrampootra; then we have reported brawls in Burmah
+    and Pegu, and disputes among the hill tribes whose relations
+    to the British and the Burmah Governments are ill defined;
+    then we have Central India, with our loyal chiefs Scindiah and
+    Holkar, independent princes with most turbulent populations,
+    which could not be kept in order a day without the presence of
+    British troops and of the Governor-General’s Agent. Besides
+    all these, we have among ourselves a thousand questions of
+    internal administration, rendered more difficult by the
+    ill-defined relations between the Supreme and the Subordinate
+    Governments—the latter always striving to encroach, the former
+    to hold its own. Hence, questions do not come before us simply
+    on their merits, but often as involving these doubtful rights.
+    Then we have Courts of Justice to reform, as well as all
+    other institutions of a domestic kind not to reform alone,
+    but to extend to new territories. Then we have a deficit of
+    7,000,000_l._, and had a Government teaching the people that
+    all could be done without new taxes. But unfortunately all,
+    except the taxes, are a present certainty—_they_ are a future
+    contingency. What will they yield? I have no precise knowledge.
+    I think from three to four millions a year when in full bloom:
+    this financial year not more than a million.
+
+    ‘I have now got a Military Finance Commission in full swing;
+    a Civil Finance Commission also going: I am reorganising the
+    Finance, Pay, and Accountant-General’s Department, in order
+    to get all the advantage of the English system of estimates,
+    Pay Office, and Audit:—and this with as little disturbance
+    of existing plans as possible. The latter is a point I have
+    especially aimed at. On the whole, and almost without an
+    exception, I have willing allies in all the existing Offices.
+    No attempt that I see is anywhere made to thwart or impede.
+
+    ‘You can well understand, then, how full my hands are, if to
+    all these you add the new currency arrangements; you will not
+    then wonder that my health has rendered it necessary to come
+    down here for a day or two to get some fresh air.’
+
+It will be observed that in the last extract Mr. Wilson alludes to his
+impaired health. For some time after his arrival in India he seemed
+scarcely to feel the climate. He certainly did not feel it as much as
+might have been anticipated. He worked extremely hard; scarcely wrote
+a private letter, but devoted the whole of his great energies to the
+business around him. His letters for a considerable time abound with
+such expressions as ‘Notwithstanding all my hard work, my health is
+excellent.’ From the commencement of the rainy season at Calcutta,
+however, he ceased to be equally well, his state began to arouse the
+apprehensions of experienced observers, and he was warned that he should
+retire for a short time to a better climate. He would not, however,
+do so until his financial measures had advanced sufficiently far for
+him to leave them. His position was a very peculiar one. In general,
+if one administrator leaves his post, another is found to fill it up.
+But Mr. Wilson was a unique man at Calcutta. He was sent there because
+he had certain special qualifications, which no one there possessed;
+and, accordingly, he had no one to rely on in his peculiar functions
+save himself. His presence on the spot was likewise very important. The
+administration of a department can be frequently transacted by letter,
+but the organisation of new departments and new schemes requires the
+unremitting attention of the organiser—the impulse of his energy. The
+interest, too, which Mr. Wilson took in public business was exceptionally
+great, and no one who knew him well would suppose that _he_ would leave
+Calcutta while necessary work, or what he deemed so, was to be done there.
+
+Nor was labour the sole trial to which his constitution was exposed. The
+success of measures so extensive as his, must ever be a matter of anxious
+doubt until the event decides; and in his case there were some momentary
+considerations to aggravate that anxiety. There was no experience of
+such taxation as he had proposed, and the effect of it must therefore be
+difficult to foresee. Moreover, for a brief period, a famine seemed to be
+imminent in Upper India, which must have disturbed the whole operation
+of his financial schemes. In his debilitated state of health this last
+source of anxiety seemed much to weigh upon him.
+
+About the middle of July he went for a week to Barrackpore, near
+Calcutta. The change was, however, too slight, and, as might be expected,
+he returned to Calcutta without any material benefit. From that time
+the disease gradually augmented, and on the evening of August 2, he went
+to bed never to rise from it again. For many days he continued to be
+very ill, and his family experienced the usual alternations of hope and
+fear. He was quite aware of his critical state, and made all necessary
+arrangements with his habitual deliberation and calmness.
+
+Lord Canning saw him on the 9th for the last time, and was much struck
+with the change which illness had made in him. He believed that he saw
+death in his face, and was deeply impressed with the vivid interest
+which, even in the last stage of weakness, he took in public affairs,
+with his keen desire for the success of his plans, and with the little
+merit which he was disposed to claim for his own share in them.
+
+It was hoped that he would be strong enough to bear removal, and it was
+intended to delay the mail steamer for a few hours to take him to sea—the
+usual remedy at Calcutta for diseases of the climate. But when the time
+came there was no chance that his strength would be adequate to the
+effort. During the whole of the 11th he sank rapidly, and at half past
+six in the evening he breathed his last.
+
+The mourning in Calcutta was more universal than had ever been
+remembered. He had not been long in India, but while he had been there he
+filled a conspicuous and great part; he had done so much, that there were
+necessarily doubts in the minds of some as to the expediency of part of
+it. No such doubts, however, were thought of now. ‘That he should have
+come out to die here!’—‘That he should have left a great English career
+_for this_!’—were the phrases in every one’s mouth. The funeral was the
+largest ever known at Calcutta. It was attended by almost the entire
+population, from the Governor-General downwards, and not a single voice,
+on any ground whatever, dissented from the general grief.
+
+Very little now remains to be said. A few scattered details, some of them
+perhaps trivial, must complete this sketch.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s face was striking, though not handsome. His features were
+irregular, but had a peculiar look of mind and energy, while a strongly
+marked brow and very large eyebrows gave to all who saw him an unfailing
+impression of massive power and firm determination.
+
+Mr. Wilson’s moral character in its general features resembled his
+intellectual. He was not a man of elaborate scruples and difficult
+doubts, and he did not much like those who were. His conscientiousness
+was of a plain, but very practical kind; he had a single-minded rectitude
+which went straight to the pith of a moral difficulty—which showed him
+what he ought to do. On such subjects he was somewhat intolerant of
+speculative reasoning. ‘The common sense is so and so,’ he used to say,
+and he did not wish to be plagued with anything else.
+
+In one respect his manner did not uniformly give a true impression of
+him. He always succeeded in conveying his meaning, in stating what he
+wished to have done and why he wished it; he never failed to convince
+any one of his inexhaustible vigour and his substantial ability;
+but he sometimes did fail in giving a true expression to his latent
+generosity and real kindliness. He shrank almost nervously from the
+display of feeling, and sometimes was thought by casual observers to
+feel nothing, when in reality he was much more sensitive than they
+were. Another peculiarity which few persons would have attributed to
+him aided this mistake. It may seem strange in a practised Secretary of
+the Treasury, but he used to say that through life he had suffered far
+more from shyness than from anything else. Only very close observers
+could have discovered this, for his manner was habitually impressive and
+unfaltering. But common acquaintances, sometimes even persons who saw him
+on business, erroneously imputed to unthinking curtness, that which was
+due in truth to nervous hesitation.
+
+With his subordinates in office he was, however, very cordial. He
+discussed matters of business with them, listened carefully to their
+suggestions or objections, and very frequently was guided by their
+recommendations. He had no paltry desire to monopolise the whole credit
+of what might be done. He probably worked harder than any Secretary of
+the Treasury before or since; but so far from depressing those below him,
+he encouraged their exertions, co-operated with them, and was ever ready
+to bear hearty testimony to the tried merit of efficient public servants.
+He was also quite willing to forget the temporary misunderstandings
+which are so apt to occur among earnest men who take different views of
+public affairs. He was eminently tolerant. Though he had almost always
+a strong conviction of his own, he never felt the least wish to silence
+discussion. Believing that his own opinions were true, he was only the
+more confident that the more the subject was discussed, the more true
+they would be found to be. Few men ever transacted so much important
+business with so little of the pettiness of personal feeling.
+
+In the foregoing sketch Mr. Wilson has of necessity been regarded almost
+exclusively as a public man, but his private life has many remarkable
+features, if it were proper to enlarge on them. His enjoyment of simple
+pleasures, of society, of scenery, of his home, was very vivid. No one
+who saw him in his unemployed moments would have believed that he was one
+of the busiest public men of his time. He never looked worn or jaded, and
+always contributed more than his share of geniality and vivacity to the
+scene around him. Like Sir Walter Scott, he loved a bright light; and the
+pleasantest society to him was that of the cheerful and the young.
+
+The universal regret which has been expressed at Mr. Wilson’s death is
+the best tribute to his memory. It has been universally felt that on his
+special subjects and for his peculiar usefulness he was ‘a finished man,’
+and in these respects he has left few such behind him. The qualities
+which he had the opportunity of displaying were those of an administrator
+and a financier. But some of those who knew him best, believed that he
+only wanted an adequate opportunity to show that he had also many of the
+higher qualities of a statesman; and it was the feeling that he would
+perhaps have such an opportunity which reconciled them to his departure
+for India. As will have been evident from this narrative, he was placed
+in many changing circumstances, and in the gradual ascent of life was
+tried by many increasing difficulties. But at every step his mind grew
+with the occasion. We at least believe that he had a great sagacity and
+a great equanimity, which might have been fitly exercised on the very
+greatest affairs. But it was not so to be.
+
+The intelligence of Mr. Wilson’s death was formally communicated by the
+Indian to the Home Government in the following despatch:—
+
+    ‘To the Right Honourable Sir Charles Wood, Bart., G.C.B.,
+    Secretary of State for India.
+
+    ‘SIR,—The painful task is imposed upon us of announcing to Her
+    Majesty’s Government the death of our colleague, the Right
+    Honourable James Wilson.
+
+    ‘2. This lamentable event took place on the evening of
+    Saturday, the 11th, after an illness of a few days.
+
+    ‘3. We enclose a copy of the notification by which we yesterday
+    communicated the mournful intelligence to the public. The
+    funeral took place at the time mentioned in the notification;
+    and the great respect in which our lamented colleague was
+    held was evinced by a very large attendance of the general
+    community, in addition to the public officers, civil and
+    military.
+
+    ‘4. We are unable adequately to express our sense of the great
+    loss which the public interests have sustained in Mr. Wilson’s
+    death. We do not doubt, however, that this will be as fully
+    appreciated by Her Majesty’s Government, as it is by ourselves,
+    and as we have every reason to believe it will be by the
+    community generally throughout India.
+
+    ‘5. But we should not satisfy our feelings in communicating
+    this sad occurrence to Her Majesty’s Government, if we did not
+    state our belief that the fatal disease which has removed Mr.
+    Wilson from amongst us was in a great degree the consequence of
+    his laborious application to the duties of his high position,
+    and of his conscientious determination not to cease from the
+    prosecution of the important measures of which he had charge,
+    until their success was ensured. Actuated by a self-denying
+    devotion to the objects for which he came out to this country,
+    Mr. Wilson continued to labour indefatigably long after the
+    general state of his health had become such as to cause anxiety
+    to the physician who attended him, and it was within a few
+    days only after the Income Tax had become law, and when, at
+    the earnest request of his medical adviser, he was preparing
+    to remove from Calcutta for the remainder of the rainy season,
+    that he was seized with the illness that has carried him off.
+
+    ‘6. It is our sincere conviction that this eminent public
+    servant sacrificed his life in the discharge of his duty.—We
+    have, &c.,
+
+                                                    ‘CANNING.
+                                                    ‘H. B. E. FRERE.
+                                                    ‘C. BEADON.
+
+    ‘FORT WILLIAM, _August 13._’
+
+                         END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+                                PRINTED BY
+                  SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
+                                  LONDON
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] This essay appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for October 1877,
+and is now republished, with slight alterations, by the kind permission
+of the editor and proprietors of that Review. In most of the alterations
+now made, as well as in a great part of the original essay, I have been
+greatly assisted by the help of Mrs. Walter Bagehot.
+
+[2] _Prospective Review_, No. 31, for August 1852, a paper too strictly
+temporary and practical in its aim for republication now.
+
+[3] See volume ii., page 232, of this work.
+
+[4] See Appendix to this volume, page 335.
+
+[5] See vol. i. p. 43.
+
+[6] See vol. ii. p. 66.
+
+[7] See vol. ii. p. 67.
+
+[8] _Physics and Politics_, p. 10.
+
+[9] Volume ii. p. 71.
+
+[10] _Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough_, vol. i. p. 175.
+
+[11] See Appendix to this volume, page 329.
+
+[12] Since the first edition of this work was published, the Oxford Board
+of Studies have made a text-book of Mr. Bagehot’s _English Constitution_
+for that University.
+
+[13] See vol. i. p. 28.
+
+[14] This essay I hope to republish with others on English Statesmen in a
+future volume of Studies in Political Biography.
+
+[15] _Physics and Politics_, p. 57.
+
+[16] _The Postulates of Political Economy._
+
+[17] _A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith._ By his Daughter, Lady Holland.
+With a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Austin. 2 vols.
+Longmans.
+
+_Lord Jeffrey’s Contributions to the Edinburgh Review._ A new Edition in
+one volume. Longmans.
+
+_Lord Brougham’s Collected Works._ Vols. I. II. III. _Lives of
+Philosophers of the Reign of George III._ _Lives of Men of Letters of
+the Reign of George III._ _Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who
+flourished in the Reign of George III._ Griffin.
+
+_The Rev. Sydney Smith’s Miscellaneous Works. Including his Contributions
+to the Edinburgh Review._ Longmans.
+
+[18] Sydney Smith, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 489.
+
+[19] This was published in October, 1855.
+
+[20] ‘Horner is ill. He was desired to read amusing books: upon searching
+his library, it appeared he had no amusing books; the nearest approach
+to a work of that description being the _Indian Trader’s Complete
+Guide_.’—_Sydney Smith’s Letter to Lady Holland._
+
+[21] Letter from Lord Murray.
+
+[22] The first words of Jeffrey’s review of The Excursion are, ‘This will
+never do.’
+
+[23] _Hartley Coleridge’s Lives of the Northern Worthies._ A new Edition.
+3 vols. Moxon.
+
+[24] This essay was published immediately after the death of the Duke of
+Wellington.
+
+[25] Keats in the Preface to Endymion.
+
+[26] _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Edited by Mrs.
+Shelley. 1853.
+
+_Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations, and Fragments._ By Percy
+Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1854.
+
+_The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ By Captain Thomas Medwin. 1847.
+
+[27] _Shakespeare et son Temps: Étude Littéraire_. Par M. Guizot. Paris.
+1852.
+
+_Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare’s Plays from early
+Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio, 1632, in the possession of
+R. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A._ London. 1853.
+
+[28] The only antiquarian thing which can be fairly called an anecdote
+of Shakespeare is, that Mrs. Alleyne, a shrewd woman in those times, and
+married to Mr. Alleyne, the founder of Dulwich Hospital, was one day,
+in the absence of her husband, applied to on some matter by a player
+who gave a reference to Mr. Hemmings (the ‘notorious’ Mr. Hemmings, the
+commentators say) and to Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe, and that the
+latter, when referred to, said, ‘Yes, certainly, he knew him, and he was
+a rascal and good-for-nothing.’ The proper speech of a substantial man,
+such as it is worth while to give a reference to.
+
+[29] _The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political,
+Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time._ By David Masson, M.A.,
+Professor of English Literature in University College, London. Cambridge:
+Macmillan.
+
+_An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton._ By
+Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to Paradise Lost. London: Chapman
+and Hall.
+
+_The Poems of Milton_, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. London: Chapman
+and Hall.
+
+[30] _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu._ Edited by
+her Great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe. Third edition, with Additions and
+Corrections derived from the original Manuscripts, illustrative Notes,
+and a New Memoir. By W. Moy Thomas. In two volumes. London: Henry Bohn.
+
+[31] _Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited by Robert Bell. J. W.
+Parker and Son.
+
+_The Life of William Cowper, with Selections from his Correspondence._
+Being Volume I. of the Library of Christian Biography, superintended by
+the Rev. Robert Bickersteth. Seeley, Jackson, and Co.
+
+[32] This was the second article in the first number of the _National
+Review_.
+
+[33] The general reader may not before have read, that the Rue du
+Coq l’Honoré is an old and well-known street in Paris, and that
+notwithstanding the substitution of the eagle for cock as a military
+emblem, there is no thought of changing its name.
+
+[34] [As a curious illustration of Mr. Bagehot’s estimate of the
+character of the third Empire, I may mention that all the earlier part
+of this paper, all that which dwelt on the good side of the imperial
+_régime_ in relation to matters of material prosperity, was reproduced
+in the French official journals, while all the equally true and
+even more useful criticism on its moral deficiencies, was carefully
+omitted.—EDITOR.]
+
+[35] This was published as a supplement to the _Economist_, soon after
+Mr. Wilson’s death in 1860.
+
+[36] He was married on January 5, 1832, to Miss Elizabeth Preston, of
+Newcastle, and this has given rise to a statement that he was once in
+business at Newcastle. This is, however, an entire mistake. He was never
+in business anywhere except at Hawick and London. It may be added, that
+on the occasion of his marriage he voluntarily ceased to be a member of
+the Society of Friends, for whom he always, however, retained a high
+respect. During the rest of his life he was a member of the Church of
+England.
+
+[37] Among his friends of this period should be especially mentioned Mr.
+G. R. Porter, of the Board of Trade, the author of _The Progress of the
+Nation_, whose mind he described twenty years later as the most accurate
+he had ever known.
+
+[38] _Economist_ of Sept. 8, 1860, p. 977.
+
+
+
+
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+
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+
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+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78449 ***