{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_23788/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_23788","id":"gutenberg_23788","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23788","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English essays"],"text":"Produced by Robert Connal, Marcia Brooks and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby the Bibliotheque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at\nhttp://gallica.bnf.fr)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE POSTHUMOUS WORKS\n\nOF\n\nTHOMAS DE QUINCEY.\n\n_EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL MSS.,\nWITH INTRODUCTIONS AND NOTES._\n\n\nBY\n\nALEXANDER H. JAPP,\n\nLLD., F.R.S.E.\n\n\n_VOLUME I._\n\n\n\nLONDON:\n\nWILLIAM HEINEMANN.\n\n1891.\n\n[_All rights reserved._]\n\n\n\n\nSUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS.\n\n=With Other Essays,=\n\n_CRITICAL, HISTORICAL, BIOGRAPHICAL,\nPHILOSOPHICAL, IMAGINATIVE\nAND HUMOROUS,_\n\nBY\n\nTHOMAS DE QUINCEY.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nLONDON:\n\nWILLIAM HEINEMANN.\n\n1891.\n\n[_All rights reserved._]\n\n\n\n\n_To\nMrs. BAIRD SMITH and Miss DE QUINCEY,\nwho put into my hands the remains in manuscript\nof their father, that I might select and\npublish from them what was deemed\nto be available for such a purpose,\nthis volume is dedicated,\nwith many and\ngrateful thanks for\ntheir confidence\nand aid, by\ntheir devoted\nfriend,_\n\n_ALEXANDER H. JAPP._\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nIt only needs to be said, by way of Preface, that the articles in the\npresent volume have been selected more with a view to variety and\ncontrast than will be the case with those to follow. And it is right\nthat I should thank Mr. J. R. McIlraith for friendly help in the reading\nof the proofs.\n\nA. H. J.\n\n\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext contains letters with macrons, and have\nbeen noted as such: =u represents \"u\" with a macron, and )o represents\no with a breve.]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER                                                             PAGE\n\nGENERAL INTRODUCTION                                                  xi\n\n    I. SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS:\n           Introduction, with Complete List of the 'Suspiria'          1\n        1. The Dark Interpreter                                        7\n        2. The Solitude of Childhood                                  13\n        3. Who is this Woman that beckoneth and warneth\n            me from the Place where she is, and in whose eyes\n            is Woeful Remembrance? I guess who she is                 16\n        4. The Princess who overlooked one Seed in a Pomegranate      22\n        5. Notes for 'Suspiria'                                       24\n\n   II. THE LOVELIEST SIGHT FOR WOMAN'S EYES                           29\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  III. WHY THE PAGANS COULD NOT INVEST THEIR GODS WITH\n     ANY IOTA OF GRANDEUR                                             33\n\n   IV. ON PAGAN SACRIFICES                                            39\n\n    V. ON THE MYTHUS                                                  43\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n   VI. DAVID'S NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE--THE POLITICS OF\n    THE SITUATION                                                     47\n\n  VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE                                  62\n\n VIII. 'WHAT IS TRUTH?' THE JESTING PILATE SAID--A FALSE GLOSS        68\n\n   IX. WHAT SCALIGER SAYS ABOUT THE EPISTLE TO JUDE                   71\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    X. MURDER AS A FINE ART                                           77\n\n   XI. ANECDOTES--JUVENAL                                             85\n\n  XII. ANNA LOUISA                                                    89\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n XIII. SOME THOUGHTS ON BIOGRAPHY                                    100\n\n  XIV. GREAT FORGERS: CHATTERTON AND WALPOLE, AND 'JUNIUS'           125\n\n   XV. DANIEL O'CONNELL                                              132\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  XVI. FRANCE PAST AND FRANCE PRESENT                                143\n\n XVII. ROME'S RECRUITS AND ENGLAND'S RECRUITS                        147\n\nXVIII. NATIONAL MANNERS AND FALSE JUDGMENT OF THEM                   163\n\nXIX. INCREASED POSSIBILITIES OF SYMPATHY IN THE PRESENT AGE          165\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n   XX. THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL                                         168\n\n  XXI. ON MIRACLES                                                   173\n\n XXII. 'LET HIM COME DOWN FROM THE CROSS'                            177\n\nXXIII. IS THE HUMAN RACE ON THE DOWN GRADE?                          180\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n XXIV. BREVIA: SHORT ESSAYS (IN CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER):\n        1. Paganism and Christianity--the Ideas of Duty\n            and Holiness                                             185\n        2. Moral and Practical                                       194\n        3. On Words and Style                                        207\n        4. Theological and Religious                                 226\n        5. Political, etc.                                           269\n        6. Personal Confessions, etc.                                271\n        7. Pagan Literature                                          279\n        8. Historical, etc.                                          283\n        9. Literary                                                  292\n\n  XXV. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIATIONS:\n        1. The Rhapsodoi                                             306\n        2. Mrs. Evans and the _Gazette_                              310\n        3. A Lawsuit Legacy                                          313\n        4. The True Justifications of War                            315\n        5. Philosophy Defeated                                       317\n        6. The Highwayman's Skeleton                                 320\n        7. The Ransom for Waterloo                                   323\n        8. Desiderium                                                326\n\n\n\n\nGENERAL INTRODUCTION.\n\n\nThese articles recovered from the MSS. of De Quincey will, the Editor\nbelieves, be found of substantive value. In some cases they throw\nfresh light on his opinions and ways of thinking; in other cases they\ndeal with topics which are not touched at all in his collected works:\nand certainly, when read alongside the writings with which the public\nis already familiar, will give altogether a new idea of his range\nboth of interests and activities. The 'Brevia,' especially, will\nprobably be regarded as throwing more light on his character and\nindividuality--exhibiting more of the inner life, in fact--than any\nnumber of letters or reminiscences from the pens of others would be\nfound to do. It is as though the ordinary reader were asked to sit\ndown at ease with the author, when he is in his most social and\ncommunicative mood, when he has donned his dressing-gown and\nslippers, and is inclined to unbosom himself, and that freely, on\nmatters which usually, and in general society, he would have been\ninclined to shun, or at all events to pass over lightly. Here we have\nhim at one moment presenting the results of speculations the loftiest\nthat can engage the mind of man; at another making note of whimsical\nor surprising points in the man or woman he has met with, or in the\nbooks he has read; at another, amusing himself with the most recent\nanecdote, or _bon-mot_, or reflecting on the latest accident or\nmurder, or good-naturedly noting odd lapses in style in magazine or\nnewspaper.\n\nIt must not be supposed that the author himself was inclined to lay such\nweight on these stray notes, as might be presumed from the form in which\nthey are here presented. That might give the impression of a most\nmethodic worker and thinker, who had before him a carefully-indexed\ncommonplace book, into which he posted at the proper place his rough\nnotes and suggestions. That was not De Quincey's way. If he was not one\nof the wealthy men who care not how they give, he was one who made the\nmost careless record even of what was likely to be valuable--at all\nevents to himself. His habit was to make notes just as they occurred to\nhim, and on the sheet that he chanced to have at the moment before him.\nIt might be the 'copy' for an article indeed, and in a little square\npatch at the corner--separated from the main text by an insulating line\nof ink drawn round the foreign matter--through this, not seldom, when\nfinished he would lightly draw his pen; meaning probably to return to it\nwhen his MS. came back to him from the printer, which accounts, it may\nbe, in some measure for his reluctance to get rid of, or to destroy,\n'copy' already printed from. Sometimes we have found on a sheet a dozen\nor so of lines of a well-known article; and the rest filled up with\nnotes, some written one way of the paper, some another, and now and then\nentangled in the most surprising fashion. In these cases, where the\nnotes, of course, were meant for his own eye, he wrote in a small\nspidery handwriting with many contractions--a kind of shorthand of his\nown, and very different indeed from his ordinary clean, clear, neat\npenmanship. In many cases these notes demanded no little care and\ncloseness in deciphering--the more that the MSS. had been tumbled about,\nand were often deeply stained by glasses other than inkstands having\nbeen placed upon them. 'Within that circle none dared walk but he,' said\nTom Hood in his genially humorous way; and many of these thoughts were\nthus partially or wholly encircled. Pages of articles that had already\nbeen printed were intermixed with others that had not; and the first\npiece of work that I entered on was roughly to separate the printed from\nthe unprinted--first having carefully copied out from the former any of\nthe spidery-looking notes interjected there, to which I have already\nreferred. The next process was to arrange the many separate pages and\nseeming fragments into heaps, by subjects; and finally to examine these\ncarefully and, with a view to 'connections,' to place them together. In\nnot a few cases where the theme was attractive and the prospect\npromising, utter failure to complete the article or sketch was the\nresult, the opening or ending passages, or a page in the middle, having\nbeen unfortunately destroyed or lost.\n\nSo numerous were these notes, so varied their subjects, that one got\nquite a new idea of the extreme electrical quality of his mind, as he\nhimself called it; and I shall have greatly failed in my endeavour in\nthe case of these volumes, if I have not succeeded in imparting\nsomething of the same impression to the reader. Here we have proof that\nvast schemes, such as the great history of England, of which Mr. James\nHogg, senr., humorously told us in his 'Recollections' ('Memoir,' ch.\ned., pp. 330, 331), were not merely subjects of conversation and jest,\nbut that he had actually proceeded to build up masses of notes and\nfigures with a view to these; and various slips and pages remain to show\nthat he had actually commenced to write the history of England. The\nshort article, included in the present volume, on the 'Power of the\nHouse of Commons as Custodian of the Purse,' is marked for 'My History\nof England.' Other portions are marked as intended for 'My book on the\nInfinite,' and others still 'For my book on the Relations of\nChristianity to Man.' One can infer, indeed, that several of the\narticles well-known to us, notably 'Christianity as an Organ of\nPolitical Movement,' for one, were originally conceived as portions of a\ngreat work on 'Christianity in Relation to Human Development.'\n\nIt is thus necessary to be very explicit in stating that, though these\nnotes are as faithfully reproduced as has been possible to me, the\nclassification and arrangement of them, under which they assume the\naspect of something of one connected essay on the main subject, I alone\nam responsible for; though I do not believe, so definite and clear were\nhis ideas on certain subjects and in certain relations, that he himself\nwould have regarded them as losing anything by such arrangement, but\nrather gaining very much, if they were to be given at all to the public.\n\nSeveral of the articles in this volume suggest that he also contemplated\na great work on 'Paganism and Christianity,' in which he would have\ndemonstrated that Paganism had exhausted all the germs of progress that\nlay within it; and that all beyond the points reached by Paganism is due\nto Christianity, and alone to Christianity, which, in opening up a clear\nview of the infinite through purely experimental mediums in man's heart,\ntouched to new life, science, philosophy, art, invention and every kind\nof culture.\n\nRespecting the recovered 'Suspiria,' all that it is needful to say will\nbe found in an introduction special to that head, and it does not seem\nto me that I need to add here anything more. In every other respect the\narticles must speak for themselves.\n\n\n\n\nDE QUINCEY'S POSTHUMOUS WORKS.\n\n\n\n\n_I. SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS._\n\nINTRODUCTION, WITH COMPLETE LIST OF THE 'SUSPIRIA.'\n\n\nThe finale to the first part of the 'Suspiria,' as we find from a note\nof the author's own, was to include 'The Dark Interpreter,' 'The Spectre\nof the Brocken,' and 'Savannah-la-Mar.' The references to 'The Dark\nInterpreter' in the latter would thus become intelligible, as the reader\nis not there in any full sense informed who the 'Dark Interpreter' was;\nand the piece, recovered from his MSS. and now printed, may thus be\nregarded as having a special value for De Quincey students, and, indeed,\nfor readers generally. In _Blackwood's Magazine_ he did indeed\ninterpolate a sentence or two, and these were reproduced in the American\nedition of the works (Fields's); but they are so slight and general\ncompared with the complete 'Suspiria' now presented, that they do not in\nany way detract from its originality and value.\n\nThe master-idea of the 'Suspiria' is the power which lies in suffering,\nin agony unuttered and unutterable, to develop the intellect and the\nspirit of man; to open these to the ineffable conceptions of the\ninfinite, and to some discernment, otherwise impossible, of the\nbeneficent might that lies in pain and sorrow. De Quincey seeks his\nsymbols sometimes in natural phenomena, oftener in the creation of\nmighty abstractions; and the moral of all must be set forth in the\nburden of 'The Daughter of Lebanon,' that 'God may give by seeming to\nrefuse.' Prose-poems, as they have been called, they are deeply\nphilosophical, presenting under the guise of phantasy the profoundest\nlaws of the working of the human spirit in its most terrible\ndisciplines, and asserting for the darkest phenomena of human life some\ncompensating elements as awakeners of hope and fear and awe. The sense\nof a great pariah world is ever present with him--a world of outcasts\nand of innocents bearing the burden of vicarious woes; and thus it is\nthat his title is justified--_Suspiria de Profundis_: 'Sighs from the\nDepths.'\n\nWe find De Quincey writing in his prefatory notice to the enlarged\nedition of the 'Confessions' in November, 1856:\n\n'All along I had relied upon a crowning grace, which I had reserved for\nthe final page of this volume, in a succession of some twenty or\ntwenty-five dreams and noon-day visions, which had arisen under the\nlatter stage of opium influence. These have disappeared; some under\ncircumstances which allow me a reasonable prospect of recovering them,\nsome unaccountably, and some dishonourably. Five or six I believe were\nburned in a sudden conflagration which arose from the spark of a candle\nfalling unobserved amongst a very large pile of papers in a bedroom,\nwhere I was alone and reading. Falling not _on_, but amongst and within\nthe papers, the fire would soon have been ahead of conflict, and, by\ncommunicating with the slight woodwork and draperies of a bed, it would\nhave immediately enveloped the laths of the ceiling overhead, and thus\nthe house, far from fire-engines, would have been burned down in\nhalf-an-hour. My attention was first drawn by a sudden light upon my\nbook; and the whole difference between a total destruction of the\npremises and a trivial loss (from books charred) of five guineas was due\nto a large Spanish cloak. This, thrown over and then drawn down tightly,\nby the aid of one sole person, somewhat agitated, but retaining her\npresence of mind, effectually extinguished the fire. Amongst the papers\nburned partially, but not so burned as to be absolutely irretrievable,\nwas \"The Daughter of Lebanon,\" and this I have printed and have\nintentionally placed it at the end, as appropriately closing a record in\nwhich the case of poor \"Ann the Outcast\" formed not only the most\nmemorable and the most suggestively pathetic incident, but also _that_\nwhich, more than any other, coloured--or (more truly, I should say)\nshaped, moulded and remoulded, composed and decomposed--the great body\nof opium dreams.'\n\nAfter this loss of the greater portion of the 'Suspiria' copy, De\nQuincey seems to have become indifferent in some degree to their\ncontinuity and relation to each other. He drew the 'Affliction of\nChildhood' and 'Dream Echoes,' which stood early in the order of the\n'Suspiria,' into the 'Autobiographic Sketches,' and also the 'Spectre of\nthe Brocken,' which was meant to come somewhat later in the series as\noriginally planned; and, as we have seen, he appended 'The Daughter of\nLebanon' to the 'Opium Confessions,' without any reference, save in the\npreface, to its really having formed part of a separate collection of\ndreams.\n\nFrom a list found among his MSS. we are able to give the arrangement of\nthe whole as it would have appeared had no accident occurred, and all\nthe papers been at hand. Those followed by a cross are those which are\nnow recovered, and those with a dagger what were reprinted either as\n'Suspiria' or otherwise in Messrs. Black's editions.\n\n\n\n\nSUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS.\n\n\n 1. Dreaming, [cross]\n 2. The Affliction of Childhood. [cross]\n        Dream Echoes. [cross]\n 3. The English Mail Coach. [cross]\n        (1) The Glory of Motion.\n        (2) Vision of Sudden Death.\n        (3) Dream-fugue.\n 4. The Palimpsest of the Human Brain. [cross]\n 5. Vision of Life. [cross]\n 6. Memorial Suspiria. [cross]\n 7. Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow.\n 8. Solitude of Childhood. [big cross]\n 9. The Dark Interpreter. [big cross]\n10. The Apparition of the Brocken. [cross]\n11. Savannah-la-Mar.\n12. The Dreadful Infant. (There was the glory of innocence\n        made perfect; there was the dreadful beauty\n        of infancy that had seen God.)\n13. Foundering Ships.\n14. The Archbishop and the Controller of Fire.\n15. God that didst Promise.\n16. Count the Leaves in Vallombrosa.\n17. But if I submitted with Resignation, not the less\n        I searched for the Unsearchable--sometimes in\n        Arab Deserts, sometimes in the Sea.\n18. That ran before us in Malice.\n19. Morning of Execution.\n20. Daughter of Lebanon. [cross]\n21. Kyrie Eleison.\n22. The Princess that lost a Single Seed of a Pomegranate. [big cross]\n23. The Nursery in Arabian Deserts.\n24. The Halcyon Calm and the Coffin.\n25. Faces! Angels' Faces!\n26. At that Word.\n27. Oh, Apothanate! that hatest Death, and cleansest\n        from the Pollution of Sorrow.\n28. Who is this Woman that for some Months has\n        followed me up and down? Her face I cannot\n        see, for she keeps for ever behind me.\n29. Who is this Woman that beckoneth and warneth\n        me from the Place where she is, and in whose\n        Eyes is Woeful remembrance? I guess who she is. [big cross]\n30. Cagot and Cressida.\n31. Lethe and Anapaula.\n32. Oh, sweep away, Angel, with Angelic Scorn, the\n        Dogs that come with Curious Eyes to gaze.\n\nThus of the thirty-two 'Suspiria' intended by the author, we have only\nnine that received his final corrections, and even with those now\nrecovered, we have only about one half of the whole, presuming that\nthose which are lost or remained unwritten would have averaged about the\nsame length as those we have. To those who have studied the 'Suspiria'\nas published, how suggestive many of these titles will be! 'Count the\nLeaves in Vallombrosa'--what phantasies would that have conjured up! The\nlost, the apparently wasted of the leaves from the tree of human life,\nand the possibilities of use and redemption! De Quincey would there\ndoubtless have given us under a form more or less fanciful or symbolical\nhis reading of the problem:\n\n    'Why Nature out of fifty seeds\n    So often brings but one to bear.'\n\nThe case of the Cagots, the pariahs of the Pyrenees, as we know from\nreferences elsewhere, excited his curiosity, as did all of the pariah\nclass, and much engaged his attention; and in the 'Cagot and Cressida'\n'Suspiria' we should probably have had under symbols of mighty\nabstractions the vision of the pariah world, and the world of health and\noutward fortune which scorns and excludes the other, and partly, at all\nevents, actively dooms it to a living death in England of to-day, as in\nIndia of the past, and in Jewry of old, where the leper was thrust\noutside the wall to wail 'Unclean! unclean!'\n\n\n\n\n1.--THE DARK INTERPRETER.\n\n     'Oh, eternity with outstretched wings, that broodest over the\n     secret truths in whose roots lie the mysteries of man--his whence,\n     his whither--have I searched thee, and struck a right key on thy\n     dreadful organ!'\n\n\nSuffering is a mightier agency in the hands of nature, as a Demiurgus\ncreating the intellect, than most people are aware of.\n\nThe truth I heard often in sleep from the lips of the Dark Interpreter.\nWho is he? He is a shadow, reader, but a shadow with whom you must\nsuffer me to make you acquainted. You need not be afraid of him, for\nwhen I explain his nature and origin you will see that he is essentially\ninoffensive; or if sometimes he menaces with his countenance, that is\nbut seldom: and then, as his features in those moods shift as rapidly as\nclouds in a gale of wind, you may always look for the terrific aspects\nto vanish as fast as they have gathered. As to his origin--what it is, I\nknow exactly, but cannot without a little circuit of preparation make\n_you_ understand. Perhaps you are aware of that power in the eye of many\nchildren by which in darkness they project a vast theatre of\nphantasmagorical figures moving forwards or backwards between their\nbed-curtains and the chamber walls. In some children this power is\nsemi-voluntary--they can control or perhaps suspend the shows; but in\nothers it is altogether automatic. I myself, at the date of my last\nconfessions, had seen in this way more processions--generally solemn,\nmournful, belonging to eternity, but also at times glad, triumphal\npomps, that seemed to enter the gates of Time--than all the religions of\npaganism, fierce or gay, ever witnessed. Now, there is in the dark\nplaces of the human spirit--in grief, in fear, in vindictive wrath--a\npower of self-projection not unlike to this. Thirty years ago, it may\nbe, a man called Symons committed several murders in a sudden epilepsy\nof planet-struck fury. According to my recollection, this case happened\nat Hoddesdon, which is in Middlesex. 'Revenge is sweet!' was his hellish\nmotto on that occasion, and that motto itself records the abysses which\na human will can open. Revenge is _not_ sweet, unless by the mighty\ncharm of a charity that seeketh not her own it has become benignant.[1]\nAnd what he had to revenge was woman's scorn. He had been a plain\nfarm-servant; and, in fact, he was executed, as such men often are, on a\nproper point of professional respect to their calling, in a smock-frock,\nor blouse, to render so ugly a clash of syllables. His young mistress\nwas every way and by much his superior, as well in prospects as in\neducation. But the man, by nature arrogant, and little acquainted with\nthe world, presumptuously raised his eyes to one of his young\nmistresses. Great was the scorn with which she repulsed his audacity,\nand her sisters participated in her disdain. Upon this affront he\nbrooded night and day; and, after the term of his service was over, and\nhe, in effect, forgotten by the family, one day he suddenly descended\namongst the women of the family like an Avatar of vengeance. Right and\nleft he threw out his murderous knife without distinction of person,\nleaving the room and the passage floating in blood.\n\nThe final result of this carnage was not so terrific as it threatened to\nbe. Some, I think, recovered; but, also, one, who did _not_ recover, was\nunhappily a stranger to the whole cause of his fury. Now, this murderer\nalways maintained, in conversation with the prison chaplain, that, as he\nrushed on in his hellish career, he perceived distinctly a dark figure\non his right hand, keeping pace with himself. Upon _that_ the\nsuperstitious, of course, supposed that some fiend had revealed himself,\nand associated his superfluous presence with the dark atrocity. Symons\nwas not a philosopher, but my opinion is, that he was too much so to\ntolerate that hypothesis, since, if there was one man in all Europe that\nneeded no tempter to evil on that evening, it was precisely Mr. Symons,\nas nobody knew better than Mr. Symons himself. I had not the benefit of\nhis acquaintance, or I would have explained it to him. The fact is, in\npoint of awe a fiend would be a poor, trivial _bagatelle_ compared to\nthe shadowy projections, _umbras_ and _penumbras_, which the\nunsearchable depths of man's nature is capable, under adequate\nexcitement, of throwing off, and even into stationary forms. I shall\nhave occasion to notice this point again. There are creative agencies in\nevery part of human nature, of which the thousandth part could never be\nrevealed in one life.\n\n\nYou have heard, reader, in vision which describes our Ladies of Sorrow,\nparticularly in the dark admonition of Madonna, to her wicked sister\nthat hateth and tempteth, what root of dark uses may lie in moral\nconvulsions: not the uses hypocritically vaunted by theatrical devotion\nwhich affronts the majesty of God, that ever and in all things loves\nTruth--prefers sincerity that is erring to piety that cants. Rebellion\nwhich is the sin of witchcraft is more pardonable in His sight than\nspeechifying resignation, listening with complacency to its own\nself-conquests. Show always as much neighbourhood as thou canst to grief\nthat abases itself, which will cost thee but little effort if thine own\ngrief hath been great. But God, who sees thy efforts in secret, will\nslowly strengthen those efforts, and make that to be a real deed,\nbearing tranquillity for thyself, which at first was but a feeble wish\nbreathing homage to _Him_.\n\nIn after-life, from twenty to twenty-four, on looking back to those\nstruggles of my childhood, I used to wonder exceedingly that a child\ncould be exposed to struggles on such a scale. But two views unfolded\nupon me as my experience widened, which took away that wonder. The first\nwas the vast scale upon which the sufferings of children are found\neverywhere expanded in the realities of life. The generation of infants\nwhich you see is but part of those who belong to it; were born in it;\nand make, the world over, not one half of it. The missing half, more\nthan an equal number to those of any age that are now living, have\nperished by every kind of torments. Three thousand children per\nannum--that is, three hundred thousand per century; that is (omitting\nSundays), about ten every day--pass to heaven through flames[2] in this\nvery island of Great Britain. And of those who survive to reach\nmaturity what multitudes have fought with fierce pangs of hunger, cold,\nand nakedness! When I came to know all this, then reverting my eye to\n_my_ struggle, I said oftentimes it was nothing! Secondly, in watching\nthe infancy of my own children, I made another discovery--it is well\nknown to mothers, to nurses, and also to philosophers--that the tears\nand lamentations of infants during the year or so when they have no\n_other_ language of complaint run through a gamut that is as\ninexhaustible as the cremona of Paganini. An ear but moderately learned\nin that language cannot be deceived as to the rate and _modulus_ of the\nsuffering which it indicates. A fretful or peevish cry cannot by any\nefforts make itself impassioned. The cry of impatience, of hunger, of\nirritation, of reproach, of alarm, are all different--different as a\nchorus of Beethoven from a chorus of Mozart. But if ever you saw an\ninfant suffering for an hour, as sometimes the healthiest does, under\nsome attack of the stomach, which has the tiger-grasp of the Oriental\ncholera, then you will hear moans that address to their mothers an\nanguish of supplication for aid such as might storm the heart of Moloch.\nOnce hearing it, you will not forget it. Now, it was a constant remark\nof mine, after any storm of that nature (occurring, suppose, once in two\nmonths), that always on the following day, when a long, long sleep had\nchased away the darkness and the memory of the darkness from the little\ncreature's brain, a sensible expansion had taken place in the\nintellectual faculties of attention, observation, and animation. It\nrenewed the case of our great modern poet, who, on listening to the\nraving of the midnight storm, and the crashing which it was making in\nthe mighty woods, reminded himself that all this hell of trouble\n\n    'Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed.'\n\nPain driven to agony, or grief driven to frenzy, is essential to the\nventilation of profound natures. A sea which is deeper than any that\nCount Massigli[3] measured cannot be searched and torn up from its\nsleeping depths without a levanter or a monsoon. A nature which is\nprofound in excess, but also introverted and abstracted in excess, so as\nto be in peril of wasting itself in interminable reverie, cannot be\nawakened sometimes without afflictions that go to the very foundations,\nheaving, stirring, yet finally harmonizing; and it is in such cases that\nthe Dark Interpreter does his work, revealing the worlds of pain and\nagony and woe possible to man--possible even to the innocent spirit of a\nchild.\n\n\n\n\n2.--THE SOLITUDE OF CHILDHOOD.\n\n\nAs nothing which is impassioned escapes the eye of poetry, neither has\nthis escaped it--that there is, or may be, through solitude, 'sublime\nattractions of the grave.' But even poetry has not perceived that these\nattractions may arise for a child. Not, indeed, a passion for the grave\n_as_ the grave--from _that_ a child revolts; but a passion for the grave\nas the portal through which it may recover some heavenly countenance,\nmother or sister, that has vanished. Through solitude this passion may\nbe exalted into a frenzy like a nympholepsy. At first, when in childhood\nwe find ourselves torn away from the lips that we could hang on for\never, we throw out our arms in vain struggles to snatch at them, and\npull them back again. But when we have felt for a time how hopeless is\nthat effort, and that they cannot come to _us_, we desist from that\nstruggle, and next we whisper to our hearts, Might not we go to _them_?\n\nSuch in principle and origin was the famous _Dulce Domum_[4] of the\nEnglish schoolboy. Such is the _Heimweh_ (home-sickness) of the German\nand Swiss soldier in foreign service. Such is the passion of the\nCalenture. Doubtless, reader, you have seen it described. The poor\nsailor is in tropical latitudes; deep, breathless calms have prevailed\nfor weeks. Fever and delirium are upon him. Suddenly from his restless\nhammock he starts up; he will fret no longer in darkness; he ascends\nupon deck. How motionless are the deeps! How vast--how sweet are these\nshining zaarrahs of water! He gazes, and slowly under the blazing\nscenery of his brain the scenery of his eye unsettles. The waters are\nswallowed up; the seas have disappeared. Green fields appear, a silent\ndell, and a pastoral cottage. Two faces appear--are at the door--sweet\nfemale faces, and behold they beckon him. 'Come to us!' they seem to\nsay. The picture rises to his wearied brain like a _sanctus_ from the\nchoir of a cathedral, and in the twinkling of an eye, stung to madness\nby the cravings of his heart, the man is overboard. He is gone--he is\nlost for this world; but if he missed the arms of the lovely women--wife\nand sister--whom he sought, assuredly he has settled into arms that are\nmightier and not less indulgent.\n\nI, young as I was, had one feeling not learned from books, and that\n_could_ not have been learned from books, the deepest of all that\nconnect themselves with natural scenery. It is the feeling which in 'The\nHart-leap Well' of Wordsworth, in his 'Danish Boy,' and other exquisite\npoems is brought out, viz., the breathless, mysterious, Pan-like silence\nthat haunts the noon-day. If there were winds abroad, then I was roused\nmyself into sympathetic tumults. But if this dead silence haunted the\nair, then the peace which was in nature echoed another peace which lay\nin graves, and I fell into a sick languishing for things which a voice\nfrom heaven seemed to say '_cannot_ be granted.'\n\nThere is a German superstition, which eight or ten years after I read,\nof the Erl-king and his daughter. The daughter had power to tempt\ninfants away into the invisible world; but it is, as the reader\nunderstands, by collusion with some infirmity of sick desire for such\nworlds in the infant itself.\n\n    'Who is that rides through the forest so fast?'\n\nIt is a knight who carries his infant upon his saddle-bow. The\nErl-king's daughter rides by his side; and, in words audible only when\nshe means them to be heard, she says:\n\n    'If thou wilt, dear baby, with me go away,\n     We will see a fine show, we will play a fine play.'\n\nThat sounds lovely to my ears. Oh yes, that collusion with dim sleeping\ninfancy is lovely to me; but I was too advanced in intellect to have\nbeen tempted by _such_ temptations. Still there was a perilous\nattraction for me in worlds that slept and rested; and if the Erl-king's\ndaughter had revealed herself to my perceptions, there was one 'show'\nthat she might have promised which would have wiled me away with her\ninto the dimmest depths of the mightiest and remotest forests.\n\n\n\n\n3.--WHO IS THIS WOMAN THAT BECKONETH AND WARNETH ME FROM THE PLACE WHERE\nSHE IS, AND IN WHOSE EYES IS WOEFUL REMEMBRANCE? I GUESS WHO SHE IS.\n\n\nIn my dreams were often prefigurements of my future, as I could not but\nread the signs. What man has not some time in dewy morn, or sequestered\neve, or in the still night-watches, when deep sleep falleth on other men\nbut visiteth not his weary eyelids--what man, I say, has not some time\nhushed his spirit and questioned with himself whether some things seen\nor obscurely felt, were not anticipated as by mystic foretaste in some\nfar halcyon time, post-natal or ante-natal he knew not; only assuredly\nhe knew that for him past and present and future merged in one awful\nmoment of lightning revelation. Oh, spirit that dwelleth in man, how\nsubtle are _thy_ revelations; how deep, how delirious the raptures thou\ncanst inspire; how poignant the stings with which thou canst pierce the\nheart; how sweet the honey with which thou assuagest the wound; how dark\nthe despairs and accusings that lie behind thy curtains, and leap upon\nus like lightning from the cloud, with the sense as of some heavenly\nblazoning, and oftentimes carry us beyond ourselves!\n\nIt is a sweet morning in June, and the fragrance of the roses is wafted\ntowards me as I move--for I am walking in a lawny meadow, still wet\nwith dew--and a wavering mist lies over the distance. Suddenly it seems\nto lift, and out of the dewy dimness emerges a cottage, embowered with\nroses and clustering clematis; and the hills, in which it is set like a\ngem, are tree-clad, and rise billowy behind it, and to the right and to\nthe left are glistening expanses of water. Over the cottage there hangs\na halo, as if clouds had but parted there. From the door of that cottage\nemerges a figure, the countenance full of the trepidation of some dread\nwoe feared or remembered. With waving arm and tearful uplifted face the\nfigure first beckons me onward, and then, when I have advanced some\nyards, frowning, warns me away. As I still continue to advance, despite\nthe warning, darkness falls: figure, cottage, hills, trees, and halo\nfade and disappear; and all that remains to me is the look on the face\nof her that beckoned and warned me away. I read that glance as by the\ninspiration of a moment. We had been together; together we had entered\nsome troubled gulf; struggled together, suffered together. Was it as\nlovers torn asunder by calamity? was it as combatants forced by bitter\nnecessity into bitter feud, when we only, in all the world, yearned for\npeace together? Oh, what a searching glance was that which she cast on\nme! as if she, being now in the spiritual world, abstracted from flesh,\nremembered things that I could not remember. Oh, how I shuddered as the\nsweet sunny eyes in the sweet sunny morning of June--the month that was\nmy 'angelical'; half spring, yet with summer dress, that to me was very\n'angelical'--seemed reproachfully to challenge in me recollections of\nthings passed thousands of years ago (old indeed, yet that were made new\nagain for us, because now first it was that we met again). Oh, heavens!\nit came over me as doth the raven over the infected house, as from a bed\nof violets sweeps the saintly odour of corruption. What a glimpse was\nthus revealed! glory in despair, as of that gorgeous vegetation that hid\nthe sterilities of the grave in the tropics of that summer long ago; of\nthat heavenly beauty which slept side by side within my sister's coffin\nin the month of June; of those saintly swells that rose from an infinite\ndistance--I know not whether to or from my sister. Could this be a\nmemorial of that nature? Are the nearer and more distant stages of life\nthus dimly connected, and the connection hidden, but suddenly revealed\nfor a moment?\n\nThis lady for years appeared to me in dreams; in that, considering the\nelectric character of my dreams, and that they were far less like a lake\nreflecting the heavens than like the pencil of some mighty artist--Da\nVinci or Michael Angelo--that cannot copy in simplicity, but comments in\nfreedom, while reflecting in fidelity, there was nothing to surprise.\nBut a change in this appearance was remarkable. Oftentimes, after eight\nyears had passed, she appeared in summer dawn at a window. It was a\nwindow that opened on a balcony. This feature only gave a distinction, a\nrefinement, to the aspect of the cottage--else all was simplicity.\nSpirit of Peace, dove-like dawn that slept upon the cottage, ye were not\nbroken by any participation in my grief and despair! For ever the vision\nof that cottage was renewed. Did I roam in the depths of sweet pastoral\nsolitudes in the West, with the tinkling of sheep-bells in my ears, a\nrounded hillock, seen vaguely, would shape itself into a cottage; and at\nthe door my monitory, regretful Hebe would appear. Did I wander by the\nseashore, one gently-swelling wave in the vast heaving plain of waters\nwould suddenly transform itself into a cottage, and I, by some\ninvoluntary inward impulse, would in fancy advance toward it.\n\nAh, reader, you will think this which I am going to say too near, too\nholy, for recital. But not so. The deeper a woe touches me in heart, so\nmuch the more am I urged to recite it. The world disappears: I see only\nthe grand reliques of a world--memorials of a love that has departed,\nhas been--the record of a sorrow that is, and has its greyness converted\ninto verdure--monuments of a wrath that has been reconciled, of a wrong\nthat has been atoned for--convulsions of a storm that has gone by. What\nI am going to say is the most like a superstitious thing that I ever\nshall say. And I have reason to think that every man who is not a\nvillain once in his life must be superstitious. It is a tribute which he\npays to human frailty, which tribute if he will not pay, which frailty\nif he will not share, then also he shall not have any of its strength.\n\nThe face of this monitory Hebe haunted me for some years in a way that I\nmust faintly attempt to explain. It is little to say that it was the\nsweetest face, with the most peculiar expression of sweetness, that I\nhad ever seen: that was much, but that was earthly. There was something\nmore terrific, believe me, than this; yet that was not the word: terror\nlooks to the future; and this perhaps did, but not primarily. Chiefly it\nlooked at some unknown past, and was for that reason awful; yes,\nawful--that was the word.\n\nThus, on any of those heavenly sunny mornings, that now are buried in an\nendless grave, did I, transported by no human means, enter that cottage,\nand descend to that breakfast-room, my earliest salute was to her, that\never, as the look of pictures do, with her eyes pursued me round the\nroom, and oftentimes with a subtle checking of grief, as if great sorrow\nhad been or would be hers. And it was, too, in the sweet Maytime. Oh\nyes; she was but as if she had been--as if it were her original ...\nchosen to have been the aurora of a heavenly clime; and then suddenly\nshe was as one of whom, for some thousand years, Paradise had received\nno report; then, again, as if she entered the gates of Paradise not less\ninnocent; and, again, as if she could not enter; and some blame--but I\nknew not what blame--was mine; and now she looked as though broken with\na woe that no man could read, as she sought to travel back to her early\njoy--yet no longer a joy that is sublime in innocency, but a joy from\nwhich sprung abysses of memories polluted into anguish, till her tears\nseemed to be suffused with drops of blood. All around was peace and the\ndeep silence of untroubled solitude; only in the lovely lady was a sign\nof horror, that had slept, under deep ages of frost, in her heart, and\nnow rose, as with the rushing of wings, to her face. Could it be\nsupposed that one life--so pitiful a thing--was what moved her care? Oh\nno; it was, or it seemed, as if this poor wreck of a life happened to be\nthat one which determined the fate of some thousand others. Nothing\nless; nothing so abject as one poor fifty years--nothing less than a\ncentury of centuries could have stirred the horror that rose to her\nlovely lips, as once more she waved me away from the cottage.\n\nOh, reader, five years after I saw that sweet face in reality--saw it in\nthe flesh; saw that pomp of womanhood; saw that cottage; saw a thousand\ntimes that lovely domicile that heard the cooing of the solitary dove in\nthe solitary morning; saw the grace of childhood and the shadows of\ngraves that lay, like creatures asleep, in the sunshine; saw, also, the\nhorror, somehow realized as a shadowy reflection from myself, which\nwarned me off from that cottage, and which still rings through the\ndreams of five-and-twenty years.\n\n\nThe general sentiment or sense of pre-existence, of which this\n_Suspiria_ may be regarded as one significant and affecting\nillustration, had this record in the outset of the 'Reminiscences of\nWordsworth':\n\n'Oh, sense of mysterious pre-existence, by which, through years, in\nwhich as yet a stranger to those valleys of Westmoreland, I viewed\nmyself as a phantom self--a second identity projected from my own\nconsciousness, and already living amongst them--how was it, and by what\nprophetic instinct, that already I said to myself oftentimes, when\nchasing day-dreams along the pictures of these wild mountainous\nlabyrinths, which as yet I had not traversed, \"Here, in some distant\nyear, I shall be shaken with love, and there with stormiest grief and\nregret\"? Whence was it that sudden revelations came upon me, like the\ndrawings up of a curtain, and closing again as rapidly, of scenes that\nmade the future heaven of my life? And how was it that in thought I\n_was_, and yet in reality _was not_, a denizen, already, in 1803, 1804,\n1805, of lakes and forest lawns, which I never saw till 1807? and that,\nby a prophetic instinct of heart, I rehearsed and lived over, as it\nwere, in vision those chapters of my life which have carried with them\nthe weightiest burden of joy and sorrow, and by the margin of those very\nlakes and hills with which I prefigured this connection? and, in short,\nthat for me, by a transcendent privilege, during the novitiate of my\nlife, most truly I might say:\n\n    '\"In to-day already walked to-morrow.\"'\n\n\n\n\n4.--THE PRINCESS WHO OVERLOOKED ONE SEED IN A POMEGRANATE.\n\n\nThere is a story told in the 'Arabian Nights' of a princess who, by\noverlooking one seed of a pomegranate, precipitated the event which she\nhad laboured to make impossible. She lies in wait for the event which\nshe foresees. The pomegranate swells, opens, splits; the seeds, which\nshe knows to be roots of evil, rapidly she swallows; but one--only\none--before it could be arrested, rolls away into a river. It is lost!\nit is irrecoverable! She has triumphed, but she must perish. Already she\nfeels the flames mounting up which are to consume her, and she calls for\nwater hastily--not to deliver herself (for that is impossible), but,\nnobly forgetting her own misery, that she may prevent that destruction\nof her brother mortal which had been the original object for hazarding\nher own. Yet why go to Arabian fictions? Even in our daily life is\nexhibited, in proportions far more gigantic, that tendency to swell and\namplify itself into mountains of darkness, which exists oftentimes in\ngerms that are imperceptible. An error in human choice, an infirmity in\nthe human will, though it were at first less than a mote, though it\nshould swerve from the right line by an interval less than any thread\n\n    'That ever spider twisted from her womb,'\n\nsometimes begins to swell, to grow, to widen its distance rapidly,\ntravels off into boundless spaces remote from the true centre, spaces\nincalculable and irretraceable, until hope seems extinguished and return\nimpossible. Such was the course of my own opium career. Such is the\nhistory of human errors every day. Such was the original sin of the\nGreek theories on Deity, which could not have been healed but by putting\noff their own nature, and kindling into a new principle--absolutely\nundiscoverable, as I contend, for the Grecian intellect.\n\nOftentimes an echo goes as it were to sleep: the series of\nreverberations has died away. Suddenly a second series awakens: this\nsubsides, then a third wakens up. So of actions done in youth. After\ngreat tumults all is quieted. You dream that they are over. In a moment,\nin the twinkling of an eye, on some fatal morning in middle-life the\nfar-off consequences come back upon you. And you say to yourself, 'Oh,\nHeaven, if I had fifty lives this crime would reappear, as Pelion upon\nOssa!' So was it with my affection. Left to natural peace, I might have\nconquered it: _Verschmerzeon_. To charm it down by the mere suffering of\ngrief, to hush it by endurance, that was the natural policy--that was\nthe natural process. But behold! A new form of sorrow arises, and the\ntwo multiply together. And the worm which was beginning to fall asleep\nis roused again to pestilential fierceness.\n\n\n\n\n5.--NOTES FOR 'SUSPIRIA.'\n\n\nMystery unfathomable of Death! Mystery unapproachable of God! Destined\nit was, from the foundations of the world, that each mystery should make\nwar upon the other: once that the lesser mystery should swallow up for a\nmoment a _limbus_ of the greater; and that woe is past: once that the\ngreater mystery should swallow up for ever the whole vortex of the\nlesser; and that glory is yet to come. After which man, that is the son\nof God, shall lift up his eyes for ever, saying, 'Behold! these were two\nmysteries; and one is not; and there is but one mystery that survives\nfor ever!'\n\n\nIf an eternity (Death supposed) is as vast as a star, yet the most\nmiserable of earthly blocks not four feet square will eclipse, masque,\nhide it from centre to circumference. And so it really is. Incredible as\nit might seem apart from experience, the dreadful reality of death is\nutterly withdrawn from us because itself dwindles to an apparent mote,\nand the perishing non-reality thickens into a darkness as massy as a\nrock.\n\n\nGreat changes summon to great meditations. Daily we see the most joyous\nof events take a colouring of solemnity from the mere relation in which\nthey stand to an uncertain future: the birth of a child, heir to the\ngreatest expectations, and welcomed clamorously by the sympathy of\nmyriads, speaks to the more reflecting in an undertone of monitory\nsadness, were it only as a tribute to the frailty of human expectations:\nand a marriage-day, of all human events the most lawfully festal, yet\nneeds something of effort to chase away the boding sadness which settles\nunavoidably upon any new career; the promise is vague, but new hopes\nhave created new dangers, and responsibilities contracted perhaps with\nrapture are charged with menace.\n\n\nFor every one of us, male or female, there is a year of crisis--a year\nof solemn and conscious transition, a year in which the light-hearted\nsense of the _irresponsible_ ceases to gild the heavenly dawn. A year\nthere is, settled by no law or usage, for me perhaps the eighteenth, for\nyou the seventeenth, for another the nineteenth, within the gates of\nwhich, underneath the gloomy archway of which, sits a phantom of\nyourself.\n\n\nTurn a screw, tighten a linch-pin--which is not to disease, but perhaps\nto exalt, the mighty machinery of the brain--and the Infinities appear,\nbefore which the tranquillity of man unsettles, the gracious forms of\nlife depart, and the ghostly enters. So profoundly is this true, that\noftentimes I have said of my own tremendous experience in this\nregion--destined too certainly, I fear, finally to swallow up intellect\nand the life of life in the heart, unless God of His mercy fetches me\naway by some sudden death--that death, considered as an entrance to this\nghostly world, is but a postern-gate by comparison with the\nheaven-aspiring vestibule through which this world of the Infinite\nintroduces the ghostly world.\n\n\nTime, if it does not diminish grief, alters its character. At first we\nstretch out our hands in very blindness of heart, as if trying to draw\nback again those whom we have lost. But, after a season, when the\nimpotence of such efforts has become too sensibly felt, finding that\nthey will not come back to us, a strange fascination arises which yearns\nafter some mode of going to _them_. There is a gulf fixed which\nchildhood rarely can pass. But we link our wishes with whatsoever would\ngently waft us over. We stretch out our hands, and say, 'Sister, lend us\nthy help, and plead for us with God, that we may pass over without much\nagony.'\n\n\nThe joy of an infant, or joy-generation, without significance to an\nunprofound and common mind--how strange to see the excess of pathos in\nthat; yet men of any (or at least of much) sensibility see in this a\ntranspicuous masque for another form, viz., the eternal ground of sorrow\nin all human hearts. This, by the way, in an essay on William\nWordsworth, should be noticed as the charm of his poetry; and the note\ndifferential, in fact. At least, I know not of any former poet who has\nso systematically sought his sadness in the very luxury of joy. Thus, in\nthe 'Two April Mornings,' 'what a mortal freshness of dewy radiance!\nwhat an attraction of early summer! what a vision of roses in June! Yet\nit is all transmuted to a purpose of sadness.'\n\n\nAh, reader, scorn not that which--whether you refuse it or not as the\nreality of realities--is assuredly the reality of dreams, linking us to\na far vaster cycle, in which the love and the languishing, the ruin and\nthe horror, of this world are but moments--but elements in an eternal\ncircle. The cycle stretches from an East that is forgotten to a West\nthat is but conjectured. The mere fact of your own individual calamity\nis a life; the tragedy is a nature; the hope is but as a dim augury\nwritten on a flower.[5]\n\n\nIf the things that have fretted us had not some art for retiring into\nsecret oblivion, what a hell would life become! Now, understand how in\nsome nervous derangements this horror really takes place. Some things\nthat had sunk into utter forgetfulness, others that had faded into\nvisionary power, all rise as gray phantoms from the dust; the field of\nour earthly combats that should by rights have settled into peace, is\nall alive with hosts of resurrections--cavalries that sweep in gusty\ncharges--columns that thunder from afar--arms gleaming through clouds of\nsulphur.\n\n\nGod takes care for the religion of little children wheresoever His\nChristianity exists. Wheresoever there is a national Church established,\nto which a child sees all his protectors resort; wheresoever he beholds\namongst earthly creatures whom most he honours prostrate in devotion\nbefore these illimitable heavens, which fill to overflowing the total\ncapacities of his young adoring heart; wheresoever at intervals he\nbeholds the sleep of death, falling upon the men or women whom he has\nseen--a depth stretching as far below his power to fathom as those\npersons ascend beyond his powers to pursue--God speaks to their hearts\nby dreams and their tumultuous grandeurs. Even by solitude does God\nspeak to little children, when made vocal by the services of\nChristianity, as also he does by darkness wheresoever it is peopled\nwith visions of His almighty power. For a pagan child, for a Greek\nchild, solitude was nothing; for a Christian child it is made the power\nof God, and the hieroglyphic of His most distant truth. The solitude in\nlife is deep for the millions who have none to love them, and deep for\nthose who suffer by secret and incommunicable woe and have none to pity\nthem. Thus, be you assured that though infancy talks least of that which\nslumbers deepest, it yet rests in its own transcendent solitude. But\ninfancy, you say, talks surely most of that which is uppermost in its\nheart. Yes, doubtless of that which is uppermost, but not at all of that\nwhich slumbers below the foundations of its heart.\n\n[And then follows a suggestion to put in a note:]\n\n\nI except one case, the case of any child who is marked for death by\norganic disease, and knows it. In such cases the creature is\nchanged--that which would have been unchildlike ceases to offend, for a\nnew character is forming.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] See the story of the young soldier who told his officer, on having\nbeen struck by him, that 'he would make him repent it.' (Close of\nautobiographic sketch, 'Infant Literature.')\n\n[2] Three thousand children are annually burnt to death in the nations\nof England and Scotland, chiefly through the carelessness of parents. I\nshudder to add another and darker cause, which is a deep disgrace to the\npresent age.\n\n[3] Count Massigli (an Austrian officer in the imperial service) about\nsixty years ago fathomed and attempted to fathom many parts of the\nMediterranean and the Atlantic. If I remember rightly, he found the\nbottom within less than an English mile.\n\n[4] The story and the verses are, or used to be, well known. A\nschoolboy, forbidden to return home at the holidays, is suspected to\nhave written the lyrical Latin verses upon the rapture of returning\nhome, and to have breathed out his life in the anguish of thus reviving\nthe images which for him were never to be realized.... The reader must\nnot fancy any flaw in the Latin title. It is elliptic; _revisere_ being\nunderstood, or some similar word.\n\n[5] I allude to the _signatures_ of nature.\n\n\n\n\n_II. THE LOVELIEST SIGHT FOR WOMAN'S EYES._\n\n\nThe loveliest sight that a woman's eye opens upon in this world is her\nfirst-born child; and the holiest sight upon which the eyes of God\nsettle in Almighty sanction and perfect blessing is the love which soon\nkindles between the mother and her infant: mute and speechless on the\none side, with no language but tears and kisses and looks. Beautiful is\nthe philosophy ... which arises out of that reflection or passion\nconnected with the transition that has produced it. First comes the\nwhole mighty drama of love, purified[6] ever more and more, how often\nfrom grosser feelings, yet of necessity through its very elements,\noscillating between the finite and the infinite: the haughtiness of\nwomanly pride, so dignified, yet not always free from the near contagion\nof error; the romance so ennobling, yet not always entirely reasonable;\nthe tender dawn of opening sentiments, pointing to an idea in all this\nwhich it neither can reach nor could long sustain. Think of the great\nstorm of agitation, and fear and hope, through which, in her earliest\ndays of womanhood, every woman must naturally pass, fulfilling a law of\nher Creator, yet a law which rests upon her mixed constitution; animal,\nthough indefinitely ascending to what is non-animal--as a daughter of\nman, frail ... and imperfect, yet also as a daughter of God, standing\nerect, with eyes to the heavens. Next, when the great vernal passover of\nsexual tenderness and romance has fulfilled its purpose, we see, rising\nas a Phoenix from this great mystery of ennobled instincts, another\nmystery, much more profound, more affecting, more divine--not so much a\nrapture as a blissful repose of a Sabbath, which swallows up the more\nperishing story of the first; forcing the vast heart of female nature\nthrough stages of ascent, forcing it to pursue the transmigrations of\nthe Psyche from the aurelic condition, so glowing in its colour, into\nthe winged creature which mixes with the mystery of the dawn, and\nascends to the altar of the infinite heavens, rising by a ladder of\nlight from that sympathy which God surveys with approbation; and even\nmore so as He beholds it self-purifying under His Christianity to that\nsympathy which needs no purification, but is the holiest of things on\nthis earth, and that in which God most reveals Himself through the\nnature of humanity.\n\nWell is it for the glorification of human nature that through these the\nvast majority of women must for ever pass; well also that, by placing\nits sublime germs near to female youth, God thus turns away by\nanticipation the divinest of disciplines from the rapacious absorption\nof the grave. Time is found--how often--for those who are early summoned\ninto rendering back their glorious privilege, who yet have tasted in\nits first-fruits the paradise of maternal love.\n\nAnd pertaining also to this part of the subject, I will tell you a\nresult of my own observations of no light importance to women.\n\nIt is this: Nineteen times out of twenty I have remarked that the true\nparadise of a female life in all ranks, not too elevated for constant\nintercourse with the children, is by no means the years of courtship,\nnor the earliest period of marriage, but that sequestered chamber of her\nexperience, in which a mother is left alone through the day, with\nservants perhaps in a distant part of the house, and (God be thanked!)\nchiefly where there are no servants at all, she is attended by one sole\ncompanion, her little first-born angel, as yet clinging to her robe,\nimperfectly able to walk, still more imperfect in its prattling and\ninnocent thoughts, clinging to her, haunting her wherever she goes as\nher shadow, catching from her eye the total inspiration of its little\npalpitating heart, and sending to hers a thrill of secret pleasure so\noften as its little fingers fasten on her own. Left alone from morning\nto night with this one companion, or even with three, still wearing the\ngraces of infancy; buds of various stages upon the self-same tree, a\nwoman, if she has the great blessing of approaching such a luxury of\nparadise, is moving--too often not aware that she is moving--through the\ndivinest section of her life. As evening sets in, the husband, through\nall walks of life, from the highest professional down to that of common\nlabour, returns home to vary her modes of conversation by such thoughts\nand interests as are more consonant with his more extensive capacities\nof intellect. But by that time her child (or her children) will be\nreposing on the little couch, and in the morning, duly as the sun\nascends in power, she sees before her a long, long day of perfect\npleasure in this society which evening will bring to her, but which is\ninterwoven with every fibre of her sensibilities. This condition of\nnoiseless, quiet love is that, above all, which God blesses and smiles\nupon.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[6] How purified? And if it should be answered, through and under\nChristianity, the fool in his heart would scoff and say: 'What woman\nthinks of religion in her youthful courtship?' No; but it is not what\nshe thinks of, but what thinks of her; not what she contemplates in\nconsciousness, but what contemplates her, and reaches her by a necessity\nof social (? ideal) action. Romance is the product of Christianity, but\nso is sentiment.\n\n\n\n\n_III. WHY THE PAGANS COULD NOT INVEST THEIR GODS WITH ANY IOTA OF\nGRANDEUR._\n\n\nIt is not for so idle a purpose as that of showing the Pagan\nbacksliding--that is too evident--but for a far subtler purpose, and one\nwhich no man has touched, viz., the incapacity of creating grandeur for\nthe Pagans, even with _carte blanche_ in their favour, that I write this\npaper. Nothing is more incomprehensible than the following fact--nothing\nthan this when mastered and understood is more thoroughly\ninstructive--the fact that having a wide, a limitless field open before\nthem, free to give and to take away at their own pleasure, the Pagans\ncould not invest their Gods with any iota of grandeur. Diana, when you\ntranslate her into the Moon, then indeed partakes in all the _natural_\ngrandeur of a planet associated with a dreamy light, with forests,\nforest lawns, etc., or the wild accidents of a huntress. But the Moon\nand the Huntress are surely not the creations of Pagans, nor indebted to\nthem for anything but the murderous depluming which Pagan mythology has\noperated upon all that is in earth or in the waters that are under the\nearth. Now, why could not the ancients raise one little scintillating\nglory in behalf of their monstrous deities? So far are they from thus\nraising Jupiter, that he is sometimes made the ground of nature (not,\nobserve, for any positive reason that they had for any relation that\nJupiter had to Creation, but simply for the negative reason that they\nhad nobody else)--never does Jupiter seem more disgusting than when as\njust now in a translation of the 'Batrachia' I read that Jupiter had\ngiven to frogs an amphibious nature, making the awful, ancient,\nfirst-born secrets of Chaos to be his, and thus forcing into contrast\nand remembrance his odious personality.\n\nWhy, why, why could not the Romans, etc., make a grandeur for their\nGods? Not being able to make them grand, they daubed them with finery.\nAll that people imagine in the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias--_they_\nthemselves confer. But an apostle is beyond their reach.\n\nWhen, be it well observed, the cruel and dark religions are far more\nsuccessful than those of Greece and Rome, for Osiris, etc., by the might\nof the devil, of darkness, are truly terrific. Cybele stands as a middle\nterm half-way between these dark forms and the Greek or Roman. Pluto is\nthe very model of a puny attempt at darkness utterly failing. He looks\nbig; he paints himself histrionically; he soots his face; he has a\nmasterful dog, nothing half so fearful as a wolf-dog or bloodhound; and\nhe raises his own _manes_, poor, stridulous Struldbrugs.\n\nVainly did the ancient Pagans fight against this fatal weakness.\n\nThey may confer upon their Gods glittering titles of 'ambrosial,'\n'immortal'; but the human mind is careless of positive assertion, and of\nclamorous iteration in however angry a tone, when silently it observes\nstealing out of facts already conceded some fatal consequence at war\nwith all these empty pretensions--mortal even in _the virtual_\nconceptions of the Pagans. If the Pagan Gods were really immortal, if\nessentially they repelled the touch of mortality, and not through the\nadulatory homage of their worshipers causing their true aspects to\nunsettle or altogether to disappear in clouds of incense, then how came\nwhole dynasties of Gods to pass away, and no man could tell whither? If\nreally they defied the grave, then how was it that age and the\ninfirmities of age passed upon them like the shadow of eclipse upon the\ngolden faces of the planets? If Apollo were a beardless young man, his\nfather was not such--_he_ was in the vigour of maturity; maturity is a\nflattering term for expressing it, but it means _past youth_--and his\ngrandfather was superannuated. But even this grandfather, who _had_ been\nonce what Apollo was now, could not pretend to more than a transitory\nstation in the long succession of Gods. Other dynasties, known even to\nman, there had been before his; and elder dynasties before _that_, of\nwhom only rumours and suspicions survived. Even this taint, however,\nthis _direct_ access of mortality, was less shocking to my mind in\nafter-years than the abominable fact of its reflex or indirect access in\nthe shape of grief for others who had died. I need not multiply\ninstances; they are without end. The reader has but to throw his memory\nback upon the anguish of Jupiter, in the 'Iliad,' for the approaching\ndeath of his son Sarpedon, and his vain struggles to deliver himself\nfrom this ghastly net; or upon Thetis, fighting against the vision of\nher matchless Pelides caught in the same vortex; or upon the Muse in\nEuripides, hovering in the air and wailing over her young Rhesus, her\nbrave, her beautiful one, of whom she trusted that he had been destined\nto confound the Grecian host. What! a God, and liable to the pollution\nof grief! A Goddess, and standing every hour within the peril of that\ndismal shadow!\n\nHere in one moment mark the recoil, the intolerable recoil, upon the\nPagan mind, of that sting which vainly they pretended to have conquered\non behalf of their Pantheon. Did the reader fancy that I was fatiguing\nmyself with any task so superfluous as that of proving the Gods of the\nheathen to be no Gods? In that case he has not understood me. My object\nis to show that the ancients, that even the Greeks, could not support\nthe idea of immortality. The idea crumbled to pieces under their touch.\nIn realizing that idea unconsciously, they suffered elements to slip in\nwhich defeated its very essence in the result; and not by accident:\nother elements they could not have found. Doubtless an insolent Grecian\nphilosopher would say, 'Surely, I knew that immortality meant the being\nliberated from mortality.' Yes, but this is no more than the negative\nidea, and the demand is to give the affirmative idea. Or perhaps I shall\nbetter explain my meaning by substituting other terms with my own\nillustration of their value. I say, then, that the Greek idea of\nimmortality involves only the nominal idea, not the real idea. Now, the\nnominal idea (or, which is the same thing, the nominal definition) is\nthat which simply sketches the outline of an object in the shape of a\nproblem; whereas the real definition fills up that outline and solves\nthat problem. The nominal definition states the conditions under which\nan object would be realized for the mind; the real definition executes\nthose conditions. The nominal definition, that I may express it most\nbriefly and pointedly, puts a _question_; the real definition _answers_\nthat question. Thus, to give our illustration, the insoluble problem of\nsquaring the circle presents us with a good nominal idea. There is no\nvagueness at all in the idea of such a square; it is that square which,\nwhen a given circle is laid before you, would present the same\nsuperficial contents in such exquisite truth of repetition that the eye\nof God could detect no shadow of more or of less. Nothing can be plainer\nthan the demand--than the question. But as to the answer, as to the\n_real_ conditions under which this demand can be realized, all the wit\nof man has not been able to do more than approach it. Or, again, the\nidea of a _perfect commonwealth_, clear enough as a nominal idea, is in\nits infancy as a real idea. Or, perhaps, a still more lively\nillustration to some readers may be the idea of _perpetual motion_.\nNominally--that is, as an idea sketched problem-wise--what is plainer?\nYou are required to assign some principle of motion such that it shall\nrevolve through the parts of a mechanism self-sustained. Suppose those\nparts to be called by the names of our English alphabet, and to stand in\nthe order of our alphabet, then A is through B C D, etc., to pass down\nwith its total power upon Z, which reciprocally is to come round\nundiminished upon A B C, etc., for ever. Never was a _nominal_\ndefinition of what you want more simple and luminous. But coming to the\n_real_ definition, and finding that every letter in succession must\nstill give something less than is received--that O, for instance, cannot\ngive to P all which it received from N--then no matter for the\ntriviality of the loss in each separate case, always it is gathering and\naccumulating; your hands drop down in despair; you feel that a principle\nof death pervades the machinery; retard it you may, but come it will at\nlast. And a proof remains behind, as your only result, that whilst the\nnominal definition may sometimes run before the real definition for\nages, and yet finally be overtaken by it, in other cases the one flies\nhopelessly before the pursuit of the other, defies it, and never _will_\nbe overtaken to the end of time.\n\nThat fate, that necessity, besieged the Grecian idea of immortality.\nRise from forgotten dust, my Plato; Stagyrite, stand up from the grave;\nAnaxagoras, with thy bright, cloudless intellect that searched the\nskies, Heraclitus, with thy gloomy, mysterious intellect that fathomed\nthe deeps, come forward and execute for me this demand. How shall that\nimmortality, which you give, which you _must_ give as a trophy of honour\nto your Pantheon, sustain itself against the blights from those\nhumanities which also, by an equal necessity, starting from your basis,\ngive you must to that Pantheon? How will you prevent the sad reflux of\nthat tide which finally engulfs all things under any attempt to execute\nthe nominal idea of a Deity? You cannot do it. Weave your divinities in\nthat Grecian loom of yours, and no skill in the workmanship, nor care\nthat wisdom can devise, will ever cure the fatal flaws in the texture:\nfor the mortal taint lies not so much in your work as in the original\nerrors of your loom.\n\n\n\n\n_IV. ON PAGAN SACRIFICES._\n\n\nAsk any well-informed man at random what he supposes to have been done\nwith the sacrifices, he will answer that really he never thought about\nit, but that naturally he supposes the flesh was burnt upon the altars.\nNot at all, reader; a sacrifice to the Gods meant universally a banquet\nto man. He who gave a splendid public dinner announced in other words\nthat he designed to celebrate a sacrificial rite. This was of course.\nHe, on the other hand, who announced a sacrificial pomp did in other\nwords proclaim by sound of trumpet that he gave a dinner. This was of\nnecessity. Hence, when Agamemnon offers a hecatomb to Jupiter, his\nbrother Menelaus walks in to dinner, [Greek: hachletost], without\ninvitation. As a brother, we are told by Homer that no invitation was\nrequired. He had the privilege of what in German is beautifully called\n'ein Kind des Hauses,' a child of the house. This dispensation from the\nnecessity of a formal invitation Homer explains, but as to explanation\nhow he knew that there was a dinner, that he passes over as superfluous.\nA vast herd of oxen could not be sacrificed without open and public\ndisplay of the preparation, and that a human banquet must accompany a\ndivine sacrifice--this was so much a self-evident truth that Homer does\nnot trouble himself to make so needless an explanation.\n\nHence, therefore, a case of legislation in St. Paul's Christian\nadministration, which I will venture to say few readers understand. Take\nthe Feast of Ephesus. Here, as in all cities of Asia Minor and Greece,\nthe Jews lived in great numbers. The universal hospitality over all\nthese regions was exhibited in dinners ([Greek: dehipna]). Now, it\nhappened not sometimes, but always, that he who gave a dinner had on the\nsame day made a sacrifice at the Great Temple; nay, the dinner was\nalways part of the sacrifice, and thus the following dilemma arose.\nScruples of eating part of sacrifices were absolutely unintelligible,\nexcept as insults to Ephesus. To deny the existence of Diana had no\nmeaning in the ears of an Ephesian. All that he did understand was, that\nif you happened to be a hater of Ephesus, you must hate the guardian\ndeity of Ephesus. And the sole inference he could collect from your\nrefusing to eat what had been hallowed to Diana was--that you hated\nEphesus. The dilemma, therefore, was this: either grant a toleration of\nthis practice, or else farewell to all amicable intercourse for the Jews\nwith the citizens. In fact, it was to proclaim open war if this\nconcession were refused. A scruple of conscience might have been allowed\nfor, but a scruple of this nature could find no allowance in any Pagan\ncity whatever. Moreover, it had really no foundation. The truth is far\notherwise than that Pagan deities were dreams. Far from it. They were as\nreal as any other beings. The accommodation, therefore, which St. Paul\nmost wisely granted was--to eat socially, without regard to any ceremony\nthrough which the food might have passed. So long as the Judaizing\nChristian was no party to the religious ceremonies, he was free of all\nparticipation in idolatry. Since if the mere open operation of a Pagan\nprocess could transform into the character of an accomplice one who with\nno assenting heart ate of the food, in that case Christ Himself might by\npossibility have shared in an idolatrous banquet, and we Christians at\nthis day in the East Indies might for months together become unconscious\naccomplices in the foul idolatries of the Buddhist and Brahminical\nsuperstitions.\n\nBut so essentially were the convivial banquets of the Pagans interwoven\nwith their religious rites, so essentially was a great dinner a great\noffering to the Gods, and _vice versa_--a great offering to the Gods a\ngreat dinner--that the very ministers and chief agents in religion were\nat first the same. Cocus, or [Greek: mageirost], was the very same\nperson as the Pope, or presiding arbiter in succession to a Pope. 'Sunt\neadem,' says Casaubon, 'Cocus et Pope.' And of this a most striking\nexample is yet extant in Athenaeus. From the correspondence which for\nmany centuries was extant between Alexander the Great, when embarked\nupon his great expeditions, and his royal mother Olympias, who remained\nin Macedon, was one from which we have an extract even at this day,\nwhere he, as we learn from the letter quoted, had been urging his mother\nto purchase for him a good cook. And what was made the test supreme of\nhis skill? Why, this, that he should be [Greek: thysihon hempeirost], an\nartist able to dress a sacrificial banquet. What he meant is this: I do\nnot want an ordinary cook, who might be equal to the preparation of a\nplain (or, what is the same thing, secular) dinner, but a person\nqualified or competent to take charge of a hecatomb dinner. His mother's\nreply addresses itself to that one point only: [Greek: Peligua ton\nmageiron labe hapd thest metrost], which is in effect: 'A cook is it\nthat you want? Why, then, you cannot do better than take mine. The man\nis a reliable table of sacrifices; he knows the whole ritual of those\ngreat official and sacred dinners given by the late king, your father.\nHe is acquainted with the whole _cuisine_ of the more mysterious\nreligions, the Orgiacs' (probably from the neighbouring Thrace), 'and\nall the great ceremonies and observances practised at Olympia, and even\nwhat you may eat on the great St. Leger Day. So don't lose sight of the\narrangement, but take the man as a present, from me, your affectionate\nmother, and be sure to send off an express for him at your earliest\nconvenience.'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     [Professor Robertson Smith in his latest work has well pointed out\n     that even with the Hebrews the sacrifices were eaten in common till\n     the seventh century B. C., when the sin-offerings, in a time of\n     great national distress, came to be slain before Jehovah, and 'none\n     but the priests ate of the flesh,' a phase of sacrificial\n     specialization which marks the beginning of the exclusive\n     sacerdotalism of the Jews.--ED.]\n\n\n\n\n_V. ON THE MYTHUS._\n\n\nThat which the tradition of the people is to the truth of facts--that is\na _mythus_ to the reasonable origin of things. [Transcriber's Note: three\ndots in a vertical line above a tiny circle] These objects to an eye at\n[Transcriber's Note: low tiny circle] might all melt into one another, as\nstars are confluent which modern astronomy has prismatically split. Says\nRennell, as a reason for a Mahometan origin of a canal through Cairo,\nsuch is the tradition of the people. But we see amongst ourselves how\ngreat works are ascribed to the devil or to the Romans by antiquarians.\nIn Rennell we see the effects of synthesis. He throws back his\nobservations, like a woman threading a series of needles or a shuttle\nrunning through a series of rings, through a succession of Egyptian\ncanals (p. 478), showing the real action of the case, that a tendency\nexisted to this. And, by the way, here comes another strong illustration\nof the popular adulterations. They in our country confound the 'Romans,'\na vulgar expression for the Roman Catholics, with the ancient national\npeople of Rome. Here one element of a _mythus_ B has melted into the\n_mythus_ X, and in far-distant times might be very perplexing to\nantiquarians, when the popular tradition was too old for them to _see_\nthe point of juncture where the alien stream had fallen in.\n\nThen, again, not only ignorance, but love, combines to adulterate the\ntradition. Every man wishes to give his own country an interest in\nanything great. What an effort has been made to suck Sir T. R. back into\nScotland!\n\nThus, it is too difficult without a motive to hold apart vast distances\n_or_ intervals that lie in a field which has all gathered into a blue\nhaze. Stars, divided by millions of miles, collapse into each other. So\n_mythi_: and then comes the perplexity--the entanglement. Then come\nalso, from lacunae arising in these interwelded stories, temptations to\nfalsehood. By the way, even the recent tale of Astyages seems to have\nbeen pieced: the difficulty was to find a motive for Cyrus, reputed a\ngood man, to make war on his grandfather. Kill him he might by accident.\nBut the dream required that he should dethrone his grandfather.\nAccordingly the dreadful story is devised; but why should Cyrus adopt\nthe injuries of a nobleman who, if all were true, had only saved himself\nby accident?\n\nImpossible as it would seem to transmute Socrates into a _mythus_,\nconsidering the broad daylight which then rested upon Athenian history,\nand the inextricable way in which Socrates is entangled in that history\n(although we have all seen many a Scriptural personage so transmuted\nunder far less colourable pretenses or advantages), still it is evident\nthat the mediaeval schoolmen _did_ practically treat Socrates as\nsomething of that sort--as a mythical, symbolic, or representative man.\nSocrates is the eternal burthen of their quillets, quodlibets, problems,\nsyllogisms; for them he is the Ulysses of the Odyssey, that\nmuch-suffering man; or, to speak more adequately, for _them_ he is the\nJohn Doe and the Richard Roe of English law, whose feuds have tormented\nthe earth and incensed the heavens through a cycle of uncounted\ncenturies, and must have given a bad character of our planet on its\nEnglish side. To such an extent was this pushed, that many of the\nscholastic writers became wearied of enunciating or writing his name,\nand, anticipating the occasional fashion of _My lud_ and _Your ludship_\nat our English Bar, or of _Hocus Pocus_ as an abbreviation of pure\nweariness for _Hoc est Corpus_, they called him not _Socrates_, but\n_Sortes_. Now, whence, let me ask, was this custom derived? As to Doe\nand Roe, who or what first set them by the ears together is now probably\npast all discovery. But as to _Sortes_, that he was a mere contraction\nfor _Socrates_ is proved in the same way that _Mob_ is shown to have\nbeen a brief way of writing _Mobile vulgus_, viz., that by Bishop\nStillingfleet in particular the two forms, _Mob_ and _Mobile vulgus_ are\nused interchangeably and indifferently through several pages\nconsecutively--just as _Canter_ and _Canterbury gallop_, of which the\none was at first the mere shorthand expression of the other, were at one\nperiod interchanged, and for the same reason. The abbreviated form wore\nthe air of plebeian slang at its first introduction, but its convenience\nfavoured it: soon it became reconciled to the ear, then it ceased to be\nslang, and finally the original form, ceasing to have any apparent\nadvantage of propriety or elegance, dropped into total disuse. _Sortes_,\nit is a clear case, inherited from Socrates his distressing post of\ntarget-general for the arrows of disputatious Christendom. But how came\nSocrates by that distinction? I cannot have a doubt that it was strength\nof tradition that imputed such a use of the Socratic name and character\nto Plato. The reader must remember that, although Socrates was no\n_mythus_, and least of all could be such, to his own leading disciple,\nthat was no reason why he should not be treated as a _mythus_. In Wales,\nsome nine or ten years ago, _Rebecca_, as the mysterious and masqued\nredresser of public wrongs, was rapidly passing into a _mythical_\nexpression for that universal character of Rhadamanthian avenger or\nvindicator. So of Captain Rock, in Ireland. So of Elias amongst the Jews\n(_when Elias shall come_), as the sublime, mysterious, and in some\ndegree pathetic expression for a great teacher lurking amongst the\ndreadful mists.\n\n\n\n\n_VI. DAVID'S NUMBERING OF THE PEOPLE--THE POLITICS OF THE SITUATION._\n\n\nYou read in the Hebrew Scriptures of a man who had thirty sons, all of\nwhom 'rode on white asses'; the riding on white asses is a circumstance\nthat expresses their high rank or distinction--that all were princes. In\nSyria, as in Greece and almost everywhere, white was the regal symbolic\ncolour.[7] And any mode of equitation, from the far inferior wealth of\nancient times, implied wealth. Mules or asses, besides that they were so\nfar superior a race in Syria no less than in Persia, to furnish a\nfavourite designation for a warlike hero, could much more conveniently\nbe used on the wretched roads, as yet found everywhere, until the Romans\nbegan to treat road-making as a regular business of military pioneering.\nIn this case, therefore, there were thirty sons of one man, and all\nprovided with princely establishments. Consequently, to have thirty sons\nat all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy;\nbut to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the funds\nof the family would not allow of giving to each his separate\nestablishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was\nsurprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against\nits truth, the writer would justly deny by pleading--for that very\nreason, _because_ it was surprising, did I tell the story. In a train of\n1,500 years naturally there must happen many wonderful things, both as\nto events and persons. Were these crowded together in time or locally,\nthese indeed we should incredulously reject. But when we understand the\nvast remoteness from each other in time or in place, we freely admit the\ntendency lies the other way; the wonder would be if there were _not_\nmany coincidences that each for itself separately might be looked upon\nas strange. And as the surgeon had set himself to collect certain cases\nfor the very reason that they were so unaccountably fatal, with a\npurpose therefore of including all that did _not_ terminate fatally, so\nwe should remember that generally historians (although less so if a\nJewish historian, because he had a far nobler chain of wonders to\nrecord) do not feel themselves open to the objection of romancing if\nthey report something out of the ordinary track, since exactly that sort\nof matter is their object, and it cannot but be found in a considerable\nproportion when their course travels over a vast range of successive\ngenerations. It would be a marvellous thing indeed if every one of five\nhundred men whom an author had chosen to record biographically should\nhave for his baptismal name--Francis. But if you found that this was the\nvery reason for his admitting the man into his series, that, however\nstrange a reason, it had in fact governed him in selecting his subjects,\nyou would no longer see anything to startle your belief.\n\nBut let me give an interesting case partly illustrating this principle.\nOnce I was present on an occasion where, of two young men, one very\nyoung and very clever was suggesting infidel scruples, and the other, so\nmuch older as to be entering on a professional career with considerable\ndistinction, was on the very point of drinking-in all that his companion\nurged as so much weighty objection that could not be answered. The\nyounger man (in fact, a boy) had just used a passage from the Bible, in\nwhich one of the circumstances was--that the Jewish army consisted of\n120,000 men. 'Now,' said he, 'knowing as we all do the enormity of such\na force as a peace establishment, even for mighty empires like England,\nhow perfectly like a fairy-tale or an Arabian Nights' entertainment does\nit sound to hear of such monstrous armaments in a little country like\nJudaea, equal, perhaps, to the twelve counties of Wales!' This was\naddressed to myself, and I could see by the whole expression of the\nyoung physician that his condition was exactly this--his studies had\nbeen purely professional; he made himself a king, because (having\nhappened to hurt his leg) he wore white _fasciae_ about his thigh. He\nknew little or nothing of Scriptural records; he had not read at all\nupon this subject; quite as little had he thought, and, unfortunately,\nhis conversation had lain amongst clever chemists and naturalists, who\nhad a prejudgment in the case that all the ability and free power of\nmind ran into the channel of scepticism; that only people situated as\nmost women are should acquiesce in the faith or politics of their\nfathers or predecessors, or could believe much of the Scriptures, except\nthose who were slow to examine for themselves; but that multitudes\npretended to believe upon some interested motive. This was precisely\nthe situation of the young physician himself--he listened with manifest\ninterest, checked himself when going to speak; he knew the danger of\nbeing reputed an infidel, and he had no temper for martyrdom, as his\nwhole gesture and manner, by its tendency, showed what was passing in\nhis mind. 'Yes, X is right, manifestly right, and every rational view\nfrom our modern standard of good sense and reflective political economy\ntends to the same conclusion. By the reflex light of political economy\nwe know even at this hour much as to the condition of ancient lands like\nPalestine, Athens, etc., quite unrevealed to the wisest men amongst\nthem. But for me, who am entering on a critical walk of social life, I\nshall need every aid from advantageous impression in favour of my\nreligious belief, so I cannot in prudence speak, for I shall speak too\nwarmly, and I forbear.'\n\nWhat I replied, and in that instance usefully replied--for it sufficed\nto check one who was gravitating downwards to infidelity, and likely to\nsettle there for ever if he once reached that point--was in substance\nthis:\n\nFirstly, that the plea, with regard to the numbers as most\nextraordinary, was so far from affecting the credibility of the\nstatement disadvantageously, that on that ground, agreeably to the logic\nI have so scantily expounded, this very feature in the case was what\npartly engaged the notice of the Scriptural writer. It _was_ a great\narmy for so little a nation. And _therefore_, would the writer say,\n_therefore_ in print I record it.\n\nSecondly, that we must not, however, be misled by the narrow limits, the\nWelsh limits, to suppose a Welsh population. For that whilst the twelve\ncounties of Wales do not _now_ yield above half-a-million of people,\nPalestine had pretty certainly a number fluctuating between four and six\nmillions.\n\nThirdly, that the great consideration of this was the stage in the\nexpansion of society at which the Hebrew nation then stood, and the\nsublime interest--sublime enough to them, though far from comprehending\nthe solemn freight of hopes confided to themselves--which they\nconsciously defended. It was an age in which no pay was given to the\nsoldier. Now, when the soldier constitutes a separate profession, with\nthe regular pay he undertakes the regular danger and hardships. There is\nno motive for giving the pay and the rations but precisely that he\n_does_ so undertake. But when no pay at all is allowed out of any common\nfund, it will never be endured by the justice of the whole society or by\nan individual member that he, the individual, as one insulated\nstake-holder, having no greater interest embarked than others, should\nundertake the danger or the labour of warfare for the whole. And two\ninferences arise upon having armies so immense:\n\nFirst, that they were a militia, or more properly not even that, but a\nLandwehr--that is, a _posse comitatus_, the whole martial strength of\nthe people (one in four), drawn out and slightly trained to meet a\ndanger, which in those times was always a passing cloud. Regular and\nsuccessive campaigns were unknown; the enemy, whoever he might be, could\nas little support a regular army as the people of Palestine.\nConsequently, all these enemies would have to disperse hastily to their\nreaping and mowing, just as we may observe the Jews do under Joshua. It\nrequired, therefore, no long absence from home. It was but a march, but\na waiting for opportunity, watching for a favourable day--sunshine or\ncloud, the rising or subsiding of a river, the wind in the enemy's face,\nor an ambush skilfully posted. All was then ready; the signal was given,\na great battle ensued, and by sunset of one anxious day all was over in\none way or another. Upon this position of circumstances there was\nneither any fair dispensation from personal service (except where\ncitizens' scruples interfered), nor any motive for wishing it. On the\ncontrary, by a very few days' service, a stigma, not for the individual\nonly, but for his house and kin, would be evaded for ages of having\ntreacherously forsaken the commonwealth in agony. And the preference for\na fighting station would be too eager instead of too backward. It would\nbecome often requisite to do what it is evident the Jews in reality\ndid--to make successive sifting and winnowing from the service troops,\nat every stage throwing out upon severer principles of examination those\nwho seemed least able to face a trying crisis, whilst honourable posts\nof no great dependency would be assigned to those rejected, as modes of\nsoothing their offended pride. This in the case of a great danger; but\nin the case of an ordinary danger there is no doubt that many vicarious\narrangements would exist by way of evading so injurious a movement as\nthat of the whole fighting population. Either the ordinary watch and\nward, in that section which happened to be locally threatened--as, for\ninstance, by invasion on one side from Edom or Moab, on another side\nfrom the Canaanites or Philistines--would undertake the case as one\nwhich had fallen to them by allotment of Providence; or that section\nwhose service happened to be due for the month, without local regards,\nwould face the exigency. But in any great national danger, under that\nstage of society which the Jews had reached between Moses and\nDavid--that stage when fighting is no separate professional duty, that\nstage when such things are announced by there being no military pay--not\nthe army which is so large as 120,000 men, but the army which is so\nsmall, requires to be explained.[8]\n\nSecondly, the other inference from the phenomenon of no military pay,\nand therefore no separate fighting profession, is this--that foreign\nwar, war of aggression, war for booty, war for martial glory, is quite\nunknown. Now, all rules of political economy, applied to the maintenance\nof armies, must of course contemplate a regular trade of war pursued\nwith those objects, and not a domestic war for beating off an attack\nupon hearths and altars. Such a war only, be it observed, could be\nlawfully entertained by the Jewish people. Mahomet, when he stole all\nhis great ideas from the Mosaic and Christian revelations, found it\ninevitable to add one principle unknown to either: this was a religious\nmotive for perpetual war of aggression, and such a principle he\ndiscovered in the imaginary duty of summary proselytism. No instruction\nwas required. It was sufficient for the convert that, with or without\nsincerity, under terror of a sword at his throat, he spoke the words\naloud which disowned all other faith than in Allah and Mahomet his\nprophet. It was sufficient for the soldier that he heard of a nation\ndenying or ignoring Mahomet, to justify any atrocity of invasive\nwarfare. But the Jews had no such commission--a proselyte needed more\nevidences of assent than simply to bawl out a short formula of words,\nand he who refused to become a proselyte was no object of persecution.\nSome nations have forced their languages upon others as badges of\nservitude. But the Romans were so far from treating _their_ language in\nthis way, that they compelled barbarous nations on their frontier to pay\nfor a license to use the Latin tongue. And with much more reason did the\nJews, instead of wishing to obtrude their sublime religion upon\nforeigners, expect that all who valued it should manifest their value by\ncoming to Jerusalem, by seeking instruction from the doctors of the law,\nand by worshipping in the outer court of the Temple.\n\nSuch was the prodigious state of separation from a Mahometan principle\nof fanatical proselytism in which the Jews were placed from the very\nfirst. One small district only was to be cleared of its ancient\nidolatrous, and probably desperately demoralized, tribes. Even this\npurification it was not intended should be instant; and upon the\nfollowing reason, partly unveiled by God and partly left to an\nintegration, viz., that in the case of so sudden a desolation the wild\nbeasts and noxious serpents would have encroached too much on the human\npopulation. So much is expressed, and probably the sequel foreseen was,\nthat the Jews would have lapsed into a wild hunting race, and have\noutworn that ceremonial propensity which fitted them for a civil life,\nwhich formed them into a hive in which the great work of God in Shiloh,\nHis probationary Temple or His glorious Temple and service at Jerusalem,\noperated as the mysterious instinct of a queen bee, to compress and\norganize the whole society into a cohesion like this of life. Here,\nperhaps, lay the reason for not allowing of any sudden summary\nextirpation, even for the idolatrous tribes; whilst, upon a second\nprinciple, it was never meant that this extirpation should be complete.\nSnares and temptations were not to be too thickly sown--in that case the\nrestless Jew would be too severely tried; but neither were they to be\nutterly withdrawn--in that case his faith would undergo no probation.\nEven upon this small domestic scale, therefore, it appears that\naggressive warfare was limited both for interest and for time. First, it\nwas not to be too complete; second, even for this incompleteness it was\nnot to be concentrated within a short time. It was both to be narrow and\nto be gradual. By very necessity, therefore, of its original appointment\nthis part of the national economy, this small system of aggressive\nwarfare, could not provide a reason for a military profession. But all\nother wars of aggression, wars operating upon foreign objects, had no\nallowance, no motive, no colourable plea; for the attacks upon Edom,\nMidian, Moab, were mere acts of retaliation, and, strictly speaking, not\naggressive at all, but parts of defensive warfare. Consequently there\nremained no permanent case of war under Divine allowance that could ever\njustify the establishment of a military caste; for the civil wars of the\nJews either grew out of some one intolerable crime taken up, adopted,\nand wickedly defended by a whole tribe (as in the case of that horrible\natrocity committed by a few Benjamites, and then adopted by the whole\ntribe), in which case a bloody exterminating war under God's sanction\nsucceeded and rapidly drew to a close, or else grew out of the ruinous\nschism between the ten tribes and the two seated in or about Jerusalem.\nAnd as this schism had no countenance from God, still less could the\nwars which followed it. So that what belligerent state remains that\ncould have been contemplated or provided for in the original Mosaic\ntheory of their constitution? Clearly none at all, except the one sole\ncase of a foreign invasion. But as this, if in any national strength,\nstruck at the very existence of the people, and at their holy citadel in\nShiloh or in Jerusalem, it called out the whole military strength to the\nlast man of the Hebrew people. Consequently in any case, when the armies\ncould tend at all to great numerical amount, they must tend to an\nexcessive amount. And, so far from being a difficult problem to solve in\nthe 120,000 men, the true difficulty would lie the other way, to account\nfor its being so much reduced.\n\nIt seems to me highly probable that the offence of David in numbering\nthe people, which ultimately was the occasion of fixing the site for the\nTemple of Jerusalem, pointed to this remarkable military position of the\nJewish people--a position forbidding all fixed military institutions,\nand which yet David was probably contemplating in that very _census_.\nSimply to number the people could not have been a crime, nor could it be\nany desideratum for David; because we are too often told of the muster\nrolls for the whole nation, and for each particular tribe, to feel any\nroom for doubt that the reports on this point were constantly corrected,\nbrought under review of the governing elders, councils, judges, princes,\nor king, according to the historical circumstances, so that the need and\nthe criminality of such a _census_ would vanish at the same moment. But\nthis was not the _census_ ordered by David. He wanted a more specific\nreturn, probably of the particular wealth and nature of the employment\npursued by each individual family, so that upon this return he might\nground a permanent military organization for the people; and such an\norganization would have thoroughly revolutionized the character of the\npopulation, as well as drawn them into foreign wars and alliances.\n\nIt is painful to think that many amiable and really candid minds in\nsearch of truth are laid hold of by some plausible argument, as in this\ncase the young physician, by a topic of political economy, when a local\nexamination of the argument would altogether change its bearing. This\nargument, popularly enforced, seemed to imply the impossibility of\nsupporting a large force when there were no public funds but such as ran\ntowards the support of the Levites and the majestic service of the\naltar. But the confusion arises from the double sense of the word\n'army,' as a machine ordinarily disposable for all foreign objects\nindifferently, and one which in Judaea exclusively could be applied only\nto such a service as must in its own nature be sudden, brief, and always\ntending to a decisive catastrophe.\n\nAnd that this was the true form of the crime, not only circumstances\nlead me to suspect, but especially the remarkable demur of Joab, who in\nhis respectful remonstrance said in effect that, when the whole strength\nof the nation was known in sum--meaning from the ordinary state\nreturns--what need was there to search more inquisitively into the\nspecial details? Where all were ready to fight cheerfully, why seek for\nseparate _minutiae_ as to each particular class? Those general returns\nhad regard only to the ordinary _causa belli_--a hostile invasion. And,\nthen, all nations alike, rude or refined, have gone upon the same\ngeneral outline of computation--that, subtracting the females from the\nmales, this, in a gross general way, would always bisect the total\nreturn of the population. And, then, to make a second bisection of the\nmale half would subtract one quarter from the entire people as too young\nor too old, or otherwise as too infirm for warlike labours, leaving\nprecisely one quarter of the nation--every fourth head--as available for\nwar. This process for David's case would have yielded perhaps about\n1,100,000 fighting men throughout Palestine. But this unwieldy\n_pospolite_ was far from meeting David's secret anxieties. He had\nremarked the fickle and insurrectionary state of the people. Even\nagainst himself how easy had it been found to organize a sudden\nrebellion, and to conceal it so prosperously that he and his whole court\nsaved themselves from capture only by a few hours' start of the enemy,\nand through the enemy's want of cavalry. This danger meantime having\nvanished, it might be possible that for David personally no other great\nconspiracy should disturb his seat upon the throne. None of David's sons\napproached to Absalom in popularity; and yet the subsequent attempt of\nAdonijah showed that the revolutionary temper was still awake in that\nquarter. But what David feared, in a further-looking spirit, was the\ntenure by which his immediate descendants would maintain their title.\nThe danger was this: over and above the want of any principle for\nregulating the succession, and this want operating in a state of things\nfar less determined than amongst monogamous nations--one son pleading\nhis priority of birth; another, perhaps, his mother's higher rank, a\nthird pleading his very juniority, inasmuch as this brought him within\nthe description of _porphyrogeniture_, or royal birth, which is often\nfelt as transcendent as _primogeniture_--even the people, apart from the\nseveral pretenders to the throne, would create separate interests as\ngrounds for insurrection or for intestine feuds. There seems good reason\nto think that already the ten tribes, Israel as opposed to Judah, looked\nupon the more favoured and royal tribe of Judah, with their\nsupplementary section of Benjamin, as unduly favoured in the national\neconomy. Secretly there is little doubt that they murmured even against\nGod for ranking this powerful tribe as the prerogative tribe. The\njealousy had evidently risen to a great height; it was suppressed by the\nvigilant and strong government of Solomon; but at the outset of his\nson's reign it exploded at once, and the Scriptural account of the case\nshows that it proceeded upon old grievances. The boyish rashness of\nRehoboam might exasperate the leaders, and precipitate the issue; but\nvery clearly all had been prepared for a revolt. And I would remark that\nby the 'young men' of Rehoboam are undoubtedly meant the soldiers--the\nbody-guards whom the Jewish kings now retained as an element of royal\npomp. This is the invariable use of the term in the East. Even in\nJosephus the term for the military by profession is generally 'the young\nmen'; whilst 'the elders' mean the councilors of state. David saw\nenough of the popular spirit to be satisfied that there was no political\nreliance on the permanence of the dynasty; and even at home there was an\ninternal source of weakness. The tribe of Benjamin were mortified and\nincensed at the deposition of Saul's family and the bloody proscription\nof that family adopted by David. One only, a grandson of Saul, he had\nspared out of love to his friend Jonathan. This was Mephibo-sheth; but\nhe was incapacitated for the throne by lameness. And how deep the\nresentment was amongst the Benjamites is evident from the insulting\nadvantage taken of his despondency in the day of distress by Shimei. For\nShimei had no motive for the act of coming to the roadside and cursing\nthe king beyond his attachment to the house of Saul. Humanly speaking,\nDavid's prospect of propagating his own dynasty was but small. On the\nother hand, God had promised him _His_ support. And hence it was that\nhis crime arose, viz., upon his infidelity, in seeking to secure the\nthrone by a mere human arrangement in the first place; secondly, by such\nan arrangement as must disorganize the existing theocratic system of the\nJewish people. Upon this crime followed his chastisement in a sudden\npestilence. And it is remarkable in how significant a manner God\nmanifested the nature of the trespass, and the particular course through\nwhich He had meant originally, and _did_ still mean, to counteract the\nworst issue of David's apprehensions. It happened that the angel of the\npestilence halted at the threshing-floor of Araunah; and precisely that\nspot did God by dreams to David indicate as the site of the glorious\nTemple. Thus it seemed as though in so many words God had declared: 'Now\nthat all is over, your crime and its punishment, understand that your\nfears were vain. I will continue the throne in your house longer than\nyour anxieties can personally pursue its descent. And with regard to the\nterrors from Israel, although this event of a great schism is inevitable\nand essential to My councils, yet I will not allow it to operate for the\nextinction of your house. And that very Temple, in that very place where\nMy angel was commissioned to pause, shall be one great means and one\ngreat pledge to you of My decree in favour of your posterity. For this\nhouse, as a common sanctuary to all Jewish blood, shall create a\nperpetual interest in behalf of Judah amongst the other tribes, even\nwhen making war upon Jerusalem.' Witness if it were but that one case\nwhere 200,000 captives of Judah were restored without ransom, were\nclothed completely, were fed, by the very men who had just massacred\ntheir fighting relatives.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[7] Even in Rome, where the purple (whatever colour that might have\nbeen) is usually imagined to be the symbol of regal state--and\nafterwards their improved arts of dyeing, and improved materials, became\nso splendid that it was made so--white had always been the colour of a\nmonarchy. ['A white linen band was the simple badge of Oriental royalty'\n(Merivale's 'History of Rome,' ii., p. 468).--ED.]\n\n[8] This was the case even with the Homeric Greeks. Mr. Gladstone makes\na point of this (see 'Juventus Mundi,' p. 429): 'The privates of the\narmy are called by the names of _laos_, the people; _demos_, the\ncommunity; and _pleth[=u]s_, the multitude. But no notice is taken\nthroughout the poem of the exploits of any soldier below the rank of an\nofficer. Still, all attend the Assemblies. On the whole, the Greek host\nis not so much an army, as a community in arms.' Even the common people,\nnot only in cities but in camps, assembled to hear the deliberations of\nthe chiefs.--ED.\n\n\n\n\n_VII. THE JEWS AS A SEPARATE PEOPLE._\n\n\nThe argument for the separation and distinct current of the Jews,\nflowing as they pretend of the river Rhone through the Lake of\nGeneva--never mixing its waters with those which surround it--has been\nby some infidel writers defeated and evaded by one word; and here, as\neverywhere else, an unwise teacher will seek to hide the answer. Yet how\ninfinitely better to state it fully, and then show that the evasion has\nno form at all; but, on the contrary, powerfully argues the\ninconsistency and incapacity of those who urge it. For instance, I\nremember Boulanger, a French infidel, whose work was duly translated by\na Scotchman, answers it thus: What is there miraculous in all this? he\ndemands. Listen to me, and I will show you in two minutes that it rests\nupon mere show and pure delusion. How is it, why is it, that the Jews\nhave remained a separate people? Simply from their usages, in the first\nplace; but, secondly, still more from the fact that these usages, which\nwith other peoples exist also in some representative shape, with _them_\nmodify themselves, shift, alter, adapt themselves to the climate or to\nthe humour or accidents of life amongst those amidst whom chance has\nthrown them; whereas amongst the Jews every custom, the most trivial, is\nalso part of their legislation; and their legislation is also their\nreligion. (Boulanger, by the way, is far from expressing that objection\nso clearly as I have here done; but this is his drift and purpose, so\nfar as he knew how to express it.) Take any other people--Isaurians,\nAthenians, Romans, Corinthians--doubtless all these and many others have\ntransmitted their blood down to our ages, and are now living amongst us\nby representation. But why do we not perceive this? Why do the Athenians\nseem to have perished utterly? Simply for this reason: they were a\nplastic, yielding, unobstinate race. An Athenian lived in a port of\nItaly, married an Italian woman; thence threw out lines of descent to\nMilan, thence to Paris; and because his Attic usages were all local,\nepichorial, and tied to a particular mythology which has given way, or\nto a superstition which is defunct, or to a patriotic remembrance which\nhas vanished with the land and the sympathy that supported it; hence,\nand upon other similar arguments, the Athenian has long since melted\ninto the mass with which he was intermixed; he was a unit attached to a\nvast overpowering number from another source, and into that number he\nhas long since been absorbed; he was a drop in a vast ocean, and long\nago he has been confounded with the waters that did not differ, except\nnumerically, from his own. But the Jews are an obstinate, bigoted\npeople; and they have maintained their separation, not by any overruling\nor coercing miracle, but in a way perfectly obvious and palpable to\nthemselves--obvious by its operation, obvious in its remedy. They would\nnot resign their customs. Upon these ordinances, positive and negative,\ncommanding and forbidding many peculiar rites, consecrating and\ndesecrating many common esculent articles, these Jews have laid the\nstress and emphasis of religion. They would not resign them; they did\nnot expect others to adopt them--not in any case; _a fortiori_ not from\na degraded people. And hence, not by any mysterious operation of\nProvidential control, arose their separation, their resolute refusal to\nblend with other races.\n\nThis is the infidel's attempt to rebut, to defeat, utterly to confound,\nthe argumentative force of this most astonishing amongst all historical\npictures that the planet presents.\n\nThe following is the answer:\n\nIt is forgotten that along with the Jews there is another people\nconcerned as illustrations of the same prophetic fatality--of that same\ninevitable eye, that same perspective of vision, which belonged to those\nwhose eyes God had opened. The Arabs, as children of a common ancestor,\nought not to be forgotten in this sentence upon their brother nation.\nThey through Ishmael, the Jews through Isaac, and more immediately\nthrough Israel the son of Isaac, were two diverging branches of one\noriginal stem; and to both was pronounced a corresponding doom--a\nsentence which argued in both a principle of duration and\nself-propagation, that is memorable in any race. The children of Ishmael\nare the Arabs of the desert. Their destiny as a roving robber nation,\nand liable to all men's hands, as they indifferently levied spoil on\nall, was early pronounced. And here, again, we see at once how it will\nbe evaded: it is the desert, it is the climate, it is the solemnity of\nthat unchanging basis, which will secure the unchanging life of its\nchildren. But it is remarkable enough that Gibbon and other infidels,\nkicking violently against this standing miracle (because, if not so in\nitself, yet, according to Bishop Butler's just explanation concerning\nmiraculous _per de_-_rivationem_ as recording a miraculous power of\nvision), have by oscillation clung to the fixture of basis, and rejected\nit; for now Gibbon denies that the Arabs have held this constant tenor\nof life; they have changed it, he asserts, in large and notorious cases.\nWell, then, if they have, then at once falls to the ground this alleged\noverruling coercion _a priori_ of the climate and the desert. Climate\nand desert do not necessarily coerce them, if in large and notorious\ncases they have failed to do so. So feels Gibbon; and, by an instinct of\ntimidity, back he flies to the previous evasion--to the natural\ncontrolling power of climate and soil, admitting the Scriptural fact,\nbut seeking for it an unscriptural ground, as before he had flown in\nover-precipitate anxiety to the denial of the Scriptural fact, but in\nthat denial involving a withdrawal of the unscriptural ground.\n\nThe sceptics in that instance show their secret sense of a preference\nfrom the distracted eagerness with which they fly backwards and\nforwardwise between two reciprocally hostile evasions.\n\nThe answer I reserve, and meantime I remark:\n\nSecondly, that, supposing this answer to have any force, still it meets\nonly one moiety of the Scriptural fatality; viz., the dispersion of the\nJews--the fact that, let them be gathered in what numbers they might,\nlet them even be concentrated by millions, therefore in the literal\nsense _not_ dispersed, yet in the political sense universally\nunderstood, they would be dispersed, because never, in no instance,\nrising to be a people, _sui juris_, a nation, a distinct community,\nknown to the public law of Europe as having the rights of peace and war,\nbut always a mere accident and vagrant excess amongst nations, not\nhaving the bare rights of citizenship; so far from being a nation, not\nbeing an acknowledged member of any nation. This exquisite\ndispersion--not ethnographic only, but political--is that half of the\nScriptural malediction which the Boulanger answer attempts to meet; but\nthe other half--that they should be 'a byword, an astonishment,'\netc.--is entirely blinked. Had the work even prospered, it would still\nhave to recommence. The Armenians are dispersed through all Eastern\nlands, so are the Arabs; even the descendants of Ali are found severed\nfrom their natal soil; but they are not therefore dispersed: they have\nendured no general indignities.\n\nThirdly, it does not meet the fact of the Jewish _existence_ in any\nshape, whether as a distinct or an amalgamated people. There is no doubt\nthat many races of men, as of brute animals, have been utterly\nextinguished. In cases such as those of the Emim, or Rethinim, a race\ndistinguished by peculiar size, so as to be monstrous in comparison with\nother men, this extinction could more readily be realized; or in the\ncase of a nation marked, as Herodotus records, by a slighter texture of\nscale, the extinction might be ascertained by the physiologist; but no\ndoubt it has often occurred, precisely as a family is extinguished, or\nas certain trees (for example, the true golden pippin) are observed to\ndie off, not by local influences only, but by a decay attacking the very\nprinciple of their existence. Of many ancient races it is probable\nenough that no blood directly traced from them could at this day be\nsearched by the eye of God. Families arise amongst the royal lineage of\nEurope that suddenly, like a lamp fitfully glowing up just the moment\nbefore it expires, throw off, as by some final effort, a numerous\ngeneration of princes and princesses; then suddenly all contract as\nrapidly into a single child, which perishing, the family is absolutely\nextinct. And so must many nations have perished, and so must the Jews\nhave been pre-eminently exposed to perish, from the peculiar, fierce,\nand almost immortal, persecutions which they have undergone, and the\nhorrid frenzies of excited mobs in cruel cities of which they have stood\nthe brunt.\n\n\n\n\n_VIII. 'WHAT IS TRUTH?' THE JESTING PILATE SAID--A FALSE GLOSS._\n\n\nIt is true that Pilate could not be expected fully to comprehend an idea\nwhich was yet new to man; Christ's words were beyond his depth. But,\nstill, his natural light would guide him thus far--that, although he had\nnever heard of any truth which rose to that distinction, still, if any\none class of truth should in future come to eclipse all other classes of\ntruth immeasurably, as regarded its practical results, as regarded some\ndark dependency of human interests, in that case it would certainly\nmerit the distinctive name of 'The Truth.' The case in which such a\ndistinction would become reasonable and available was one utterly\nunrealized to his experience, not even within the light of his\nconjectures as to its special conditions; but, still, as a general\npossibility it was conceivable to his understanding; though not\ncomprehensible, yet apprehensible. And in going on to the next great\nquestion, to the inevitable question, 'What _is_ the truth?' Pilate had\nno thought of jesting. Jesting was the last thing of which his\nimpassioned mood in that great hour was capable. Roman magistrates of\nsupreme rank were little disposed to jesting on the judgment-seat\namongst a refractory and dangerous people; and of Pilate in particular,\nevery word, every effort, every act, demonstrate that he was agitated\nwith new instincts and misgivings of some shadowy revelation opening\nupon man, that his heart was convulsed with desponding anxiety in the\nfirst place to save the man who appeared the depositary of this\nrevelation, but who, if, after all, only a sublime lunatic, was, at the\nvery least, innocent of all offence. It must have struck all close\nobservers of early Christianity how large a proportion of the new\nconverts lay amongst Roman officers, or (to speak more adequately)\namongst Romans of high rank, both men and women. And for that there was\nhigh reason. In the advance of civilization, and in the corresponding\ndecay of idolatrous religions, there was fast arising a new growth of\ncravings amongst men. Mythological and desperately immoral religions,\nthat spoke only to the blind sense of power, had been giving way through\nthe three previous centuries to a fearful extent. They had receded from\nthe higher natures of both Greece and Rome as the sea has locally\nreceded from many shores of the earth. Such natures were left 'miserably\nbare'; the sense of dependency by any tie upon the invisible world, or\nat least upon the supernatural world, had decayed, and unless this\npainful void were filled up by some supplementary bond in the same\ndirection, a condition of practical atheism must take place, such as\ncould not but starve and impoverish in human nature those yearnings\nafter the infinite which are the pledges of all internal grandeur. But\nthis dependency could not be replaced by one of the same vicious nature.\nInto any new dependency a new element must be introduced. The sense of\ninsufficiency would be renewed in triple strength if merely the old\nrelations of weakness to power, of art to greater art, of intellect to\nhigher intellect, of less to more within the same exact limits as to\nkind of excellence, should be rehearsed under new names or improved\ntheogonies. Hitherto, no relation of man to divine or demoniac powers\nhad included the least particle or fraction or hint of any moral\nelement; nor was such an element possible in that dependency, for\nprofound reasons.\n\n\n\n\n_IX. WHAT SCALIGER SAYS ABOUT THE EPISTLE TO JUDE._\n\n\nBefore any canon was settled, many works had become current in Christian\ncircles whose origin was dubious. The traditions about them varied\nlocally. Some, it is alleged, that would really have been entitled to a\ncanonical place, had been lost by accident; to some, which still\nsurvived, this place had been refused upon grounds that might not have\nsatisfied _us_ of this day, if we had the books and the grounds of\nrejection before us; and, finally, others, it is urged, have obtained\nthis sacred distinction with no right to it. In particular, the Second\nEpistle of St. Peter, the Second of St. Jude, the Epistle of St. James,\nand the three of St. John, are denounced as supposititious in the\n'Scaligerana.' But the writer before us is wrong in laying any stress on\nthe opinions there expressed. They bear the marks of conversational\nhaste and of Scaligeran audacity. What is the objection made, for\ninstance, to 'in quibus sunt mira, quae non _videntur_ esse Apostolica'?\n_That_ is itself more strange as a criticism than anything in the\nepistles _can_ be for its doctrine. The only thing tending to a reason\nfor the summary treatment is that the Eastern Church does not\nacknowledge them for canonical. But opinions quoted from _ana_ are\nseldom of any authority; indeed, I have myself too frequently seen the\nunfaithfulness of such reports. The reporter, as he cannot decently be\ntaking notes at the time of speaking, endeavours afterwards to recall\nthe most interesting passages by memory. He forgets the context; what\nintroduced--what followed to explain or modify the opinions. He supplies\na conjectural context of his own, and the result is a romance. But if\nthe reporter were even accurate, so much allowance must be made for the\nlicense of conversation--its ardour, its hurry, and its frequent\nplayfulness--that when all these deductions are made, really not a\nfraction remains that one can honestly carry to account. Besides, the\nelder Scaliger was drunk pretty often, and Joe seems rather 'fresh' at\ntimes.\n\nUpon consideration, it may be as well to repeat what it is that Scaliger\nis reported to have said:\n\n'The Epistle of Jude is not _his_, as neither is that of James, nor the\n_second_ of Peter, in all which are strange things that seem (seem--mark\nthat!) far enough from being Apostolical. The three Epistles of John are\nnot from John the Apostle. The second of Peter and Jude belong to a\nlater age. The Eastern Church does not own them, neither are they of\nevangelical authority. They are unlearned, and offer no marks of Gospel\nmajesty. As regards their internal value, believe them I may say that I\ndo, but it is because they are in no ways hostile to _us_.'\n\nNow, observe, the grounds of objection are purely aesthetical, except in\nthe single argument from the authority of the Eastern Church. What does\nhe mean by 'unlearned,' or wanting 'majesty,' or containing 'strange\nthings'? Were ever such vague puerilities collected into one short\nparagraph? This is pure impertinence, and _Phil_. deserves to be\nprivately reprimanded for quoting such windy chaff without noting and\nprotesting it as colloquial. But what I wish the reader to mark--the\n[Greek: tho hepimhythion]--is, that suppose the two Scaligers amongst\nthe Christian Fathers engaged in fixing the canon: greater learning you\ncannot have; neither was there, to a dead certainty, one tenth part as\nmuch amongst the canon-settlers. Yet all this marvellous learning fumes\naway in boyish impertinence. It confounds itself. And every Christian\nsays, Oh, take away this superfluous weight of erudition, that, being so\nrare a thing, cannot be wanted in the broad highways of religion. What\nwe _do_ want is humility, docility, reverence for God, and love for man.\nThese are sown broadcast amongst human hearts. Now, these apply\nthemselves to the _sense_ of Scripture, not to its grammatical niceties.\nBut if so, even that case shows indirectly how little could depend upon\nthe mere verbal attire of the Bible, when the chief masters of verbal\nscience were so ready to go astray--riding on the billows so imperfectly\nmoored. In the _ideas_ of Scripture lies its eternal anchorage, not in\nits perishable words, which are shifting for ever like quicksands, as\nthe Bible passes by translation successively into every spoken language\nof the earth.\n\nWhat then?--'What then?' retorts the angry reader after all this, 'why\nthen, perhaps, there may be a screw loose in the Bible.' True, there\nmay, and what is more, some very great scholars take upon them to assert\nthat there is. Yet, still, what then? The two possible errors open to\nthe Fathers of our canon, to the men upon whom rested the weighty task\nof saying to all mankind what should be Bible, and what should be _not_\nBible, of making and limiting that mighty world, are--that they may\nhave done that which they ought _not_ to have done, and, secondly, left\nundone that which they ought to have done. They may have admitted\nwriters whom they ought to have excluded; and they may have excluded\nwriters whom they ought to have admitted. This is the extent of their\npossible offences, and they are supposed by some critics to have\ncommitted both. But suppose that they _have_, still I say--what then?\nWhat is the nature of the wrong done to us by the worst mistake ascribed\nto them? Let us consider. It is supposed by some scholars that we have\nin the New Testament as it now stands a work written by Apollos, viz.,\nthe Epistle to the Romans. Yet, if so, the error amounts only to a\nmisnomer. On the other hand, there are Epistles on which has been\ncharged the same error in relation to the name of the author, and the\nmore important error of thoughts unbecoming to a Christian in authority:\nfor instance, the Epistle of St. James. This charge was chiefly urged by\na very intemperate man, and in a very intemperate style. I notice it as\nbeing a case which _Phil_. has noticed. But _Phil_. merits a gentle rap\non his knuckles for the inconsideration with which he has cited a charge\nmade and reported with so much levity. He quotes it from the\n'Scaligerana.' Now, what right upon such a subject has any man to quote\nsuch an authority? The reasons against listening with much attention to\nthe 'Scaligerana' are these:\n\nFirst, the Scaligers, both father and son, were the two most impudent\nmen that ever walked the planet. I should be loath to say so ill-natured\na thing as that their impudence was equal to their learning, because\nthat forces every man to say, 'Ah, then, what impudent fellows they\nmust have been!' It is kinder and juster to say that their learning was\nat least equal to their impudence, for _that_ will force every man to\nexclaim, 'Ah, if so, what prodigies of learning they must have been!'\nYes, they were--absolute monsters of learning, learned monsters. But as\nmuch learning often makes men mad, still more frequently it makes them\nfurious for assault and battery; to use the American phrase, they grow\n'wolfy about the shoulders,' from a periodical itchiness for fighting.\nOther men being shy of attacking the Scaligers, it was no fault of\ntheirs, you know, but a necessity, to attack other men--unless you\nexpected them to have no fighting at all. It was always a reason with\n_them_ for trying a fall with a writer, if they doubted much whether\nthey had any excuse for hanging a quarrel on.\n\nSecondly, all _ana_ whatever are bad authorities. Supposing the thing\nreally said, we are to remember the huge privilege of conversation, how\nimmeasurable is that! You yourself, reader, I presume, when talking,\nwill say more in an hour than you will stand to in a month. I'm sure _I_\ndo. When the reins are put into my hands I stick at nothing--headlong I\ndrive like a lunatic, until the very room in which we are talking, with\nall that it inherits, seems to spin round with absolute vertigo at the\nextravagances I utter.\n\nThirdly, but again, was the thing really said? For, as another censure\nupon the whole library of _ana_, I can assert--that, if the license of\nconversation is enormous, to that people who inhale that gas of\ncolloquial fermentation seldom mean much above one part in sixty of what\nthey say, on the other hand the license of reporters is far greater. To\nforget the circumstances under which a thing was said is to alter the\nthing, to have lost the context, the particular remark in which your\nown originated, the mitigations of a harsh sentiment from playfulness of\nmanner; in short, to drop the _setting_ of the thoughts is oftentimes to\nfalsify the tendency and value of those thoughts.\n\n     NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--The _Phil_. here referred to is the\n     _Philoleutheros Anglicanus_ of the essay on 'Protestantism,' as\n     shortened by De Quincey, and with whom De Quincey, in that essay,\n     deals very effectively and wittily on occasion.\n\n\n\n\n_X. MURDER AS A FINE ART._\n\n(SOME NOTES FOR A NEW PAPER.)\n\n\nA new paper on Murder as a Fine Art might open thus: that on the model\nof those Gentlemen Radicals who had voted a monument to Palmer, etc., it\nwas proposed to erect statues to such murderers as should by their\nnext-of-kin, or other person interested in their glory, make out a claim\neither of superior atrocity, or, in equal atrocity, of superior\nneatness, continuity of execution, perfect preparation or felicitous\noriginality, smoothness or _curiosa felicitas_ (elaborate felicity). The\nmen who murdered the cat, as we read in the Newgate Calendar, were good,\nbut Williams better who murdered the baby. And perhaps (but the hellish\nfelicity of the last act makes us demur) Fielding was superior. For you\nnever hear of a fire swallowing up a fire, or a rain stopping a deluge\n(for this would be a reign of Kilkenny cats); but what fire, deluge, or\nKilkenny cats could not do, Fielding proposed, viz., to murder the\nmurderers, to become himself the Nemesis. Fielding was the murderer of\nmurderers in a double sense--rhetorical and literal. But that was, after\nall, a small matter compared with the fine art of the man calling\nhimself Outis, on which for a moment we must dwell. Outis--so at all\nevents he was called, but doubtless he indulged in many aliases--at\nNottingham joined vehemently and sincerely, as it seemed, in pursuit of\na wretch taxed with having murdered, twelve years previously, a wife and\ntwo children at Halifax, which wretch (when all the depositions were\nbefore the magistrate) turned out to be the aforesaid Mr. Outis. That\nsuggests a wide field of speculation and reference.[9]\n\nNote the power of murderers as fine-art professors to make a new start,\nto turn the corner, to retreat upon the road they have come, as though\nit were new to them, and to make diversions that disarm suspicion. This\nthey owe to fortunate obscurity, which attests anew the wonderful\ncompensations of life; for celebrity and power combine to produce\ndrawbacks.\n\nA foreigner who lands in Calcutta at an hour which nobody can name, and\nendeavours to effect a sneaking entrance at the postern-gate[10] of the\ngovernor-general's palace, _may_ be a decent man; but this we know, that\nhe has cut the towing-rope which bound his own boat to the great ark of\nhis country. It may be that, in leaving Paris or Naples, he was simply\ncutting the connection with creditors who showed signs of _attachment_\nnot good for his health. But it may also be that he ran away by the\nblaze of a burning inn, which he had fired in order to hide three\nthroats which he had cut, and nine purses which he had stolen. There is\nno guarantee for such a man's character. Have we, then, no such\n_vauriens_ at home? No, not in the classes standing favourably for\npromotion. The privilege of safe criminality, not liable to exposure, is\nlimited to classes crowded together like leaves in Vallombrosa; for\n_them_ to run away into some mighty city, Manchester or Glasgow, is to\ncommence life anew. They turn over a new leaf with a vengeance. Many are\nthe carpenters, bricklayers, bakers' apprentices, etc., who are now\nliving decently in Bristol, Newcastle, Hull, Liverpool, after marrying\nsixteen wives, and leaving families to the care of twelve separate\nparishes. That scamp is at this moment circulating and gyrating in\nsociety, like a respectable _te-totum_, though we know not his exact\nname, who, if he were pleased to reveal himself in seventeen parts of\nthis kingdom, where (to use the police language) he has been 'wanted'\nfor some years, would be hanged seventeen times running, besides putting\nseventeen Government rewards into the pockets of seventeen policemen.\nOh, reader, you little know the unutterable romances perpetrated for\never in our most populous empire, under cloud of night and distance and\nutter poverty, Mark _that_--of utter poverty. Wealth is power; but it is\na jest in comparison of poverty. Splendour is power; but it is a joke to\nobscurity. To be poor, to be obscure, to be a baker's apprentice or a\ntailor's journeyman, throws a power about a man, clothes him with\nattributes of ubiquity, _really_ with those privileges of concealment\nwhich in the ring of Gyges were but fabulous. Is it a king, is it a\nsultan, that such a man rivals? Oh, friend, he rivals a spiritual power.\n\nTwo men are on record, perhaps many more _might_ have been on that\nrecord, who wrote so many books, and perpetrated so many pamphlets, that\nat fifty they had forgotten much of their own literary villainies, and\nat sixty they commenced with murderous ferocity a series of answers to\narguments which it was proved upon them afterwards that they themselves\nhad emitted at thirty--thus coming round with volleys of small shot on\ntheir own heads, as the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's begins to\nretaliate any secrets you have committed to its keeping in echoing\nthunders after a time, or as Sir John Mandeville under Arctic skies\nheard in May all those curses thawing, and exploding like minute-guns,\nwhich had been frozen up in November. Even like those self-replying\nauthors, even like those self-reverberators in St. Paul's, even like\nthose Arctic practitioners in cursing, who drew bills and _post obits_\nin malediction, which were to be honoured after the death of winter,\nmany men are living at this moment in merry England who have figured in\nso many characters, illustrated so many villages, run away from so many\ntowns, and performed the central part in so many careers, that were the\ncharacter, the village, the town, the career, brought back with all its\ncircumstances to their memories, positively they would fail to recognise\ntheir own presence or incarnation in their own acts and bodies.\n\nWe have all read the story told by Addison of a sultan, who was\npersuaded by a dervish to dip his head into a basin of enchanted water,\nand thereupon found himself upon some other globe, a son in a poor\nman's family, married after certain years the woman of his heart, had a\nfamily of seven children whom he painfully brought up, went afterwards\nthrough many persecutions, walked pensively by the seashore meditating\nsome escape from his miseries, bathed in the sea as a relief from the\nnoon-day heat, and on lifting up his head from the waves found himself\nlifting up his head from the basin into which that cursed dervish had\npersuaded him to dip. And when he would have cudgelled the holy man for\nthat long life of misery which had, through _his_ means, been inflicted\nupon himself, behold! the holy man proved by affidavit that, in this\nworld, at any rate (where only he could be punishable), the life had\nlasted but thirty-three seconds. Even so do the dark careers of many\namongst our obscure and migratory villains from years shrink up to\nmomentary specks, or, by their very multitude, altogether evanesce.\nBurke and Hare, it is well known, had lost all count of their several\nmurders; they no more remembered, or could attempt to remember, their\nseparate victims, than a respectable old banker of seventy-three can\nremember all the bills with their indorsements made payable for\nhalf-a-century at his bank; or than Foote's turnpike-keeper, who had\nkept all the toll-bar tickets to Kensington for forty-eight years,\npretended to recollect the features of all the men who had delivered\nthem at his gate. For a time, perhaps, Burke (who was a man of fine\nsensibility) had a representative vision of spasms, and struggles, and\nconvulsions, terminating in a ten-pound note indorsed by Dr. ----. Hare,\non the other hand, was a man of principle, a man that you could depend\nupon--order a corpse for Friday, and on Friday you had it--but he had\nno feeling whatever. Yet see the unity of result for him and Burke. For\nboth alike all troublesome recollections gathered into one blue haze of\nheavenly abstractions: orders executed with fidelity, cheques on the\nbankers to be crossed and passed and cashed, are no more remembered.\nThat is the acme of perfection in our art.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nOne great class of criminals I am aware of in past times as having\nspecially tormented myself--the class who have left secrets, riddles,\nbehind them. What business has any man to bequeath a conundrum to all\nposterity, unless he leaves in some separate channel the solution? This\nmust have been done in malice, and for the purpose of annoying us, lest\nwe should have too much proper enjoyment of life when he should have\ngone. For nobody knows whether the scoundrel could have solved it\nhimself--too like in that respect to some charades which, in my boyish\ndays (but then I had the excuse of youth, which they had not), I not\nunfrequently propounded to young ladies. Take this as a specimen: My\nfirst raises a little hope; my second very little indeed; and my whole\nis a vast roar of despair. No young lady could ever solve it; neither\ncould I. We all had to give it up. A charade that only needs an answer,\nwhich, perhaps, some distant generation may supply, is but a half and\nhalf, tentative approach to this. Very much of this nature was the\ngenius or Daimon (don't say _De_mon) of Socrates. How many thousands of\nlearned writers and printers have gone to sleep over too profound\nattempts to solve _that_, which Socrates ought to have been able to\nsolve at sight. I am myself of opinion that it was a dram-bottle, which\nsomeone raised a ghost to explain. Then the Entelecheia of Aristotle;\ndid you ever read about that, excellent reader? Most people fancy it to\nhave meant some unutterable crotchet in metaphysics, some horrible idea\n(lest the police should be after it) without a name; that is, until the\nStagyrite repaired the injustice of his conduct by giving it a pretty\nlong one. My opinion now, as you are anxious to know it, is, that it was\na lady, a sweetheart of Aristotle's; for what was to hinder Aristotle\nhaving a sweetheart? I dare say Thomas Aquinas, dry and arid as he was,\nraised his unprincipled eyes to some Neapolitan beauty, began a sonnet\nto some lady's eyebrow, though he might forget to finish it. And my\nbelief is that this lady, ambitious as Semele, wished to be introduced\nas an eternal jewel into the great vault of her lover's immortal\nPhilosophy, which was to travel much farther and agitate far longer than\nhis royal pupil's conquests. Upon that Aristotle, keeping her hand,\nsaid: 'My love, I'll think of it.' And then it occurred to him, that in\nthe very heavens many lovely ladies, Andromeda, Cassiopeia, Ariadne,\netc., had been placed as constellations in that map which many\nchronologists suppose to have been prepared for the use of the ship\n_Argo_, a whole generation before the Trojan war. Berenice, though he\ncould not be aware of _that_, had interest even to procure a place in\nthat map for her ringlets; and of course for herself she might have.\nConsidering which, Aristotle said: 'Hang me! if I don't put her among\nthe ten Categories!' On after thoughts he put her higher, for an\nEntelecheia is as much above a Category as our Padishah Victoria is\nabove a Turkish sultan. 'But now, Stag,' said the lady (privileged as a\nsweetheart she called him _Stag_, though everybody else was obliged to\ncall him Stagyrite), 'how will they know it's meant for me, Stag?' Upon\nwhich I am sorry to say the philosopher fell to cursing and swearing,\nbestowing blessings on his own optics and on posterity's, meaning yours\nand mine, saying: 'Let them find it out.' Well, now, you see I _have_\nfound it out. But that is more than I hope for my crypto-criminals, and\ntherefore I take this my only way of giving them celebration and\nmalediction in one breath.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] Notwithstanding what he had written in the essay on the 'Essenes,'\nno doubt De Quincey, if he had completed this paper, could not have\nescaped characteristic, and perhaps grimly humorous, references of his\nown to the Sicarii, of whom Josephus has a good deal to tell in his\n'Jewish War'; for it seems to us his thoughts were bearing directly that\nway. Josephus says of the Sicarii: 'In these days there arose another\nsort of robbers in Jerusalem, who were named Sicarii, who slew men in\nthe day-time and in the middle of the city, more especially at the\nfestivals. There they mixed with the multitude, and having concealed\nlittle daggers under their garments, with these they stabbed those that\nwere their enemies; and when any fell down dead, the murderers joined\nthe bystanders in expressing their indignation; so that from their\nplausibilities they could by no means be discovered. The first man that\nwas slain by them was Jonathan the high-priest, after which many were\nslain every day.'--ED.\n\n[10] 'Postern-gate.' See the legend of Sir Eustace the Crusader, and the\ngood Sir Hubert, who 'sounded the horn which he alone could sound,' as\ntold by Wordsworth.\n\n\n\n\n_XI. ANECDOTES--JUVENAL._\n\n\nAll anecdotes, as I have often remarked in print, are lies. It is\npainful to use harsh words, and, knowing by my own feelings how much the\nreader is shocked by this rude word _lies_, I should really be much\ngratified if it were possible to supplant it by some gentler or more\ncourteous word, such as _falsehoods_, or even _fibs_, which dilutes the\natrocity of untruth into something of an amiable weakness, wrong, but\nstill venial, and natural (and so far, therefore, reasonable). Anything\nfor peace: but really in this instance I cannot indulge the reader. The\ninstincts of morality will not allow of it, and still less the passion\nwhich made Juvenal a poet,[11] viz., the passion of enormous and bloody\nindignation. From the beginning of this century, with wrath continually\ngrowing, I have laid it down as a rule, and if the last year of it,\nviz., A. D. 1900, should overhear _my_ voice amongst the babblings that\nwill then be troubling the atmosphere--in that case it will hear me\nstill reaffirming, with an indignation still gathering strength, and\ntherefore approaching ever nearer and nearer to a Juvenalian power of\nversification, so that perhaps I shall then speak in rhymed\ncouplets--that all anecdotes pretending to be _smart_, but to a dead\ncertainty if they pretend to be _epigrammatic_, are and must be lies.\nThere is, in fact, no security for the truth of an anecdote, no\nguarantee whatever, except its intense stupidity. If a man is searched\nat a police-office, on the ground that he was caught trying the\nwindow-shutters of silversmiths; then, if it should happen that in his\npockets is found absolutely nothing at all except one solitary\npaving-stone, in that case Charity, which believeth all things (in fact,\nis credulous to an anile degree), will be disposed to lock up the\npaving-stone, and restore it to the man on his liberation as if it were\nreally his own, though philosophy mutters indignantly, being all but\ncertain that the fellow stole it. And really I have been too candid a\ngreat deal in admitting that a man may appropriate an anecdote, and\nestablish his claim to it by pleading its awful stupidity. That might be\nthe case, and I believe it _was_, when anecdotes were many and writers\nwere few. But things are changed now. Fifty years ago, if a man were\nseen running away with the pace of a lunatic, and you should sing out,\n'Stop that fellow; he is running off with the shin-bone of my\ngreat-grandmother!' all the people in the street would have cried out in\nreply, 'Oh, nonsense! What should he want with your great-grandmother's\nshin-bone?' and that would have seemed reasonable. But now, to see how\nthings are altered, any man of sense would reply, 'What should he want\nwith my great-grandmother's shin-bone? Why, he'll grind it, and then\nhe'll mix it with guano.' This is what he and the like of him have\nactually done by shiploads of people far more entitled to consideration\nthan any one of my four great-grandmothers (for I had _four_, with eight\nshin-bones amongst them). It is well known that the field of Waterloo\nwas made to render up all its bones, British or French, to certain\nbone-mills in agricultural districts. Borodino and Leipzig, the two\nbloodiest of modern battlefields, are supposed between them--what by the\nharvest of battle, what by the harvest of neighbouring hospitals--to be\nseized or possessed of four hundred thousand shin-bones, and other\ninteresting specimens to match. Negotiations have been proceeding at\nvarious times between the leading bone-mills in England and the Jews in\nDresden or in Moscow. Hitherto these negotiations have broken down,\nbecause the Jews stood out for 37 per shent., calculated upon the costs\nof exhumation. But of late they show a disposition to do business at 33\nper shent.: the contract will therefore move forwards again; it will go\nahead; and the dust of the faithful armies, together with the dust of\ntheir enemies, will very soon be found, not in the stopper of a bunghole\n(as Prince Hamlet conceived too prematurely), but in an unprecedented\ncrop of Swedish turnips.\n\nBones change their value, it seems thus clearly; and anecdotes change\ntheir value; and in that proportion honesty, as regards one or the\nother, changes the value of its chances. But what has all this to do\nwith 'Old Nick'? Stop: let me consider. That title was placed at the\nhead of this article, and I admit that it was placed there by myself.\nElse, whilst I was wandering from my text, and vainly endeavouring to\nrecollect what it was that I had meant by this text, a random thought\ncame over me (immoral, but natural), that I would charge the heading of\n_Old Nick_ upon the compositor, asserting that he had placed it there in\nobstinate defiance of all the orders to the contrary, and supplications\nto the contrary, that I had addressed to him for a month; by which means\nI should throw upon _him_ the responsibility of accounting for so\nportentous an ensign.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     EDITOR'S NOTE.--It is evident that De Quincey meditated a much\n     longer essay on anecdotes as false, in which Niccolo Machiavelli\n     would have come in for notice--hence the playful references in the\n     close.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] '_The passion which made Juvenal a poet_.' The scholar needs no\nexplanation; but the reader whose scholarship is yet amongst his\nfuturities (which I conceive to be the civilest way of describing an\n_ignoramus_) must understand that Juvenal, the Roman satirist, who was\nin fact a predestined poet in virtue of his ebullient heart, that boiled\nover once or twice a day in anger that could not be expressed upon\nwitnessing the enormities of domestic life in Rome, was willing to\nforego all pretensions to natural power and inspiration for the sake of\nobtaining such influence as would enable him to reprove Roman vices with\neffect.\n\n\n\n\n_XII. ANNA LOUISA._\n\nSPECIMEN TRANSLATION FROM VOSS IN HEXAMETERS, WITH LETTER TO PROFESSOR\nW. ('CHRISTOPHER NORTH').\n\n\nDR. NORTH,\n\n_Doctor_, I say, for I hear that the six Universities of England and\nScotland have sent you a doctor's degree, or, if they have not, all the\nworld knows they ought to have done; and the more shame for them if they\nkeep no 'Remembrancer' to put them in mind of what they must allow to be\namongst their most sacred duties. But that's all one. I once read in my\nchildhood a pretty book, called 'Wilson's Account of the Pelew Islands,'\nat which islands, you know, H.M.S. _Antelope_ was wrecked--just about\nthe time, I fancy, when you, Doctor, and myself were in long petticoats\nand making some noise in the world; the book was not written by Captain\nWilson, but by Keates, the sentimentalist. At the very end, however, is\nan epitaph, and that _was_ written by the captain and ship's company:\n\n    'Stop, reader, stop, let nature claim a tear;\n     A prince of mine, Lee Boo, lies buried here.'\n\nThis epitaph used often to make me cry, and in commemoration of that\neffect, which (like that of all cathartics that I know of, no matter how\ndrastic at first) has long been growing weaker and weaker, I propose\n(upon your allowing me an opportunity) to superscribe you in any\nchurchyard you will appoint:\n\n    'Stop, reader, stop, let genius claim a tear;\n     A doct'r of mine, Lee Kit, lies buried here.'\n\n'_Doct'r of_' you are to read into a dissyllable, and pretty much like\nBoney's old friend on the road from Moscow, General Doct'roff, who\n'doctor'd them off,' as the Laureate observes, and prescribed for the\nwhole French army _gratis_. But now to business.\n\nFor _your_ information, Doctor, it cannot be necessary, but on account\nof very many readers it will be so, to say that Voss's 'Luise' has long\ntaken its place in the literature of Germany as a classical work--in\nfact, as a gem or cabinet _chef d'oeuvre_; nay, almost as their unique\nspecimen in any national sense of the lighter and less pretending muse;\nless pretending, I mean, as to the pomp or gravity of the subject, but\non that very account more pretending as respects the minuter graces of\nits execution. In the comparative estimate of Germans, the 'Luise' holds\na station corresponding to that of our 'Rape of the Lock,' or of\nGresset's 'Vert-vert'--corresponding, that is, in its _degree_ of\nrelative value. As to its _kind_ of value, some notion may be formed of\nit even in that respect also from the 'Rape of the Lock,' but with this\ndifference, that the scenes and situations and descriptions are there\nderived from the daily life and habits of a fashionable belle and the\nfine gentlemen who surround her, whereas in the 'Luise' they are derived\nexclusively from the homelier and more patriarchal economy of a rural\nclergyman's household; and in this respect the 'Luise' comes nearest by\nmuch, in comparison of any other work that I know of, to our own 'Vicar\nof Wakefield.' Like that delightful portrait of rural life in a\nparticular aspect, or idyll as it might be called, the 'Luise' aims at\nthrowing open for our amusement the interior of a village parsonage\n(_Scotice_, 'manse'); like that in its earlier half (for the latter half\nof the 'Vicar' is a sad collapse from the truth and nature of the\noriginal conception into the marvellous of a commonplace novel), the\n'Luise' exhibits the several members of a rustic clergyman's family\naccording to their differences of sex, age, and standing, in their\nnatural, undisguised features, all unconsciously marked by\ncharacteristic foibles, all engaged in the exercise of their daily\nhabits, neither finer nor coarser than circumstances naturally allow,\nand all indulging in such natural hopes or fictions of romance as grow\nout of their situation in life. The 'Luise,' in short, and the 'Vicar of\nWakefield' are both alike a succession of circumstantial delineations\nselected from mere rustic life, but rustic life in its most pure and\nintellectual form; for as to the noble countess in the 'Luise,' or the\nsquire and his uncle, Sir William, in the 'Vicar of Wakefield,' they do\nnot interfere sufficiently to disturb the essential level of the\nmovement as regards the incidents, or to colour the manners and the\nscenery. Agreeing, however, in this general purpose, the two works\ndiffer in two considerable features; one, that the 'Vicar of Wakefield'\ndescribes the rural clergyman of England, 'Luise' the rural clergyman of\nNorth Germany; the other, that the English idyll is written in prose,\nthe German in verse--both of which differences, and the separate\npeculiarities growing out of them, will, it may perhaps be thought,\nrequire a few words of critical discussion.\n\nThere has always existed a question as to the true principles of\ntranslation when applied, not to the mere literature of _knowledge_\n(because _there_ it is impossible that two opinions can arise, by how\nmuch closer the version by so much the better), but to the literature of\n_power_, and to such works--above all, to poems--as might fairly be\nconsidered _works of art_ in the highest sense. To what extent the\nprinciple of _compensation_ might reasonably be carried, the license,\nthat is, of departing from the strict literal forms of the original\nwriter, whether as to expressions, images, or even as to the secondary\nthoughts, for the sake of reproducing them in some shape less repellent\nto a modern ear, and therefore virtually sustaining the harmony of the\ncomposition by preventing the attention from settling in a\ndisproportionate degree upon what might have a startling effect to a\ntaste trained under modern discipline--this question has always been\npending as a question open to revision before the modern courts of\ncriticism; as surely to you, Dr. North, one of the chief 'swells' on\nthat bench, I need not say. But, for the sake of accurate thinking, it\nis worth while observing that formerly this question was moved almost\nexclusively with a view to the Latin and Greek classics; and that\ncircumstance gave a great and a very just bias to the whole dispute. For\nthe difference with regard to any capital author of ancient days, as\ncompared with modern authors, is this, that here we have a twofold\ninterest--an interest with work, and a separate interest in the writer.\nTake the 'Prometheus Desmotes' of AEschylus, and suppose that a\ntranslator should offer us an English 'Prometheus,' which he\nacknowledged to be very free, but at the same time contended that his\nvariations from the Greek were so many downright improvements, so that,\nif he had not given us the genuine 'Prometheus,' he had given us\nsomething better. In such a case we should all reply, but we do not want\nsomething better. Our object is not the best possible drama that could\nbe produced on the fable of 'Prometheus'; what we want is the very\n'Prometheus' that was written by AEschylus, the very drama that was\nrepresented at Athens. The Athenian audience itself, and what pleased\nits taste, is already one subject of interest. AEschylus on his own\naccount is another. These are collateral and alien subjects of interest\nquite independent of our interest in the drama, and for the sake of\nthese we wish to see the real original 'Prometheus'--not according to\nany man's notion of improvement, but such as came from a sublime Grecian\npoet, such as satisfied a Grecian audience, more than two thousand years\nago. We wish, in fact, for the real AEschylus, 'unhousel'd, unaneal'd,'\nwith all his imperfections on his head.\n\nSuch was the way, and the just way, of arguing the point when the\napplication was limited to a great authentic classic of the Antique; nor\nwas the case at all different where Ariosto or any other illustrious\nItalian classic was concerned. But a new sort of casuistry in this\nquestion has arisen in our own times, and by accident chiefly in\nconnection with German literature; but it may well be, Dr. North, that\nyou will be more diverted by a careful scrutiny of my metres after Voss\nin illustration, than by any further dissertation on my part on a\nsubject that you know so well.\n\nBelieve me,\nAlways yours admiringly,\nX. Y. Z.\n\n\n_The Parson's Dinner._\n\n  In the month of leafy June, beneath celestial azure\n  Of skies all cloudless, sate the aged Rector of Esthwaite\n  Dining amidst his household; but not the meridian ardour\n  Of sunbeams fierce he felt; him the shady veranda\n  With vine-clad trellis defends: beyond a pendulous awning\n  Of boughs self-wreath'd from limes (whose mighty limbs overarching\n  Spanned the low roof of the house) spreads far effectual umbrage\n  For young and old alike; noontide awfully breathless\n  Settled in deepest silence on the woods and valley of Esthwaite.\n  Yet not the less there would rise, after stillest interval often,      10\n  Low whispering gales that stole, like sobbing murmur of infant\n  Dreaming in arms maternal, into the heart o' the youngest:\n  Gales that at most could raise a single ringlet of auburn\n  As it pencill'd the noble brow of the youthful Anna Louisa--\n  Sole child that survived to thee, oh, aged pastor of Esthwaite.\n  Clad in his morning gown, the reverend priest at a table\n  Of sculptur'd stone was seated; and his seat was a massy but easy\n  Settle of oak, which in youth his ancient servitor, Isaac,\n  Footman, sexton, and steward, butler and gardener also,\n  Carved by the winter fire in nights of gloomy November,\n  And through many a long, long night of many a dark December.           21\n  The good man's heart was glad, and his eyes were suffus'd with a\n      rapture\n  Of perfect love as they settled on her--that pulse of his heart's\n      blood,\n  The one sole prop of his house, the beautiful Anna Louisa.\n  By the side of himself sate his wife, that ancient tamer of\n      housemaids,[12]\n  Yet kind of heart as a dove, and with matron graces adorning\n  Her place as she sate dispensing hospitality boundless\n  To the strangers within her gates; for, lo! two strangers on one side\n  Sate of the long stone table; yet strangers by manner or action\n  One would not suppose them; nor were they, but guests ever honour'd,   30\n  And dear to each heart in the house of th' ancient Rector of\n      Esthwaite.\n  The elder of them was called Augustus Harry Delancey,\n  And he rode as a cornet of horse in the mighty imperial army.\n  Him had the parents approved (and those were melodious accents,\n  The sweetest he ever had heard) as suitor of Anna Louisa.\n  But from lips more ruby far--far more melodious accents\n  Had reach'd his ears since then; for she, the daughter, her own self,\n  Had condescended at last to utter sweet ratification\n  Of all his hopes; low whisp'ring the 'yes'--celestial answer\n  That raised him to paradise gates on pinion[13] of expectation.        40\n  Over against his beloved he sate--the suitor enamour'd:\n  And God He knows that indeed should it prove an idolatrous error\n  To look in the eyes of a lady till you feel a dreamy devotion,\n  I fear for the health of your soul that day, oh, Harry Delancey!\n  Next to Delancey there sate his pupil, Magnus Adolphus,\n  A fair-haired boy of ten, half an orphan, a count of the empire--\n  Magnus Adolphus of Arnstein, that great Bavarian earldom.\n  Him had his widowed mother, the noble Countess of Arnstein,\n  Placed with Delancey betimes, as one in knightly requirements\n  Skilful and all-accomplished, that he the 'youthful idea'[14]          50\n  Might 'teach how to shoot' (with a pistol, videlicet),--horses\n  To mount and to manage with boldness, hounds to follow in hunting\n  The fox, the tusky boar, the stag with his beautiful antlers:\n  Arts, whether graceful or useful, in arms or equestrian usage,\n  Did Augustus impart to his pupil, the youthful earl of the empire.\n  To ride with stirrups or none, to mount from the near-side or off-side\n  (Which still is required in the trooper who rides in the Austrian\n      army),\n  To ride with bridle or none, on a saddle Turkish or English,\n  To force your horse to curvet, pirouette, dance on his haunches,\n  And whilst dancing to lash with his feet, and suggest an effectual\n      hinting                                                            60\n  To the enemy's musqueteers to clear the road for the hinter:\n  Or again, if you want a guide by night, in a dangerous highway\n  Beset with the enemies' marksmen and swarming with murderous ambush,\n  To train your horse in the art of delicate insinuation,\n  Gently raising a hoof to tap at the door o' the woodsman.\n  But, if he persists in snoring, or pretending to snore, or is angry\n  At your summons to leave his lair in the arms of his wife or his\n      infants,\n  To practise your horse in the duty of stormy recalcitration,\n  Wheeling round to present his heels, and in mid caracoling\n  To send the emperor's greeting smack through the panel of oakwood[15]  70\n  That makes the poor man so hard of hearing imperial orders.\n  Arts such as these and others, the use of the sabre on horseback,\n  All modes of skill gymnastic, modes whether forceful or artful,\n  Of death-grapple if by chance a cannon-shot should un-horse you,\n  All modes of using the limbs with address, with speed, or enormous\n  Effort of brutal strength, all this did Harry Delancey\n  Teach to his docile pupil: and arts more nobly delightful,\n  Arts of the head or the heart, arts intellectual; empire\n  Over dead men's books, over regions of high meditation,\n  Comparative tactics, warfare as then conducted in ages\n  When powder was none, nor cannon, but brute catapultae,                 81\n  Blind rams, brainless wild asses, the stony slinger of huge\n      stones.[16]\n  Iron was lord of the world; iron reigned, man was his engine;\n  But now the rule is reversed, man binds and insults over iron.\n  Together did they, young tutor, young pupil, Augustus, Adolphus,\n  Range over history martial, or read strategical authors,\n  Xenophon, Arrian, old Polybius, old Polyaenus\n  (Think not these Polys, my boy, were blooming Pollies of our days!),\n  And above all others, they read the laurel'd hero of heroes,\n  Thrice kingly Roman Julius, sun-bright leader of armies,\n  Who planted his god-like foot on the necks of a whole generation.      91\n  Such studies, such arts were those by which young Harry Delancey\n  Sought to discharge the trust which to him the Lady of Arnstein\n  Confided with hopes maternal; thus trained, he hoped that Adolphus\n  Would shine in his native land, for high was his place in the empire.\n\n     EDITOR'S NOTE.--This was, of course, written for _Blackwood's\n     Magazine_; but it never appeared there.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[12] 'That tamer of housemaids': [Greek: Hektoros ippodamoio]--of\nHector, the tamer of horses ('Iliad').\n\n[13] 'On pinion of expectation.' Here I would request the reader to\nnotice that it would have been easy for me to preserve the regular\ndactylic close by writing '_pinion of anticipation_;' as also in the\nformer instance of '_many a dark December_' to have written '_many a\nrainy December_.' But in both cases I preferred to lock up by the massy\nspondaic variety; yet never forgetting to premise a dancing\ndactyle--'many a'--and 'pinion of.' Not merely for variety, but for a\nseparate effect of peculiar majesty.\n\n[14] Alluding to a ridiculous passage in Thomson's 'Seasons':\n\n    'Delightful task! to teach the young idea how to shoot.'\n\n[15] All these arts, viz., teaching the horse to fight with his forelegs\nor lash out with his hind-legs at various angles in a general melee of\nhorse and foot, but especially teaching him the secret of 'inviting' an\nobstinate German boor to come out and take the air strapped in front of\na trooper, and do his duty as guide to the imperial cavalry, were\nimported into the Austrian service by an English riding-master about the\nyear 1775-80. And no doubt it must have been horses trained on this\nlearned system of education from which the Highlanders of Scotland\nderived their terror of cavalry.\n\n[16] 'Blind rams, brainless wild asses,' etc. The 'arietes,' or\nbattering-rams with iron-bound foreheads, the 'onagri,' or wild asses,\netc., were amongst the poliorcetic engines of the ancients, which do not\nappear to have received any essential improvement after the time of the\nbrilliant Prince Demetrius, the son of Alexander's great captain,\nAntigonus.\n\n\n\n\n_XIII. SOME THOUGHTS ON BIOGRAPHY._\n\n\nWe have heard from a man who witnessed the failure of Miss Baillie's 'De\nMontford,' notwithstanding the scenic advantages of a vast London\ntheatre, fine dresses, fine music at intervals, and, above all, the\nsuperb acting of John Kemble, supported on that occasion by his\nincomparable sister, that this unexpected disappointment began with the\ngallery, who could not comprehend or enter into a hatred so fiendish\ngrowing out of causes so slight as any by possibility supposable in the\ntrivial Rezenvelt. To feel teased by such a man, to dislike him,\noccasionally to present him with your compliments in the shape of a\nduodecimo kick--well and good, nothing but right. And the plot\nmanifestly tended to a comic issue. But murder!--a Macbeth murder!--not\nthe injury so much as the man himself was incommensurate, was too slight\nby a thousand degrees for so appalling a catastrophe. It reacts upon De\nMontford, making _him_ ignoble that could be moved so profoundly by an\nagency so contemptible.\n\nSomething of the same disproportion there is, though in a different way,\nbetween any quarrel that may have divided us from a man in his life-time\nand the savage revenge of pursuing the quarrel after his death through a\nmalicious biography. Yet, if you hated him through no quarrel, but\nsimply (as we all hate many men that died a thousand years ago) for\nsomething vicious, or which you think vicious, in his modes of thinking,\nwhy must you, of all men, be the one to undertake an edition of his\nworks, 'with a life of the author'? Leave that to some neutral writer,\nwho neither loves nor hates. And whilst crowds of men need better\nbiographical records whom it is easy to love and not difficult to\nhonour, do not you degrade your own heart or disgust your readers by\nselecting for your exemplification not a model to be imitated, but a\nwild beast to be baited or a criminal to be tortured? We privately hate\nMr. Thomas Hobbes, of Malmsbury; we know much evil of him, and we could\nexpose many of his tricks effectually. We also hate Dean Swift, and upon\nwhat we think substantial arguments. Some of our own contemporaries we\nhate particularly; Cobbett, for instance, and other bad fellows in\nfustian and corduroys. But for that very reason we will not write their\nlives. Or, if we should do so, only because they might happen to stand\nas individuals in a series, and after warning the reader of our own\nbias. For it is too odious a spectacle to imprison a fellow-creature in\na book, like a stag in a cart, and turn him out to be hunted through all\nhis doubles for a day's amusement. It too much resembles that case of\nundoubted occurrence both in France and Germany, where 'respectable'\nindividuals, simply as amateurs, and not at all with any view to the\nsalary or fees of operating, have come forward as candidates for the\npost of public executioner. What is every man's duty is no man's duty by\npreference. And unless where a writer is thrust upon such a duty by an\nofficial necessity (as, if he contracts for a 'Biographia Britannica,'\nin that case he is bound by his contract to go through with the whole\nseries--rogues and all), it is too painful to see a human being courting\nand wooing the task of doing execution upon his brother in his grave.\nNay, even in the case where this executioner's task arises spontaneously\nout of some duty previously undertaken without a thought of its severer\nfunctions, we are still shocked by any exterminating vengeance too\nrancorously pursued. Every reader must have been disgusted by the\nunrelenting persecution with which Gifford, a deformed man, with the\nspiteful nature sometimes too developed in the deformed, had undertaken\n'for our fathers in the Row' an edition of Massinger. Probably he had\nnot thought at the time of the criminals who would come before him for\njudgment. But afterwards it did not embitter the job that these\nperquisites of office accrued, _lucro ponatur_, that such offenders as\nCoxeter, Mr. Monck Mason, and others were to be 'justified' by course of\nlaw. Could he not have stated their errors, and displaced their rubbish,\nwithout further personalities? However, he does _not_, but makes the air\nresound with his knout, until the reader wishes Coxeter in his throat,\nand Monck Mason, like 'the cursed old fellow' in Sinbad, mounted with\npatent spurs upon his back.\n\nWe shall be interrupted, however, and _that_ we certainly foresee, by\nthe objection--that we are fighting with shadows, that neither the\n_eloge_ in one extreme, nor the libel in the other extreme, finds a\nplace in _our_ literature. Does it not? Yes, reader, each of these\nbiographical forms exists in favour among us, and of one it is very\ndoubtful indeed whether it ought not to exist. The _eloge_ is found\nabundantly diffused through our monumental epitaphs in the first place,\nand _there_ every man will countersign Wordsworth's judgment (see 'The\nExcursion' and also Wordsworth's prose Essay on Epitaphs), that it is a\nblessing for human nature to find one place in this world sacred to\ncharitable thoughts, one place at least offering a sanctuary from evil\nspeaking. So far there is no doubt. But the main literary form, in which\nthe English _eloge_ presents itself, is the Funeral Sermon. And in this\nalso, not less than in the churchyard epitaph, kind feeling ought to\npreside; and for the same reasons, the sanctity of the place where it is\ndelivered or originally published, and the solemnity of the occasion\nwhich has prompted it; since, if you cannot find matter in the departed\nperson's character fertile in praise even whilst standing by the\nnew-made grave, what folly has tempted you into writing an epitaph or a\nfuneral sermon? The good ought certainly to predominate in both, and in\nthe epitaph nothing _but_ the good, because were it only for a reason\nsuggested by Wordsworth, viz., the elaborate and everlasting character\nof a record chiselled out painfully in each separate letter, it would be\nscandalous to confer so durable an existence in stone or marble upon\ntrivial human infirmities, such as do not enter into the last solemn\nreckoning with the world beyond the grave; whilst, on the other hand,\nall graver offences are hushed into 'dread repose,' and, where they\nhappen to be too atrocious or too memorable, are at once a sufficient\nargument for never having undertaken any such memorial. These\nconsiderations privilege the epitaph as sacred to charity, and tabooed\nagainst the revelations of candour. The epitaph cannot open its scanty\nrecords to any breathing or insinuation of infirmity. But the Funeral\nSermon, though sharing in the same general temper of indulgence towards\nthe errors of the deceased person, might advantageously be laid open to\na far more liberal discussion of those personal or intellectual\nweaknesses which may have thwarted the influence of character otherwise\neminently Christian. The _Oraison Funebre_ of the French proposes to\nitself by its original model, which must be sought in the _Epideictic_\nor panegyrical oratory of the Greeks, a purpose purely and exclusively\neulogistic: the problem supposed is to abstract from everything _not_\nmeritorious, to expand and develop the total splendour of the individual\nout of that one centre, that main beneficial relation to his own age,\nfrom which this splendour radiated. The incidents of the life, the\nsuccessions of the biographical detail, are but slightly traced, no\nfarther, in fact, than is requisite to the intelligibility of the\npraises. Whereas, in the English Funeral Sermon, there is no principle\nof absolute exclusion operating against the minutest circumstantiations\nof fact which can tend to any useful purpose of illustrating the\ncharacter. And what is too much for the scale of a sermon literally\npreached before a congregation, or modelled to counterfeit such a mode\nof address, may easily find its place in the explanatory notes. This is\nno romance, or ideal sketch of what might be. It is, and it has been.\nThere are persons of memorable interest in past times, of whom all that\nwe know is embodied in a funeral sermon. For instance, Jeremy Taylor in\nthat way, or by his Epistles Dedicatory, has brought out the\ncharacteristic features in some of his own patrons, whom else we should\nhave known only as _nominis umbras_. But a more impressive illustration\nis found in the case of John Henderson, that man of whom expectations so\ngreat were formed, and of whom Dr. Johnson and Burke, after meeting and\nconversing with him, pronounced (in the Scriptural words of the\nEthiopian queen applied to the Jewish king, Solomon) 'that the half had\nnot been told them.' For this man's memory almost the sole original\nrecord exists in Aguttar's funeral sermon; for though other records\nexist, and one from the pen of a personal friend, Mr. Joseph Cottle, of\nBristol, yet the main substance of the biography is derived from the\n_fundus_ of this one sermon.[17] And it is of some importance to cases\nof fugitive or unobtrusive merit that this more quiet and sequestered\ncurrent of biography should be kept open. For the local motives to an\nhonorary biographical notice, in the shape of a Funeral Sermon, will\noften exist, when neither the materials are sufficient, nor a writer\nhappens to be disposable, for a labour so serious as a regular\nbiography.\n\nHere then, on the one side, are our English _eloges_. And we may add\nthat amongst the Methodists, the Baptists, and other religious\nsectaries, but especially among the missionaries of all nations and\nchurches, this class of _eloges_ is continually increasing. Not\nunfrequently men of fervent natures and of sublime aspirations are thus\nrescued from oblivion, whilst the great power of such bodies as the\nMethodists, their growing wealth, and consequent responsibility to\npublic opinion, are pledges that they will soon command all the\nadvantages of colleges and academic refinement; so that if, in the\nmanner of these funeral _eloges_, there has sometimes been missed that\nelegance which should have corresponded to the weight of the matter,\nhenceforwards we may look to see this disadvantage giving way before\ninstitutions more thoroughly matured. But if these are our _eloges_, on\nthe other hand, where are our libels?\n\nThis is likely to be a topic of offence, for many readers will start at\nhearing the upright Samuel Johnson and the good-humoured, garrulous\nPlutarch denounced as traffickers in libel. But a truth is a truth. And\nthe temper is so essentially different in which men lend themselves to\nthe propagation of defamatory anecdotes, the impulses are so various to\nan offence which is not always consciously perceived by those who are\nparties to it, that we cannot be too cautious of suffering our hatred of\nlibel to involve every casual libeller, or of suffering our general\nrespect for the person of the libeller to exonerate him from the charge\nof libelling. Many libels are written in this little world of ours\nunconsciously, and under many motives. Perhaps we said that before, but\nno matter. Sometimes a gloomy fellow, with a murderous cast of\ncountenance, sits down doggedly to the task of blackening one whom he\nhates worse 'than toad or asp.' For instance, Procopius performs that\n'labour of hate' for the Emperor Justinian, pouring oil into his wounds,\nbut, then (as Coleridge expresses it in a 'neat' sarcasm), oil of\nvitriol. Nature must have meant the man for a Spanish Inquisitor, sent\ninto the world before St. Dominic had provided a trade for him, or any\nvent for his malice--so rancorous in his malignity, so horrid and\nunrelenting the torture to which he subjects his sovereign and the\nbeautiful Theodora. In this case, from the withering scowl which\naccompanies the libels, we may be assured that they _are_ such in the\nmost aggravated form--not malicious only, but false. It is commonly\nsaid, indeed, in our courts, that truth it is which aggravates the\nlibel. And so it is as regards the feelings or the interests of the man\nlibelled. For is it not insufferable that, if a poor man under common\nhuman infirmity shall have committed some crime and have paid its\npenalty, but afterwards reforming or out-growing his own follies, seeks\nto gain an honest livelihood for his children in a place which the\nknowledge of his past transgression has not reached, then all at once he\nis to be ruined by some creature purely malignant who discovers and\npublishes the secret tale? In such a case most undoubtedly it is the\ntruth of the libel which constitutes its sting, since, if it were not\ntrue or could be made questionable, it would do the poor man no\nmischief. But, on the other hand, it is the falsehood of the libel which\nforms its aggravation as regards the publisher. And certain we are, had\nwe no other voucher than the instinct of our hatred to Procopius, that\nhis disloyal tales about his great lord and lady are odiously\novercharged, if not uniformly false. Gibbon, however, chooses to gratify\nhis taste for the luxury of scandal by believing at once in the perfect\nmalice of the slanderer, and the perfect truth of his slanders.\n\nHere then, in this Procopius, is an instance of the gloomy libeller,\nwhose very gloom makes affidavit of his foul spirit from the first.\nThere is also another form, less odious, of the hostile libeller: it\noccurs frequently in cases where the writer is not chargeable with\nsecret malice, but is in a monstrous passion. A shower-bath might be of\nservice in that case, whereas in the Procopius case nothing but a\ncopious or a _Pro_copius application of the knout can answer. We, for\ninstance, have (or had, for perhaps it has been stolen) a biography of\nthat same Parker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, with whom Andrew Marvell\n'and others who called Milton friend' had such rough-and-tumble feuds\nabout 1666, and at whose expense it was that Marvell made the whole\nnation merry in his 'Rehearsal Transprosed.' This Parker had a 'knack'\nat making himself odious; he had a _curiosa felicitas_ in attracting\nhatreds, and wherever he lodged for a fortnight he trailed after him a\nvast parabolic or hyperbolic tail of enmity and curses, all smoke and\nfire and tarnish, which bore the same ratio to his small body of merit\nthat a comet's tail, measuring billions of miles, does to the little\ncometary mass. The rage against him was embittered by politics, and\nindeed sometimes by knavish tricks; the first not being always\n'confounded,' nor the last 'frustrated.' So that Parker, on the whole,\nwas a man whom it might be held a duty to hate, and therefore, of\ncourse, to knout as often as you could persuade him to expose a fair\nextent of surface for the action of the lash. Many men purchased a knout\nfor his sake, and took their chance for getting a 'shy' at him, as\nParker might happen to favour their intentions. But one furious\ngentleman, who is resolved to 'take his full change' out of Parker, and\ntherefore to lose no time, commences operations in the very first words\nof his biography: 'Parker,' says he, 'the author of ----, was the _spawn_\nof Samuel Parker.' His rage will not wait for an opportunity; he throws\noff a torrent of fiery sparks in advance, and gives full notice to\nParker that he will run his train right into him, if he can come up with\nhis rear. This man is not malicious, but truculent; like the elder\nScaliger, of whom it was observed that, having been an officer of\ncavalry up to his fortieth year (when he took to learning Greek), he\nalways fancied himself on horseback, charging, and cutting throats in\nthe way of professional duty, as often as he found himself summoned to\npursue and 'cut up' some literary delinquent. Fire and fury, 'bubble and\nsqueak,' is the prevailing character of his critical composition. 'Come,\nand let me give thee to the fowls of the air,' is the cry with which the\nmartial critic salutes the affrighted author. Yet, meantime, it is\nimpossible that he can entertain any personal malice, for he does not\nknow the features of the individual enemy whom he is pursuing. But thus\nfar he agrees with the Procopian order of biographers--that both are\ngoverned, in whatever evil they may utter, by a spirit of animosity: one\nby a belligerent spirit which would humble its enemy as an enemy in a\nfair pitched battle, the other by a subtle spirit of malice, which would\nexterminate its enemy not in that character merely, but as an individual\nby poison or by strangling.\n\nLibels, however, may be accredited and published where there is no\nparticle of enmity or of sudden irritation. Such were the libels of\nPlutarch and Dr. Johnson. They are libels prompted by no hostile\nfeelings at all, but adopted by mere blind spirit of credulity. In this\nworld of ours, so far as we are acquainted with its doings, there are\nprecisely four series--four aggregate bodies--of _Lives_, and no more,\nwhich you can call celebrated; which _have_ had, and are likely to have,\nan extensive influence--each after its own kind. Which be they? To\narrange them in point of time, first stand Plutarch's lives of eminent\nGreeks and Romans; next, the long succession of the French Memoirs,\nbeginning with Philippe de Commines, in the time of Louis XI. or our\nEdward IV., and ending, let us say, with the slight record of himself\n(but not without interest) of Louis XVIII.; thirdly, the _Acta\nSanctorum_ of the Bollandists; fourthly, Dr. Johnson's 'Lives of the\nPoets.' The third is a biographical record of the Romish saints,\nfollowing the order of the martyrology as it is digested through the\nRoman calendar of the year; and, as our own 'Biographia Britannica' has\nonly moved forwards in seventy years to the letter 'H,' or thereabouts\n(which may be owing to the dissenting blight of Dr. Kippis), _pari\npassu_, the _Acta Sanctorum_ will be found not much farther advanced\nthan the month of May--a pleasant month certainly, but (as the\n_Spectator_ often insinuates) perilous to saintship. Laying this work\nout of consideration, as being chiefly employed in eulogy such as\n_could_ not be extravagant when applied to the glorious army of martyrs\n(although here also, we doubt not, are many libels against men\nconcerning whom it matters little whether they were libelled or not),\nall the rest of the great biographical works are absolutely saturated\nwith libels. Plutarch may be thought to balance his extravagant slanders\nby his impossible eulogies. He sees nothing wonderful in actions that\nwere far beyond the level of any motives existing under pagan\nmoralities; and, on the other hand, he traduces great men like Caesar,\nwhose natures were beyond his scale of measurement, by tracing their\npolicy to petty purposes entirely Plutarchian. But he was a Greekling in\na degenerate age of Grecians. As to the French Memoirs, which are often\nso exceedingly amusing, they purchase their liveliness by one eternal\nsacrifice of plain truth. Their repartees, felicitous _propos_, and\npointed anecdotes are but one rolling fire of falsehoods. And,\ngenerally, it may be laid down as a rule, that all collectors of happy\nretorts and striking anecdotes are careless of truth. Louis XIV. _does_\nseem to have had a natural gift of making brilliant compliments and\nhappy impromptus; and yet the very best of his reputed _mots_ were\nspurious. Some may be traced to Cicero, Hierocles, Diogenes; and some to\nhis modern predecessors. That witty remark ascribed to him about the\ndisposition of Fortune, as being a lady, to withdraw her favours from\nold men like himself and the Marechal Boufflers, was really uttered\nnearly two centuries before by the Emperor Charles V., who probably\nstole it from some Spanish collection of jests. And so of fifty in every\nhundred beside. And the French are not only apt beyond other nations to\nabuse the license of stealing from our predecessor _quod licuit\nsemperque licebit_, but also, in a degree peculiar to themselves, they\nhave a false de-naturalized taste in the humorous, and as to the limits\nof the extravagant. We have formerly illustrated this point, and\nespecially we noticed it as a case impossible to any nation _but_ the\nFrench to have tolerated the pretended 'absences' of La Fontaine--as,\nfor instance, his affecting to converse with his own son as an entire\nstranger, and asking the lady who had presented him what might be the\nname of that amiable young man. The _incredulus odi_ faces one in every\npage of a French memoir; veracity is an unknown virtue, and, wherever\nthat is the taste, look for libels by wholesale. Too often even the\nunnatural and the monstrous is courted, rather than miss the object of\narresting and startling. Now, Dr. Johnson's calumnies or romances were\nnot of that order. He had a healthy spirit of reverence for truth; but\nhe was credulous to excess, and he was plagued by an infirmity not\nuncommon amongst literary men who have no families of young people\ngrowing up around their hearth--the hankering after gossip. He was\ncurious about the domestic habits of his celebrated countrymen;\ninquisitive in a morbid degree about their pecuniary affairs: 'What have\nyou got in that pocket which bulges out so prominently?' 'What did your\nfather do with that hundred guineas which he received on Monday from\nJacob Jonson?' And, as his 'swallow' was enormous--as the Doctor would\nbelieve more fables in an hour than an able-bodied liar would invent in\na week--naturally there was no limit to the slanders with which his\n'Lives of the Poets' are overrun.\n\nOf the four great biographical works which we have mentioned, we hold\nDr. Johnson's to be by far the best in point of composition. Even\nPlutarch, though pardonably overrated in consequence of the great\nsubjects which he treats (which again are 'great' by benefit of distance\nand the vast abstracting process executed by time upon the petty and the\nfamiliar), is loose and rambling in the principles of his _nexus_; and\nthere lies the great effort for a biographer, there is the strain, and\nthat is the task--viz., to weld the disconnected facts into one\nsubstance, and by interfusing natural reflections to create for the\nmotions of his narrative a higher impulse than one merely chronologic.\nIn this respect, the best of Dr. Johnson's 'Lives' are undoubtedly the\nvery best which exist. They are the most highly finished amongst all\nmasterpieces of the biographic art, and, as respects the Doctor\npersonally, they are, beyond comparison, his best work. It is a great\nthing in any one art or function, even though it were not a great one,\nto have excelled all the literature of all languages. And if the reader\nfancies that there lurks anywhere a collection of lives, or even one\nlife (though it were the 'Agricola' of Tacitus), which as a work of\nrefined art and execution can be thought equal to the best of Dr.\nJohnson's, we should be grateful to him if he would assign it in a\nletter to Mr. Blackwood:\n\n               'And though the night be raw,\n    We'll see it too, the first we ever saw.'\n\nWe say nothing of the Calmuck Tartars; they hold (see Bergmann's\n'Streifereien') that their 'Dschangariade' is the finest of all epic\npoems, past or coming; and, therefore, the Calmuck Lives of the Poets\nwill naturally be inimitable. But confining our view to the unhappy\nliteratures of Europe, ancient or modern, this is what we think of Dr.\nJohnson's efforts as a biographer. Consequently, we cannot be taxed with\nany insensibility to his merit. And as to the critical part of his\nLives, if no thoughtful reader can be expected to abide by his haughty\ndecisions, yet, on the other hand, every man reads his opinions with\npleasure, from the intellectual activity and the separate justice of the\nthoughts which they display. But as to his libellous propensity, that\nrests upon independent principles; for all his ability and all his logic\ncould not elevate his mind above the region of gossip.\n\nTake his 'Life of Savage.' This was the original nest-egg, upon which,\nas a basis, and perhaps as the occasional suggestion of such an\nenterprise, all the rest--allow us a pompous word--supervened. It was\nadmirably written, because written _con amore_, and also because written\n_con odio_; and under either impulse is it possible to imagine grosser\ndelusions? Johnson persuaded himself that Savage was a fine gentleman (a\n_role_ not difficult to support in that age, when ceremony and a\ngorgeous _costume_ were amongst the auxiliary distinctions of a\ngentleman), and also that he was a man of genius. The first claim was\nnecessarily taken upon trust by the Doctor's readers; the other might\nhave been examined; but after a few painful efforts to read 'The\nWanderer' and other insipid trifles, succeeding generations have\nresolved to take _that_ upon trust also; for in very truth Savage's\nwritings are of that order which 'do not let themselves be read.' Why,\nthen, had publishers bought them? Publishers in those days were mere\ntradesmen, without access to liberal society. Even Richardson, though a\nman of great genius, in his publisher's character was an obsequious,\nnay, servile, admirer of the fine gentleman who wore a sword,\nembroidered clothes, and Mechlin ruffles about his wrists; above all\nthings, he glorified and adored a Lovelace, with a fine person, who sang\ngaily to show his carelessness of low people, never came abroad except\nin a sedan-chair, and liberally distributed his curses to the right and\nthe left in all respectable men's shops. This temper, with her usual\nsagacity, Lady M. Wortley Montagu could detect in Richardson, and for\nthis she despised him. But this it was, and some little vision of\npossible patronage from Lord Tyrconnel, which had obtained any prices at\nall for Savage from such knowing publishers as were then arising; but\ngenerally Savage had relied upon subscriptions, which were still common,\nand, in his case, as a man supposed unfortunate, were given purely as\ncharity. With what astonishment does a literary foreigner of any\njudgment find a Savage placed amongst the classics of England! and from\nthe scale of his life reasonably he must infer that he is ranked amongst\nthe leaders, whilst the extent in which his works are multiplied would\nthrow him back upon the truth--that he is utterly unknown to his\ncountrymen. These, however, were the delusions of good nature. But what\nare we to think of Dr. Johnson's abetting that monstrous libel against\nLady Macclesfield? She, unhappily, as a woman banished without hope from\nall good society by her early misconduct as a wife (but, let it not be\nforgotten, a neglected wife), had nobody to speak a word on her behalf:\nall evil was believed of one who had violated her marriage vows. But had\nthe affair occurred in our days, the public journals would have righted\nher. They would have shown the folly of believing a vain, conceited man\nlike Savage and his nurse, with no vouchers whatever, upon a point where\nthey had the deepest interest at stake; whilst on the opposite side,\nsupposing their story true, spoke for them the strongest of all natural\ninstincts--the pleading of the maternal heart, combated by no\nself-interest whatever. Surely if Lady Macclesfield had not been\nsupported by indignation against an imposture, merely for her own ease\nand comfort, she would have pensioned Savage, or have procured him some\nplace under Government--not difficult in those days for a person with\nher connections (however sunk as respected _female_ society) to have\nobtained for an only son. In the sternness of her resistance to all\nattempts upon her purse we read her sense of the fraud. And, on the\nother hand, was the conduct of Savage that of a son? He had no legal\nclaims upon her, consequently no pretence for molesting her in her\ndwelling-house. And would a real son--a great lubberly fellow, well able\nto work as a porter or a footman--however wounded at her obstinate\nrejection, have been likely, in pursuit of no legal rights, to have\nalarmed her by threatening letters and intrusions, for no purpose but\none _confessedly_ of pecuniary extortion? From the very mode of pursuing\nhis claim it is plain that Savage felt it to be a false one. It seems,\nalso, to be forgotten by most readers, that at this day real sons--not\ndenied to be such--are continually banished, nay, ejected forcibly by\npolicemen, from the paternal roof in requital of just such profligate\nconduct as Savage displayed; so that, grant his improbable story, still\nhe was a disorderly reprobate, who in these days would have been\nconsigned to the treadmill. But the whole was a hoax.\n\nSavage, however, is but a single case, in relation to which Dr. Johnson\nstood in a special position, that diseased his judgment. But look at\nPope's life, at Swift's, at Young's--at all the lives of men\ncontemporary with himself: they are overrun with defamatory stories, or\ntraits of that order which would most have stung them, had they returned\nto life. But it was an accident most beneficial to Dr. Johnson that\nnearly all these men left no near relatives behind to call him to\naccount. The public were amused, as they always are by exhibitions of\ninfirmity or folly in one whom otherwise they were compelled to admire;\nthat was a sort of revenge for them to set off against a painful\nperpetuity of homage. Thus far the libels served only as jests, and,\nfortunately for Dr. Johnson, there arose no after-reckoning. One period,\nin fact, of thirty years had intervened between the last of these men\nand the publication of the Lives; it was amongst the latest works of Dr.\nJohnson: thus, and because most of them left no descendants, he escaped.\nHad the ordinary proportion of these men been married, the result would\nhave been different; and whatever might have been thought of any\nindividual case amongst the complaints, most undoubtedly, from the great\nnumber to which the Doctor had exposed himself, amongst which many were\nnot of a nature to be evaded by any vouchers whatsoever, a fatal effect\nwould have settled on the Doctor's moral reputation. He would have been\npassed down to posterity as a dealer in wholesale scandal, who cared\nnothing for the wounded feelings of relatives. It is a trifle after that\nto add that he would frequently have been cudgelled.\n\nThis public judgment upon Dr. Johnson and these cudgellings would have\nbeen too severe a chastisement for the offences, which, after all,\nargued no heavier delinquency than a levity in examining his chance\nauthorities, and a constitutional credulity. Dr. Johnson's easiness of\nfaith for the supernatural, the grossness of his superstition in\nrelation to such miserable impostures as the Cock Lane ghost, and its\nscratchings on the wall, flowed from the same source; and his\nconversation furnishes many proofs that he had no principle of\nresistance in his mind, no reasonable scepticism, when any disparaging\nanecdote was told about his nearest friends. Who but he would have\nbelieved the monstrous tale: that Garrick, so used to addressing large\naudiences _extempore_, so quick and lively in his apprehensions, had\nabsolutely been dismissed from a court of justice as an idiot--as a man\nincapable of giving the court information even upon a question of his\nown profession? As to his credulity with respect to the somewhat\nharmless forgeries of Psalmanazer, and with respect to the villainous\nimposture of Lander, we imagine that other causes co-operated to those\nerrors beyond mere facility of assenting. In the latter case we fear\nthat jealousy of Milton as a scholar, a feeling from which he never\ncleansed himself, had been the chief cause of his so readily delivering\nhimself a dupe to allegations _not_ specious, backed by forgeries that\nwere anything but ingenious. Dr. Johnson had a narrow escape on that\noccasion. Had Dr. Douglas fastened upon him as the collusive abettor of\nLander, as the man whose sanction had ever won even a momentary credit\nfor the obscure libeller, and as the one beyond all others of the age\nwhose critical occupation ought most to have secured him against such a\ndelusion, the character of Johnson would have suffered seriously.\nLuckily, Dr. Douglas spared him; and Johnson, seeing the infamy of the\nhoax, and the precipice near which he stood, hastened to separate\nhimself from Lander, and to offer such reparation as he could, by\ndictating that unhappy letter of recantation. Lander must have consented\nto this step from hopes of patronage; and perhaps the obscure place of\nslave-driver in the West Indies, in which he died (after recanting his\nrecantation), might be the unsatisfactory bait of his needy ambition.\nBut assuredly Lander could have made out a better case for himself than\nthat which, under his name, the Doctor addressed to the Bishop; it was a\ndark spot in Dr. Johnson's life. A Scotsman, said he, must be a strange\none who would not tell a falsehood in a case where Scotland was\nconcerned; and we fear that any fable of defamation must have been gross\nindeed which Dr. Johnson would not have countenanced against Milton. His\n'Life of Milton,' as it now stands, contains some of the grossest\ncalumnies against that mighty poet which have ever been hazarded; and\nsome of the deepest misrepresentations are coloured, to the unsuspecting\nreader, by an affectation of merriment. But in his 'heart of hearts' Dr.\nJohnson detested Milton. Gray, even though, as being little of a meddler\nwith politics, he furnished no handle to the Doctor for wrath so\nunrelenting, was a subject of deep jealousy from his reputed\nscholarship. Never did the spite of the Doctor more emblazon itself\nthan in his review of Gray's lyrical compositions; the very affectation\nof prefacing his review by calling the two chief odes 'the wonderful\nwonder of wonders' betrays a female spite; and never did the arrogance\nof Dr. Johnson's nature flame out so conspicuously as in some of the\nphrases used on this occasion. Perhaps it is an instance of\nself-inflation absolutely unique where he says, 'My kindness for a man\nof letters'; this, it seems, caused him to feel pain at seeing Gray\ndescending to what he, the Doctor (as a one-sided opinion of his own),\nheld to be a fantastic foppery. The question we point at is not this\nsupposed foppery--was it such or not? Milton's having cherished that\n'foppery' was a sufficient argument for detesting it. What we fix the\nreader's eye upon is, the unparalleled arrogance of applying to Gray\nthis extreme language of condescending patronage. He really had 'a\nkindness' for the little man, and was not ashamed, as some people would\nbe, to own it; so that it shocked him more than else it would have done,\nto see the man disgracing himself in this way.\n\nHowever, it is probable that all the misstatements of Dr. Johnson, the\ninvidious impressions, and the ludicrous or injurious anecdotes fastened\n_ad libitum_ upon men previously open to particular attacks, never will\nbe exposed; and for this, amongst other reasons, that sometimes the\nfacts of the case are irrecoverable, though falsehood may be apparent;\nand still more because few men will be disposed to degrade themselves by\nassuming a secondary and ministerial office in hanging upon the errors\nof any man. Pope was a great favourite with Dr. Johnson, both as an\nunreflecting Tory, who travelled the whole road to Jacobitism--thus far\nresembling the Doctor himself; secondly, as one who complimented\nhimself whilst yet a young man, and even whilst wearing a\nmasque--complimented him under circumstances which make compliments\ndoubly useful, and make them trebly sincere. If any man, therefore, he\nwould have treated indulgently Pope: yet his life it is which has mainly\nfixed upon Pope that false impression which predominates at this\nday--that doubtless intellectually he was a very brilliant little man;\nbut morally a spiteful, peevish, waspish, narrow-hearted cynic. Whereas\nno imputation can be more unfounded. Pope, unless in cases when he had\nbeen maddened by lampoons, was a most benignant creature; and, with the\nslightest acknowledgment of his own merit, there never lived a literary\nman who was so generously eager to associate others in his own\nhonours--those even who had no adequate pretensions. If you, reader,\nshould, like ourselves, have had occasion to investigate Pope's life,\nunder an intention of recording it more accurately or more\ncomprehensively than has yet been done, you will feel the truth of what\nwe are saying. And especially we would recommend to every man, who\nwishes to think justly of Pope in this respect, that he should compare\nhis conduct towards literary competitors with that of Addison. Dr.\nJohnson, having partially examined the lives of both, must have been so\nfar qualified to do justice between them. But justice he has _not_ done;\nand to him chiefly we repeat that at this day are owing the false\nimpressions of Pope's selfish, ungenial, or misanthropic nature; and the\nhumiliating associations connected with Pope's petty manoeuvring in\ntrivial domestic affairs, chiefly through Dr. Johnson's means, will\nnever be obliterated. Let us turn, however, from Dr. Johnson, whom, with\nour general respect for his upright nature, it is painful to follow\nthrough circumstances where either jealousy (as sometimes) or credulity\nand the love of gossip (as very often) has misled him into gratifying\nthe taste of the envious at a great sacrifice of dignity to the main\nupholders of our literature. These men ought not to have been 'shown up'\nfor a comic or malicious effect. A nation who value their literature as\nwe have reason to value ours ought to show their sense of this value by\nforgetting the _degrading_ infirmities (not the venial and human\ninfirmities) of those to whose admirable endowments they owe its\nexcellence.\n\nTurning away, therefore, from those modes of biography which have\nhitherto pursued any vicious extreme, let us now briefly explain our own\nideal of a happier, sounder, and more ennobling biographical art, having\nthe same general objects as heretofore, but with a more express view to\nthe benefit of the reader. Looking even at those memoirs which, like\nHayley's of Cowper, have been checked by pathetic circumstances from\nfixing any slur or irreverential scandal upon their subject, we still\nsee a great fault in the mass of biographic records; and what _is_ it?\nIt is--that, even where no disposition is manifested to copy either the\n_eloge_ or the libellous pasquinade, too generally the author appears\n_ex officio_ as the constant 'patronus' or legal advocate for the person\nrecorded. And so he ought, if we understand that sort of advocacy which\nin English courts the judge was formerly presumed to exercise on behalf\nof the defendant in criminal trials. Before that remarkable change by\nwhich a prisoner was invested with the privilege of employing separate\ncounsel, the judge was his counsel. The judge took care that no wrong\nwas done to him; that no false impression was left with the jury; that\nthe witnesses against him should not be suffered to run on without a\nsufficient rigour of cross-examination. But certainly the judge thought\nit no part of his duty to make 'the worse appear the better reason'; to\nthrow dust into the eyes of the jury; or to labour any point of\nequivocation for the sake of giving the prisoner an extra chance of\nescaping. And, if it is really right that the prisoner, when obviously\nguilty, should be aided in evading his probable conviction, then\ncertainly in past times he had less than justice. For most undoubtedly\nno judge would have attempted what we all saw an advocate attempting\nabout a year ago, that, when every person in court was satisfied of the\nprisoner's guilt, from the proof suddenly brought to light of his having\nclandestinely left the plate of his murdered victim in a particular\nparty's safe keeping, at that moment the advocate (though secretly\nprostrated by this overwhelming discovery) struggled vainly to fix upon\nthe honourable witness a foul stigma of self-contradiction and perjury\nfor the single purpose of turning loose a savage murderer upon society.\nIf this were not more than justice, then assuredly in all times past the\nprisoner had far less. Now, precisely the difference between the\nadvocacy of the judge, and the advocacy of a special counsel retained by\nthe prisoner, expresses the difference which we contemplate between the\nbiographer as he has hitherto protected his hero and that biographer\nwhom we would substitute. Is he not to show a partiality for his\nsubject? Doubtless; but hitherto, in those lives which have been\nfarthest from _eloges_, the author has thought it his duty to uphold the\ngeneral system, polity, or principles upon which his subject has acted.\nThus Middleton and all other biographers of Cicero, whilst never\nmeditating any panegyrical account of that statesman, and oftentimes\nregretting his vanity, for instance, have quite as little thought it\nallowable to condemn the main political views, theories, and\nconsequently actions, of Cicero. But why not? Why should a biographer be\nfettered in his choice of subjects by any imaginary duty of adopting the\nviews held by him whose life he records? To make war upon the man, to\nquarrel with him in every page, _that_ is quite as little in accordance\nwith our notions; and we have already explained above our sense of its\nhatefulness. For then the question recurs for ever: What necessity\nforced you upon a subject whose conduct you thoroughly disapprove? But\nlet him show the tenderness which is due to a great man even when he\nerrs. Let him expose the _total_ aberrations of the man, and make this\nexposure salutary to the pathetic wisdom of his readers, not alimentary\nto their self-conceit, by keeping constantly before their eyes the\nexcellence and splendour of the man's powers in contrast with his\ncontinued failures. Let him show such patronage to the hero of his\nmemoir as the English judge showed to the poor prisoner at his bar,\ntaking care that he should suffer no shadow of injustice from the\nwitnesses; that the prisoner's own self-defence should in no part be\ndefeated of its effect by want of proper words or want of proper skill\nin pressing the forcible points on the attention of the jury; but\notherwise leaving him to his own real merits in the facts of his case,\nand allowing him no relief from the pressure of the hostile evidence but\nsuch as he could find either in counter-evidence or in the intrinsic\nweight of his own general character. On the scheme of biography there\nwould be few persons in any department of life who would be accompanied\nto the close by a bowing and obsequious reporter; there would be far\nless of uniform approbation presumable in memoirs; but, on the other\nhand, there would be exhibited pretty generally a tender spirit of\ndealing with human infirmities; a large application of human errors to\nthe benefit of succeeding generations; and, lastly, there would be an\nopening made for the free examination of many lives which are now in a\nmanner closed against criticism; whilst to each separate life there\nwould be an access and an invitation laid bare for minds hitherto\nfeeling themselves excluded from approaching the subject by imperfect\nsympathy with the principles and doctrines which those lives were\nsupposed to illustrate.\n\nBut our reformed view of biography would be better explained by a sketch\napplied to Cicero's life or to Milton's. In either case we might easily\nshow, consistently with the exposure of enormous errors, that each was\nthe wisest man of his own day. And with regard to Cicero in particular,\nout of his own letters to Atticus, we might show that every capital\nopinion which he held on the politics of Rome in his own day was false,\ngroundless, contradictory. Yet for all that, we would engage to leave\nthe reader in a state of far deeper admiration for the man than the\nhollow and hypocritical Middleton ever felt himself, or could therefore\nhave communicated to his readers.\n\n     EDITOR'S NOTE.--The reference on p. 122 is to the famous case of\n     Courvoisier, in 1840, and this fixes 1841 as the date of the essay.\n     Courvoisier was a valet who murdered and robbed his master, putting\n     the plate into the care of an old woman, and making it appear a\n     burglary. He was defended by a barrister named Philips, who\n     received from the prisoner a confession of his guilt, and\n     afterwards, in court, took Heaven to witness that he believed him\n     innocent, though the woman, by accident almost, had been found, and\n     given evidence. Philips was disbarred.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[17] In Mrs. Hannah More's drawing-room at Barley Wood, amongst the few\npictures which adorned it, hung a kit-kat portrait of John Henderson.\nThis, and our private knowledge that Mrs. H. M. had personally known and\nadmired Henderson, led us to converse with that lady about him. What we\ngleaned from her in addition to the notices of Aguttar and of some\namongst Johnson's biographers may yet see the light.\n\n\n\n\n_XIV. GREAT FORGERS: CHATTERTON AND WALPOLE, AND 'JUNIUS.'_\n\n\nI have ever been disposed to regard as the most venial of deceptions\nsuch impositions as Chatterton had practised on the public credulity.\nWhom did he deceive? Nobody but those who well deserved to be deceived,\nviz., shallow antiquaries, who pretended to a sort of knowledge which\nthey had not so much as tasted. And it always struck me as a judicial\ninfatuation in Horace Walpole, that he, who had so brutally pronounced\nthe death of this marvellous boy to be a matter of little consequence,\nsince otherwise he would have come to be hanged for forgery, should\nhimself, not as a boy under eighteen (and I think under seventeen at the\nfirst issuing of the Rowley fraud), slaving for a few guineas that he\nmight procure the simplest food for himself, and then buy presents for\nthe dear mother and sister whom he had left in Bristol, but as an\nelderly man, with a clear six thousand per annum,[18] commit a far more\ndeliberate and audacious forgery than that imputed (if even accurately\nimputed) to Chatterton. I know of no published document, or none\npublished under Chatterton's sanction, in which he formally _declared_\nthe Rowley poems to have been the compositions of a priest living in\nthe days of Henry IV., viz., in or about the year 1400. Undoubtedly he\nsuffered people to understand that he had found MSS. of that period in\nthe tower of St. Mary Redcliff at Bristol, which he really _had_ done;\nand whether he simply tolerated them in running off with the idea that\nthese particular poems, written on _discoloured_ parchments by way of\ncolouring the hoax, were amongst the St. Mary treasures, or positively\n_said so_, in either view, considering the circumstances of the case, no\nman of kind feelings will much condemn him.\n\nBut Horace Walpole roundly and audaciously affirmed in the first\nsentence of his preface to the poor romance of 'Otranto,' that it had\nbeen translated from the Italian of Onuphrio Muralto, and that the MS.\nwas still preserved in the library of an English Catholic family;\ncircumstantiating his needless falsehood by other most superfluous\ndetails. _Needless_, I say, because a book with the Walpole name on the\ntitle-page was as sure of selling as one with Chatterton's obscure name\nwas at that time sure of _not_ selling. Possibly Horace Walpole did not\ncare about selling, but wished to measure his own intrinsic power as a\nnovelist, for which purpose it was a better course to preserve his\n_incognito_. But this he might have preserved without telling a\ncircumstantial falsehood. Whereas Chatterton knew that his only chance\nof emerging from the obscure station of a grave-digger's son, and\ncarrying into comfort the dear female relatives that had half-starved\nthemselves for _him_ (I speak of things which have since come to my\nknowledge thirty-five years after Chatterton and his woes had been\nburied in a pauper's coffin), lay in bribing public attention by some\n_extrinsic_ attraction. Macpherson had recently engaged the public gaze\nby his 'Ossian'--an abortion fathered upon the fourth century after\nChrist. What so natural as to attempt other abortions--ideas and\nrefinements of the eighteenth century--referring themselves to the\nfifteenth? Had this harmless hoax succeeded, he would have delivered\nthose from poverty who delivered _him_ from ignorance; he would have\nraised those from the dust who raised _him_ to an aerial height--yes, to\na height from which (but it was after his death), like _Ate_ or _Eris_,\ncome to cause another Trojan war, he threw down an apple of discord\namongst the leading scholars of England, and seemed to say: 'There, Dean\nof Exeter! there, Laureate! there, Tyrwhitt, my man! Me you have\nmurdered amongst you. Now fight to death for the boy that living you\nwould not have hired as a shoeblack. My blood be upon you!' Rise up,\nmartyred blood! rise to heaven for a testimony against these men and\nthis generation, or else burrow in the earth, and from that spring up\nlike the stones thrown by Deucalion and Pyrrha into harvests of feud,\ninto armies of self-exterminating foes. Poor child! immortal child!\nSlight were thy trespasses on this earth, heavy was thy punishment, and\nit is to be hoped, nay, it is certain, that this disproportion did not\nescape the eye which, in the algebra of human actions, estimates _both_\nsides of the equation.\n\nLord Byron was of opinion that people abused Horace Walpole for several\nsinister reasons, of which the first is represented to be that he was a\ngentleman. Now, I, on the contrary, am of opinion that he was _not_\nalways a gentleman, as particularly seen in his correspondence with\nChatterton. On the other hand, it is but just to recollect that in\nretaining Chatterton's MSS. (otherwise an unfeeling act, yet chiefly\nimputable to indolence), the worst aggravation of the case under the\npoor boy's construction, viz., that if Walpole had not known his low\nrank 'he would not have dared to treat him in that way,' though a very\nnatural feeling, was really an unfounded one. Horace Walpole (I call him\nso, because he was not _then_ Lord Orford) certainly had not been aware\nthat Chatterton was other than a gentleman by birth and station. The\nnatural dignity of the boy, which had not condescended to any degrading\napplications, misled this practised man of the world. But recurring to\nLord Byron's insinuations as to a systematic design of running Lord\nOrford down, I beg to say that I am no party to any such design. It is\nnot likely that a furious Conservative like myself, who have the\nmisfortune also to be the most bigoted of Tories, would be so. I\ndisclaim all participation in any clamour against Lord Orford which may\nhave arisen on democratic feeling. Feeling the profoundest pity for the\n'marvellous boy' of Bristol, and even love, if it be possible to feel\nlove for one who was in his unhonoured grave before I was born, I resent\nthe conduct of Lord Orford, in this one instance, as universally the\nEnglish public has resented it. But generally, as a writer, I admire\nLord Orford in a very high degree. As a letter-writer, and as a\nbrilliant sketcher of social aspects and situations, he is far superior\nto any French author who could possibly be named as a competitor. And as\na writer of personal or anecdotic history, let the reader turn to\nVoltaire's 'Siecle de Louis Quatorze,' in order to appreciate his\nextraordinary merit.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNext will occur to the reader the forgery of 'Junius.' Who did _that_?\nOh, villains that have ever doubted since '\"Junius\" Identified'! Oh,\nscamps--oh, pitiful scamps! You, reader, perhaps belong to this wretched\ncorps. But, if so, understand that you belong to it under false\ninformation. I have heard myriads talk upon this subject. One man said\nto me, 'My dear friend, I sympathize with your fury. You are right.\nRighter a man cannot be. Rightest of all men you are.' I was\nright--righter--rightest! That had happened to few men. But again this\nflattering man went on, 'Yes, my excellent friend, right you are, and\nevidently Sir Philip Francis was the man. His backer proved it. The day\nafter his book appeared, if any man had offered me exactly two thousand\nto one in guineas, that Sir Philip was _not_ the man, by Jupiter! I\nwould have declined the bet. So divine, so exquisite, so Grecian in its\nperfection, was the demonstration, the _apodeixis_ (or what do you call\nit in Greek?), that this brilliant Sir Philip--who, by the way, wore\n_his_ order of the Bath as universally as ever he taxed Sir William\nDraper with doing--had been the author of \"Junius.\" But here lay the\nperplexity of the matter. At the least five-and-twenty excellent men\nproved by posthumous friends that they, every mother's son of them, had\nalso perpetrated \"Junius.\"' 'Then they were liars,' I answered. 'Oh no,\nmy right friend,' he interrupted, 'not liars at all; amiable men, some\nof whom confessed on their death-beds (three to my certain knowledge)\nthat, alas! they had erred against the law of charity. \"_But how?_\" said\nthe clergyman. \"Why, by that infernal magazine of sneers and all\nuncharitableness, the 'Letters of Junius.'\" \"Let me understand you,\"\nsaid the clergyman: \"you wrote 'Junius'?\" \"Alas! I did,\" replied A. Two\nyears after another clergyman said to another penitent, \"And so you\nwrote 'Junius'?\" \"Too true, my dear sir. Alas! I did,\" replied B. One\nyear later a third penitent was going off, and upon the clergyman\nsaying, \"Bless me, is it possible? Did _you_ write 'Junius'?\" he\nreplied, \"Ah, worshipful sir, you touch a painful chord in my\nremembrances--I now wish I had not. Alas! reverend sir, I did.\" Now, you\nsee,' went on my friend, 'so many men at the New Drop, as you may say,\nhaving with tears and groans taxed themselves with \"Junius\" as the\nclimax of their offences, one begins to think that perhaps _all_ men\nwrote \"Junius.\"' Well, so far there was reason. But when my friend\ncontended also that the proofs arrayed in pamphlets proved the whole\nalphabet to have written 'Junius,' I could not stand his absurdities.\nDeath-bed confessions, I admitted, were strong. But as to these wretched\npamphlets, some time or other I will muster them all for a field-day; I\nwill brigade them, as if the general of the district were coming to\nreview them; and then, if I do not mow them down to the last man by\nopening a treacherous battery of grape-shot, may all my household die\nunder a fiercer Junius! The true reasons why any man fancies that\n'Junius' is an open question must be these three:\n\nFirst, that they have never read the proofs arrayed against Sir Philip\nFrancis; this is the general case.\n\nSecondly, that, according to Sancho's proverb, they want better bread\nthan is made of wheat. They are not content with proofs or absolute\ndemonstrations. They require you, like the witch of Endor, to raise Sir\nPhilip from the grave, that they may cross-examine him.\n\nThirdly (and this is the fault of the able writer who unmasked Sir\nPhilip), there happened to be the strongest argument that ever picked a\nBramah-lock against the unknown writer of 'Junius'; apply this, and if\nit fits the wards, oh, Gemini! my dear friend, but you are\nright--righter--rightest; you have caught 'Junius' in a rabbit-snare.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[18] 'Six thousand per annum,' viz., on the authority of his own\nconfession to Pinkerton.\n\n\n     EDITOR'S NOTE.--De Quincey is guilty of a slight lapse of memory in\n     reference to 'The Castle of Otranto' and Onuphrio Muralto. It was\n     not in the first sentence of the preface, but on the title-page,\n     that Walpole so plainly attributed the work to another. The\n     _original_ title-page, which, of course, was dropped out when it\n     became known to all the world that Walpole was the author, read\n     thus: 'The Castle of Otranto: a Story. Translated by William\n     Marshall, Gent. From the original Italian of Onuphrio Muralto,\n     Canon of the Church of St. Nicholas, at Otranto. London: printed\n     for Thomas Lownds, in Fleet Street. 1765.'\n\n\n\n\n_XV. DANIEL O'CONNELL._\n\n\nWith a single view to the _intellectual_ pretensions of Mr. O'Connell,\nlet us turn to his latest General Epistle, dated from 'Conciliation\nHall,' on the last day of October. This is no random, or (to use a\npedantic term) _perfunctory_ document; not a document is this to which\nindulgence is due. By its subject, not less than by its address, it\nstands forth audaciously as a deliberate, as a solemn, as a national\nstate paper; for its subject is the future political condition of\nIreland under the assumption of Repeal; for its address is, 'To the\nPeople of Ireland.' So placing himself, a writer has it not within his\nchoice to play the fool; it is not within his competence to tumble or\n'come aloft' or play antics as a mountebank; his theme binds him to\ndecency, his audience to gravity. Speaking, though it be but by the\nwindiest of fictions, to a nation, is not a man pledged to respectful\nlanguage? speaking, though it is but by a chimera as wild as Repeal to a\nquestion of national welfare, a man is pledged to sincerity. Had he\nseven devils of mockery and banter within him, for that hour he must\nsilence them all. The foul fiend must be rebuked, though it were Mahu\nand Bohu who should prompt him to buffoonery, when standing at the bar\nof nations.\n\nThis is the law, this the condition, under which Mr. O'Connell was\nspeaking when he issued that recent address. Given such a case, similar\ncircumstances presupposed, he could not evade the obligations which they\nimpose. From such obligations there is no dispensation to be bought--no,\nnot at Rome; from the obligations observe, and those obligations, we\nrepeat, are--sincerity in the first place, and respectful or deferential\nlanguage in the second. Such were the duties; now let us look to the\nperformance. And that we may judge of _that_ with more advantage for\nsearching and appraising the qualities of this document, permit us to\nsuggest three separate questions, the first being this: What was the\noccasion of the Address? Secondly, what was its ostensible object?\nThirdly, what are the arguments by which, as its means, the paper\ntravels towards that object?\n\nFirst, as to the _occasion_ of the Address. We have said that the date,\nviz., the 31st of October, is falsified. It was _not_ dated on the 31st\nof October, but on or about the seventh day of November. Even that\nfalsehood, though at first sight trivial, is enough for suspicion. If X,\na known liar, utters a lie at starting, it is not for him to plead in\nmitigation the apparent uselessness of the lie, it is for us to presume\nout of the fact a use, where the fact exists. A leader in the French\nRevolution protested often against bloodshed and other atrocities--not\nas being too bad, but, on the contrary, as being too good, too precious\nto be wasted upon ordinary occasions. And, on the same principle, we may\nbe sure that any habitual liar, who has long found the benefit of\nfalsehoods at his utmost need, will have formed too profound a reverence\nfor this powerful resource in a moment of perplexity ever to throw away\na falsehood, or to squander upon a caprice of the moment that lie which,\nbeing seasonably employed, might have saved him from confusion. The\nartist in lying is not the man to lie gratuitously. From the first,\ntherefore, satisfied ourselves that there was a lurking motive--the key\nto this falsification of date--we paused to search it out. In that we\nfound little difficulty. For what was the professed object of this\nAddress? It was to meet and to overthrow two notions here represented as\ngreat popular errors. But why at this time? Wherefore all this heat at\nthe present moment? Grant that the propositions denounced as erroneous\n_were_ so in very deed, why should criminals standing under the shadow\nof public vengeance ready to descend, so childishly misuse the interval,\nmercifully allowed for their own defence, in reading lectures upon\nabstract political speculations, confessedly bearing no relation to any\nmilitant interest now in question? Quite as impertinent it would be,\nwhen called upon for the answer upon 'Guilty or not Guilty?' to read a\nsection from the Council of Trent, or a rescript from Cardinal\nBellarmine. Yet the more extravagant was the logic of this proceeding,\nthe more urgent became the presumption of a covert motive, and that\nmotive we soon saw to be this. Let the reader weigh it, and the good\nsense of the man who at such a moment could suffer such a motive to\nprevail. Thus it is: when Clontarf was intercepted, and implicitly,\nthough not formally, all similar meetings were by that one act for ever\nprohibited, the first days of terror were naturally occupied with the\npanic of the conspirators, and in providing for their personal terrors.\nBut when the dust of this great uproar began to settle, and objects\nagain became distinguishable in natural daylight, the first consequence\nwhich struck the affrighted men of the conspiracy was the chilling\neffect of the Government policy upon the O'Connell rent; not the weekly\nrent, applied nobody knows how, but the annual rent applied to Mr.\nO'Connell's _private_ benefit. This was in jeopardy, and on the\nfollowing argument: Originally this rent had been levied as a\ncompensation to Mr. O'Connell in his character of Irish barrister--not\nfor services rendered or _to be_ rendered, but for current services\ncontinually being rendered in Parliament from session to session, for\nexpenses incident to that kind of duty, and also as an indemnification\nfor the consequent loss of fees at the Irish Bar. Yet now, in 1843,\nhaving ceased to attend his duty in Parliament, Mr. O'Connell could no\nlonger claim in that senatorial character. Such a pretension would be\ntoo gross for the understanding even of a Connaught peasant. And in\n_that_ there was a great loss. For the allegation of a Parliamentary\nwarfare, under the vague idea of pushing forward good bills for Ireland,\nor retarding bad ones, had been a pleasant and easy labour to the parish\npriests. It was not necessary to horsewhip[19] their flocks too\nseverely. If all was not clear to 'my children's' understanding, at\nleast my children had no mutinous demur in a positive shape ready for\nservice. Recusants there were, and sturdy ones, but they could put no\nface on their guilt, and their sin was not contagious. Unhappily, from\nthis indefinite condition of merit Mr. O'Connell himself had translated\nhis claim to a very distinct one founded upon a clear, known, absolute\nattempt to coerce the Government into passive collusion with prospective\ntreason. This attempt, said the peasantry, will the Government stand, or\nwill it not? 'Why, then,' replied the Government, on the 17th of\nOctober, 'we will _not_.'\n\nThe aristocracy of Ireland may not have done their duty as regards the\nRepeal; it is too certain that they have not, because they have done\nnothing at all. But it is also certain that their very uttermost would\nhave been unavailing for one principal object concerned. Other great\nobjects, however, might have been attained. Foreign nations might have\nbeen disabused of their silly delusions on the Irish relations to\nEngland, although the Irish peasantry could _not_. The monstrous\nimpression also upon many English and Scotch parties, that a general\nunity of sentiment prevailed in Ireland as to the desirableness of an\nindependent Parliament--this, this, we say loudly, would have been\ndissipated, had every Irish county met by its gentry disavowing and\nabominating all sentiments tending towards a purpose so guilty as\npolitical disunion. Yet, in palliation of this most grievous failure,\nwe, in the spirit of perfect candour, will remind our readers of the\ndepressing effect too often attending one flagrant wound in any system\nof power or means. Let a man lose by a sudden blow--by fire, by\nshipwreck, or by commercial failure--a sum of twenty thousand pounds,\nthat being four-fifths of his entire property, how often it is found\nthat mere dejection of mind will incapacitate him from looking\ncheerfully after the remaining fifth! And this though it is now become\nfar more essential to his welfare; and, secondly, upon a motion\ntending upwards and not downwards, he would have regarded five\nthousand pounds as a precious treasure worthy of his efforts, whether\nfor protection or for improvement. Something analogous to this weighs\ndown the hearty exertions of the Irish gentry. Met at the very\nthreshold, affronted at starting, by this insufferable tyranny of\npriestly interference--humiliated and stung to the heart by the\nconsciousness that those natural influences which everywhere else\nsettle indefeasibly upon property, are in Ireland intercepted,\nfilched, violently robbed and pocketed by a body of professional\nnuisances sprung almost universally from paupers--thus disinherited of\ntheir primary rights, thus pillaged, thus shorn like Samson of those\nnatural ornaments in which resided their natural strength, feeling\nthemselves (like that same Samson in the language of Milton) turned\nout to the scorn of their countrymen as 'tame wethers' ridiculously\nfleeced and mutilated--they droop, they languish as to all public\nspirit; and whilst by temperament, by natural endowment, by continual\nintercourse with the noble aristocracy of Britain (from whom also they\nare chiefly descended), they _should_ be amongst the leading\nchivalries of Europe, in very fact they are, for political or social\npurposes, the most powerless gentry in existence. Acting in a\ncorporate capacity, they can do nothing. The malignant planet of this\nlow-born priesthood comes between them and the peasantry, eclipsing\noftentimes the sunshine of their comprehensive beneficence, and\n_always_ destroying their power to discountenance[20] evil-doers. Here\nis the sad excuse. But, for all that, we must affirm that, if the\nIrish landed gentry do not yet come forward to retrieve the ground\nwhich they have forfeited by inertia, history will record them as\npassive colluders with the Dublin repealers. The evil is so\noperatively deep, looking backward or forward, that we have purposely\nbrought it forward in a second aspect, viz., as contrasted with the\nLondon press. For the one, as we have been showing, there is a strong\nplea in palliation; for the other there is none.\n\nLet us be frank. This is what we affirm, that it was, it is, it will be\nhereafter, within the powers of the London press to have extinguished\nthe Repeal or any similar agitation; they could have done this, and this\nthey have _not_ done. But let us also not be misunderstood. Do we say\nthis in a spirit of disrespect? Are we amongst the parties who (when\ncharacterizing the American press) infamously say, 'Let us, however,\nlook homewards to our own press, and be silent for very shame'? Are we\nthe people to join the vicious correspondent of an evening paper whom\nbut a week ago we saw denouncing the editor of the _Examiner_ newspaper\nas a public nuisance, and recommending him as a fit subject of some\ndegrading punishment, for no better reason than that he had exercised\nhis undoubted right of exposing delinquencies or follies in a garrulous\nlord? Far be such vilenesses from us. We honour the press of this\ncountry. We know its constitution, and we know the mere impossibility\n(were it only from the great capital required) that any but men of\nhonour and sensibilities and conspicuous talent, and men brilliantly\naccomplished in point of education, should become writers or editors of\na _leading_ journal, or indeed of any daily journal. Here and there may\nfloat _in gurgite vasto_ some atrocious paper lending itself upon system\nto the villainies of private slander. But such a paper is sure to be an\ninconsiderable one in the mere sense of property, and therefore,\nby a logical consequence in our frame of society, _every_ way\ninconsiderable--rising without effort, sinking without notice. In fact,\nthe whole staff and establishment of newspapers have risen in social\nconsideration within our own generation; and at this moment not merely\nproprietors and editors, but reporters and other ministerial agents to\nthese vast engines of civility, have all ascended in their superior\norders to the highest levels of authentic responsibility.\n\nWe make these acknowledgments in the mere spirit of equity, and because\nwe disdain to be confounded with those rash persons who talk glibly of a\n'licentious press' through their own licentious ignorance. Than\nignorance nothing is so licentious for rash saying or for obstinate\ndenying. The British press is _not_ licentious; neither in London nor in\nEdinburgh is it ever licentious; and there is much need that it should\nbe otherwise, having at this time so unlimited a power over the public\nmind. But the very uprightness of the leading journalists, and all the\nother elements of their power, do but constitute the evil, do but\naggravate the mischief, where they happen to go astray; yes, in every\ncase where these journalists miss the narrow path of thoughtful\nprudence. They _do_ miss it occasionally; they must miss it; and we\ncontend that they _have_ missed it at present. What they have done that\nthey ought _not_ to have done. Currency, buoyancy, they ought _not_ to\nhave impressed upon sedition, upon conspiracy, upon treason. Currency,\nbuoyancy, they _have_ impressed upon sedition, upon conspiracy, upon\ntreason.\n\nAs to Mr. O'Connell himself, it is useless, and it argues some thick\ndarkness of mind, to remonstrate or generally to address any arguments\nfrom whatsoever quarter, which either appeal to a sense of truth, which,\nsecondly, manifest inconsistencies, or, thirdly, which argue therein a\ntendency ruinous to himself. Let us think. Burke asserted of himself,\nand to our belief truly, that having at different periods set his face\nin different directions--now to the east, now to the west, now pointing\nto purposes of relaxation or liberality, now again to purposes of\ncoercive and popular restraint--he had notwithstanding been uniform, if\nmeasured upon a higher scale. Transcending objects, coinciding neither\ninstantly with the first, nor except by accident with the last, but\nindifferently aided by aristocratic forces or by democratic, shifting\nweights which sometimes called for accessories of gravity, sometimes for\nsubtraction, mighty fluctuating wheels which sometimes needed flywheels\nto moderate or harmonize, sometimes needed concurrent wheels to urge or\naggravate their impetus--these were the powers which he had found\nhimself summoned to calculate, to check, to support, the vast algebraic\nequation of government; for this he had strengthened substantially by\napparent contrarieties of policy; and in a system of watch-work so\nexquisite as to vary its fine balances eternally, eternally he had\nconsulted by redressing the errors emergent, by varying the poise in\norder that he might _not_ vary the equipoise, by correcting\ninequalities, or by forestalling extremes. That was a man of heroic\nbuild, and of him it might be said at his death, 'Truly this man was a\nson of Anak.' Now, of Mr. O'Connell a man might affirm something\nsimilar; that as with regard to Edmund Burke it is altogether useless to\ndetect contradictions in form, seeing that he knows of this, that he\njustifies this, glories in this, vehemently demands praise for this\ncontradiction, as all discord is harmony not understood, planned in the\nletter and overruled in the spirit; so may O'Connell say, 'Gentlemen,\ngrubs, reptiles, vermin, trouble not yourselves to find out\ncontradictions or discords in my conduct; vex not your slender faculties\nby arraying hosts of promises that defeat promises, or principles that\ndestroy principles--you shall not need to labour; I will make you a\npresent of three huge canisters laden and running over with the flattest\ndenials in one breath of that which I affirmed in another. But, like\nEdmund Burke, I register my conduct by another table and by its final\nresult. On the dial which you see, the hands point thus and thus; but\nupon a higher and transcendent dial these fingers do but precipitate or\nretard one gigantic hand, pointing always and monotonously to the unity\nof a perfect selfishness. The everlasting tacking in my course gives me\noften the air of retrograding and losing; but, in fact, these\nretrogressions are momentary, these losings of my object are no more\nthan seeming, are still but the same stealthy creeping up under cover of\nfrequent compliances with the breeze that happens to thwart me, towards\nthe one eternal pole of my own self-interest; that is the pole-star\nwhich only never sets, and I flatter myself that amidst vast apparent\nwanderings or multiplied divergences there will be detected by the eye\nof the philosopher a consistency in family objects which is absolute, a\ndivine unity of selfishness.'\n\nThis we do not question. But to will is not to do; and Mr. O'Connell,\nwith a true loyalty to his one object of private aims, has _not_\nmaintained the consistency of his policy. All men know that he has\nadventured within the limits of conspiracy; that could not be for his\nbenefit. He has touched even the dark penumbra of treason; that could\nnot but risk the sum of his other strivings. But he who has failed for\nhimself in a strife so absolute, for that only must be distrusted by\nhis countrymen.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[19] 'To horsewhip,' etc. Let it not be said that this is any slander of\nours; would that we could pronounce it a slander! But those who (like\nourselves) have visited Ireland extensively know that the parish priest\nuses a horsewhip, in many circumstances, as his professional _insigne_.\n\n[20] Look at Lord Waterford's case, in the very month of November, 1843.\nIs there a county in all England that would have tamely witnessed his\nexpulsion from amongst them by fire, and by sword and by poison?\n\n\n     NOTE BY THE EDITOR.--This article on O'Connell, written in the end\n     of 1843, is printed, not on account of any political reference it\n     might be presumed to have, but only because of its historical and\n     literary interest. Apart from the light it may throw on De\n     Quincey's leanings, as, in certain respects, distinctly in the\n     direction of patriotic Toryism of the most rampant type, it may be\n     of value as suggesting how essentially, in not a few points, the\n     Irish question to-day remains precisely as it was in the time of\n     O'Connell; and how the Tories of to-day are apt to view it from\n     precisely the same plane as those of 1843. It might also be cited\n     as another proof not only of De Quincey's very keen interest in all\n     the leading questions of the time, but as an illustration of the\n     John Bull warmth and heat which he, the dreamer, the recluse, the\n     lover of abstract problems, could bring into such discussions.\n     Here, at all events, his views were definite enough, and stated\n     with a bold precision of English plainness that would have pleased\n     the most pronouncedly Tory or Unionist newspaper editors of that\n     day.\n\n\n\n\n_XVI. FRANCE PAST AND FRANCE PRESENT._\n\n\nTo speak in the simplicity of truth, caring not for party or partisan,\nis not the France of this day, the France which has issued from that\ngreat furnace of the Revolution, a better, happier, more hopeful France\nthan the France of 1788? Allowing for any evil, present or reversionary,\nin the political aspects of France, that may yet give cause for anxiety,\ncan a wise man deny that from the France of 1840, under Louis Philippe\nof Orleans, ascends to heaven a report of far happier days from the sons\nand daughters of poverty than from the France of Louis XVI.? Personally\nthat sixteenth Louis was a good king, sorrowing for the abuses in the\nland, and willing (at least, after affliction had sharpened his\nreflecting conscience), had that choice been allowed him, to have\nredeemed them by any personal sacrifice. But that was not possible.\nCenturies of misrule are not ransomed by an individual ruin; and had it\nbeen possible that the dark genius of his family, the same who once\ntolled funeral knells in the ears of the first Bourbon, and called him\nout as a martyr hurrying to meet his own sacrifice--could we suppose\nthis gloomy representative of his family destinies to have met him in\nsome solitary apartment of the Tuileries or Versailles, some twilight\ngallery of ancestral portraits, he could have met him with the purpose\nof raising the curtain from before the long series of his household\nwoes--from him the king would have learned that no personal ransom could\nbe accepted for misgovernment so ancient. Leviathan is not so tamed.\nArrears so vast imply a corresponding accountability, corresponding by\nits amount, corresponding by its personal subjects. Crown and\npeople--all had erred; all must suffer. Blood must flow, tears must be\nshed through a generation; rivers of lustration must be thrown through\nthat Augean accumulation of guilt.\n\nAnd exactly there, it is supposed, lay the error of Burke; the compass\nof the penalty, the arch which it traversed, must bear some proportion\nto that of the evil which had produced it.\n\nWhen I referred to the dark genius of the family who once tolled funeral\nknells in the ears of the first Bourbon, I meant, of course, the first\nwho sat upon the throne of France, viz., Henri Quatre. The allusion is\nto the last hours of Henry's life, to the remarkable prophecies which\nforeran his death, to their remarkable fulfilment, and (what is more\nremarkable than all beside) to his self-surrender, in the spirit of an\nunresisting victim, to a bloody fate which he regarded as inexorably\ndoomed. This king was not the good prince whom the French hold out to\nus; not even the accomplished, the chivalrous, the elevated prince to\nwhom history points for one of her models. French and ultra-French must\nhave been the ideal of the good or the noble to which he could have\napproximated in the estimate of the most thoughtless. He had that sort\nof military courage which was, and is, more common than weeds. In all\nelse he was a low-minded man, vulgar in his thoughts, most unprincely in\nhis habits. He was even worse than that: wicked, brutal, sensually\ncruel. And his wicked minister, Sully, than whom a more servile mind\nnever existed, illustrates in one passage his own character and his\nmaster's by the apology which he offers for Henry's having notoriously\nleft many illegitimate children to perish of hunger, together with their\ntoo-confiding mothers. What? That in the pressure of business he really\nforgot them. Famine mocked at last the deadliest offence. His own\ninnocent children, up and down France, because they were illegitimate,\ntheir too-confiding mothers, because they were weak and friendless by\nhaving for his sake forfeited the favour of God and man, this amiable\nking had left to perish of hunger. They _did_ perish; mother and infant.\nA cry ascended against the king. Even in sensual France such atrocities\ncould not utterly sink to the ground. But what says the apologetic\nminister? Astonished that anybody could think of abridging a king's\nlicense in such particulars, he brushes away the whole charge as so much\nungentlemanly impertinence, disdaining any further plea than the\npressure of business, which so naturally accounted for the royal\ninattention or forgetfulness in these little affairs. Observe that this\npressure of business never was such that the king could not find time\nfor pursuing these intrigues and multiplying these reversions of woe.\nWhat enormities! A king (at all times of Navarre, and for half his life\nof France) suffers his children to die of hunger, consigns their mothers\nto the same fate, but aggravated by remorse and by the spectacle of\ntheir perishing infants! These clamours could not penetrate to the\nLouvre, but they penetrated to a higher court, and were written in books\nfrom which there is no erasure allowed. So much for the vaunted\n'generosity' of Henry IV. As to another feature of the chivalrous\ncharacter, elegance of manners, let the reader consult the report of an\nEnglish ambassador, a man of honour and a gentleman, Sir George Carew.\nIt was published about the middle of the last century by the\nindefatigable Birch, to whom our historic literature is so much\nindebted, and it proves sufficiently that this idol of Frenchmen allowed\nhimself in habits so coarse as to disgust the most creeping of his own\ncourtiers; such that even the blackguards of a manly nation would revolt\nfrom them as foul and self-dishonouring. Deep and permanent is the\nmischief wrought in a nation by false models; and corresponding is the\nimpression, immortal the benefit, from good ones. The English people\nhave been the better for their Alfred, that pathetic ideal of a good\nking, through a space of now nearly a thousand years. The French are the\nworse to this hour in consequence of Francis I. and Henry IV. And note\nthis, that even the spurious merit of the two French models can be\nsustained only by disguises, by suppressions, by elaborate varnishings;\nwhereas the English prince is offered to our admiration with a\nScriptural simplicity and a Scriptural fidelity, not as some gay legend\nof romance, some Telemachus of Fenelon, but as one who had erred,\nsuffered, and had been purified; as a shepherd that had gone astray, and\nsaw that through his transgressions the flock also had been scattered.\n\n\n\n\n_XVII. ROME'S RECRUITS AND ENGLAND'S RECRUITS._\n\n\nTwo facts on which a sound estimate of the Roman corn-trade depends are\nthese: first, the very important one, that it was not Rome in the sense\nof the Italian peninsula which relied upon foreign corn, but in the\nnarrowest sense Rome the city; as respected what we now call Lombardy,\nFlorence, Genoa, etc., Rome did not disturb the ancient agriculture. The\nother fact offers, perhaps, a still more important consideration. Rome\nwas latterly a most populous city--we are disposed to agree with\nLipsius, that it was four times as populous as most moderns esteem--most\ncertainly it bore a higher ratio to the total Italy than any other\ncapital (even London) has since borne to the territory over which it\npresided. Consequently it will be argued that in such a ratio must the\nforeign importations of Rome, even in the limited sense of Rome the\ncity, have operated more destructively upon the domestic agriculture.\nGrant that not Italy, but Rome, was the main importer of foreign grain,\nstill, if Rome to all Italy were as one to four in population, which\nthere is good reason to believe it was, then even upon that distinction\nit will be insisted that the Roman importation crushed one-fourth of the\nnative agriculture. Now, this we deny. Some part of the African and\nEgyptian grain was but a substitution for the Sardinian, and so far made\nno difference to Italy in ploughs, but only in _denarii_. But the main\nconsideration of all is, that the Italian grain was not withdrawn from\nthe vast population of Rome--this is _not_ the logic of the case--no; on\nthe contrary, the vast population of Rome arose and supervened as a\nconsequence upon the opening of the foreign Alexandrian corn trade. It\nwas not Rome that quirted the home agriculture. Rome, in the full sense,\nnever would have existed without foreign supplies. If, therefore, Rome,\nby means of foreign grain, rose from four hundred thousand heads to four\nmillions, then it follows that (except as to the original demand for the\nfour hundred thousand) not one plough was disused in Italy that ever had\nbeen used. Whilst, even with regard to the original demand of the four\nhundred thousand, by so much of the Egyptian grain as had been a mere\nsubstitution for Sardinian no effect whatever could have followed to\nItalian agriculture.\n\nHere, therefore, we see the many limitations which arise to the modern\ndoctrine upon the destructive agricultural consequences of the Roman\ncorn trade. Rome may have prevented the Italian agriculture from\nexpanding, but she could not have caused it to decline.[21] Now, let us\nsee how far this Roman corn trade affected the Roman recruiting service.\nIt is alleged that agriculture declined under the foreign corn trade,\nand that for this reason ploughmen declined. But if we have shown cause\nfor doubting whether agriculture declined, or only did not increase,\nthen we are at liberty to infer that ploughmen did not decline, but only\ndid not increase. Even of the real and not imaginary ploughmen at any\ntime possessed by Italy, too many in the south were slaves, and\ntherefore ineligible for the legionary service, except in desperate\nintestine struggles like the Social war or the Servile. Rome could not\nlose for her recruiting service any ploughmen but those whom she had\nreally possessed; nor out of those whom really she possessed any that\nwere slaves; nor out of those whom (not being slaves) she _might_ have\nused for soldiers could it be said that she was liable to any absolute\nloss except as to those whom ordinarily she _did_ use as soldiers, and\npreferred to use in circumstances of free choice.\n\nThese points premised, we go on to say that no craze current amongst\nlearned men has more deeply disturbed the truth of history than the\nnotion that 'Marsi' and 'Peligni,' or other big-boned Italian rustics,\never by choice constituted the general or even the favourite recruiting\nfund of the Roman republic. In thousands of books we have seen it\nasserted or assumed that the Romans triumphed so extensively chiefly\nbecause their armies were composed of Roman or kindred blood. This is\nfalse. Not the material, but the military system, of the Romans was the\ntrue key to their astonishing successes. In the time of Hannibal a Roman\nconsul relied chiefly, it is true, upon Italian recruits, because he\ncould seldom look for men of other blood. And it is possible enough that\nthe same man, Fabius or Marcellus, if he had been sent abroad as a\nproconsul, might find his choice even then in what formerly had been his\nnecessity. In some respects it is probable that the Italian rustic of\ntrue Italian blood was at that period the best raw material[22] easily\nprocured for the legionary soldier. But circumstances altered; as the\nrange of war expanded to the East it became far too costly to recruit in\nItaly; nor, if it had been less costly, could Italy have supplied the\nwaste. Above all, with the advantages of the Roman military system, no\nparticular physical material was required for making good soldiers. For\nthese reasons it was that, after the Levant was permanently occupied by\nthe Romans, where any legion had been originally stationed _there_ it\ncontinued to be stationed, and _there_ it was recruited, and, unless in\nsome rare emergency of a critical war arising at a distance, _there_ it\nwas so continually recruited, that in the lapse of a generation it\ncontained hardly any Roman or Italian blood in its composition, like the\nAttic ship which had been repaired with cedar until it retained no\nfragment of its original oak. Thus, the legion stationed at Antioch\nbecame entirely Syrian; that stationed at Alexandria, Grecian, Jewish,\nand, in a separate sense, Alexandrine. Caesar, it is notorious, raised\none entire legion of Gauls (distinguished by the cognizance upon the\nhelmet of the _lark_, whence commonly called the legion of the\n_Alauda_). But he recruited all his legions in Gaul. In Spain the armies\nof Assanius and Petreius, who surrendered to Caesar under a convention,\nconsisted chiefly of Spaniards (not _Hispanienses_, or Romans born in\nSpain, but _Hispani_, Spaniards by blood); at Pharsalia a large part of\nCaesar's army were Gauls, and of Pompey's it is well known that many even\namongst the legions contained no Europeans at all, but (as Caesar\nseasonably reminded his army) consisted of vagabonds from every part of\nthe East. From all this we argue that _S.P.Q.R._ did not depend latterly\nupon native recruiting. And, in fact, they did not need to do so; their\nsystem and discipline would have made good soldiers out of mop-handles,\nif (like Lucian's magical mop-handles) they could only have learned to\nmarch and to fill buckets with water at the word of command.\n\nWe see, too, the secret power and also the secret political wisdom of\nChristianity in another instance. Those public largesses of grain,\nwhich, in old Rome, commenced upon principles of ambition and of\nfactious encouragement to partisans, in the new Rome of Constantinople\nwere propagated for ages under the novel motive of Christian charity to\npaupers. This practice has been condemned by the whole chorus of\nhistorians who fancy that from this cause the domestic agriculture\nlanguished, and that a bounty was given upon pauperism. But these are\nreveries of literary men. That particular section of rural industry\nwhich languished in Italy, did so by a reaction from _rent_ in the\nsevere modern sense. The grain imported from Sardinia, from Africa the\nprovince, and from Egypt, was grown upon soils less costly, because with\nequal cost more productive. The effect upon Italy from bringing back\nany considerable portion of this provincial corn-growth[23] to her\ndomestic districts would have been suddenly to develop rent upon a large\nseries of evils, and to load the provincial grain as well as the\nhome-grown--the cheap provincial as well as the dear home-grown--with\nthe whole difference of these new costs. Neither is the policy of the\ncase at all analogous to our own at the moment. In three circumstances\nit differs essentially:\n\nFirst, provinces are not foreigners; colonies are not enemies. An exotic\ncorn-trade could not for Rome do the two great injuries which assuredly\nit would do for England; it could not transfer the machinery of opulence\nto a hostile and rival state; it could not invest a jealous competitor\nwith power suddenly to cut off supplies that had grown into a necessity,\nand thus to create in one month a famine or an insurrection. Egypt had\nneither the power nor any prospect of the power to act as an independent\nstate towards Rome; the transfer to Egypt of the Roman agriculture,\nsupposing it to have been greater than it really was, could have\noperated but like a transfer from Norfolk to Yorkshire.\n\nSecondly, as respected Italy, the foreign grain _did not enter the same\nmarkets as the native_. Either one or the other would have lost its\nadvantage, and the natural bounty which it enjoyed from circumstances,\nby doing so. Consequently the evils of an artificial scale, where grain\nraised under one set of circumstances fixes or modifies the price for\ngrain raised under a different set of circumstances, were unknown in the\nItalian markets. But these evils by a special machinery, viz., the\nmachinery of good and bad seasons, are aggravated for a modern state\nintensely, whenever she depends too much upon alien stores; and\nspecifically they are aggravated by the fact that both grains _enter the\nsame market_, so that the one by too high a price is encouraged\nunreasonably, the other by the same price (too low for opposite\ncircumstances) is depressed ruinously as regards coming years; whence in\nthe end two sets of disturbances--one set frequently from the _present_\nseasons, and a second set from the way in which these are made to act\nupon the _future_ markets.\n\nThirdly, the Roman corn-trade did not of necessity affect her military\nservice injuriously, and for this reason, that rural economy did not of\nnecessity languish because agriculture languished locally; some other\nculture, as of vineyards, _oliveta_, orchards, pastures, replaced the\ndeclining culture of grain; if ploughmen were fewer, other labourers\nwere more. It is forgotten, besides, that the decline of Italian\nagriculture, never more than local, was exceedingly gradual; for two\nhundred and fifty years before the Christian era Italy never _had_\ndepended exclusively upon herself. Sardinia and Sicily, at her own\ndoors, were her granaries; consequently the change never _had_ been that\nabrupt change which modern writers imagine.\n\nBut let us indulge in the luxury of confirming what we have said by the\nlight of contrast. Suppose the circumstances changed, suppose them\nreversed, and then all those evil consequence sought to take effect\nwhich in the case of Rome we have denied. Now, it happened that they\n_were_ reversed; not, indeed, for Rome, who had been herself ruined as\nmetropolis of the West before the effects of a foreign corn-dependence\ncould unfold themselves, but for her daughter and rival in the East.\nEarly in the seventh century, near to the very crisis of the Hegira\n(which dates from the Christian year 622), Constantinople, Eastern Rome,\nsuddenly became acquainted with the panic of famine. In one hour perhaps\nthis change fell upon the imperial city, and, but for the imperial\ngranaries, not the panic of famine, but famine itself, would have\nsurprised the imperial city; for the suddenness of the calamity would\nhave allowed no means of searching out or raising up a relief to it. At\nthat time the greatest man who ever occupied the chair of the Eastern\nCaesars, viz., Heraclius,[24] was at the head of affairs. But the\nperplexity was such that no man could face it. On the one hand\nConstantine, the founder of this junior Rome, had settled upon the\nhouses of the city a claim for a weekly _dimensum_ of grain. Upon this\nthey relied; so that doubly the Government stood pledged--first, for the\nimportation of corn that should be sufficient; secondly, for its\ndistribution upon terms as near to those of Constantine as possible.\nBut, on the other hand, Persia (the one great stationary enemy of the\nempire) had in the year 618 suddenly overrun Egypt; grain became\ndeficient on the banks of the Nile--had it even been plentiful, to so\ndetested an enemy it would have been denied--and thus, without a month's\nwarning, the supply, which had not failed since the inauguration of the\ncity in 330, ceased in one week. The people of this mighty city were\npressed by the heaviest of afflictions. The emperor, under false\nexpectations, was tempted into making engagements which he could not\nkeep; the Government, at a period which otherwise and for many years to\ncome was one of awful crisis, became partially insolvent; the shepherd\nwas dishonoured, the flocks were ruined; and had that Persian armament\nwhich about ten years later laid siege to Constantinople then stood at\nher gates, the Cross would have been trampled on by the fire-worshipping\nidolater, and the barbarous Avar would have desolated the walls of the\nglorified Caesar who first saw Christ marching in the van of Roman\narmies. Such an iliad of woes would have expanded itself _seriatim_, and\nby a long procession, from the one original mischief of depending for\ndaily bread upon those who might suddenly become enemies or tools of\nenemies. England! read in the distress of that great Caesar,[25] who may\nwith propriety be called the earliest (as he was the most prosperous) of\nCrusaders, read in the internal struggle of his heart--too conscious\nthat dishonour had settled upon his purple--read in the degradations\nwhich he traversed as some fiery furnace (yet not unsinged), the\ninevitable curses which await nations who sacrifice, for a momentary\nconvenience of bread, sacrifice for a loaf, the charter of their\nsupremacy! This is literally to fulfil the Scriptural case of selling a\nbirthright for a mess of pottage.\n\nFor England we may say of this case--_Transeat in exemplum!_\n\nGreat Britain, on the contrary, is limited in her recruiting-grounds by\nmodern political relations as respects Europe: she _has_ formed an\nexcellent foreign corps long ago in the Mediterranean; a Hessian corps\nin America; an admirable Hanoverian legion during the late war. But\ncircumstances too often prevent her relying (as the Romans did) on the\nperfection of her military _system_ so far as to dispense with native\nmaterials; except, indeed, in the East, where the Roman principle is\ncarried out to the widest extent, needing only one-tenth of British by\nway of model and inspiration under circumstances of peculiar trial! In\nAfrican stations also, in the West Indies and on the American continent\n(as in Honduras), England proceeds (though insufficiently) upon this\nfine Roman principle, making her theory, her discipline, and the network\nof her rules do the work of her own too costly hands. She, like Rome,\nfinds the benefit of her fine system chiefly in the dispensation which\nit facilitates from working with any exhaustible fund of means.\nExcellent must be that workmanship which can afford to be careless about\nits materials; yet still--where naturally and essentially it must be\nsaid that _materiem superabat opus_, because one section of our martial\nservice moves by nautical soldiers, and with respect to the other half\nbecause it is necessary to meet European troops by men of British\nblood--we cannot, for European purposes, look to any other districts\nthan our own native _officinae_ of population. The Life Guards (1st\nregiment) and the Blues (2nd) recruit chiefly, or did so thirty years\nago, in Yorkshire. This is a manufacturing county, though in a mode of\nmanufacturing which escapes many evils of the factory system. And\ngenerally we are little disposed pedantically to disparage towns as\nfunds of a good soldiery. Men of mighty bone and thews, sons of Anak, to\nour own certain knowledge, arise in Kendal, Wakefield, Bradford and\nLeeds; huge men, by thousands, amongst the spinners and weavers of\nGlasgow, Paisley, etc., well able to fight their way through battalions\nof clod-hoppers whose talk is of oxen. But, unless in times subject to\nspecial distress, it is not so easy to tempt away the weaver from his\nloom as the delver from his spade. We believe the reason to be, that the\nmonotony of a rustic life is more oppressive to those who have limited\nresources than the corresponding monotony of a town life. For this\nreason, and for many others, it is certain--and perhaps (unless we get\nto fighting with steam-men) it will continue to be certain through\ncenturies--that, for the main staple of her armies and her navies,\nEngland must depend upon the quality of her bold peasantry and noble\nyeomanry; for we must remember that, of those huge-limbed men who are\nfound in the six northern counties of England and in the Scottish\nLowlands, of those elegantly-formed men who are found in Devonshire,\nCornwall, etc., of those _hardy_ men (a feature in human physics still\nmore important) who are found in every district--if many are now\nresident in towns, most of them originated in rustic life; and from\nrustic life it is that the reservoir of towns is permanently fed. Rome\nwas, England never will be, independent of her rural population. Rome\nnever had a yeomanry, Rome never had a race of country gentlemen;\nEngland has both upon a scale so truly noble that it will be the\nsimplest expression of that nobility to say, pointing to our villages,\n'Behold the cradle of our army!' as inversely to say, pointing to that\narmy: 'Behold the manhood of our villages!' As regards Rome, from the\nbisection of the Roman territory into two several corn districts\ndepending upon a separate agriculture, it results that _her_ wealth\ncould not be defeated and transferred; secondly, it results from the\ntotal subjection of Egypt, that no embargo _could_ be laid on the\nharvests of the Nile, and no famine _could_ be organized against Rome;\nthirdly, it results that the Roman military system was thus not liable\nto be affected by any dependency upon foreign grain. On the argument\nthat this dependency had _always_ been proceeding gradually in Italy, so\nas virtually to reimburse itself by _vicarious_ culture, whereas in\nEngland the transition from independency to dependency, being\naccomplished (if at all) in one day by Act of Parliament, would be\nruinously abrupt; and also on the argument _B_, that Rome, if slowly\nlosing any recruiting districts at home, found compensatory districts\nall round the Mediterranean, whilst England could find no such\ncompensatory districts--we deny that the circumstances of the Roman corn\ntrade have _ever_ been stated truly; and we expect the thanks of our\nreaders for drawing their attention to this outline of the points which\nessentially differenced it from the modern corn trade of England.\nEngland must, but Rome could _not_, reap from a foreign corn dependency:\nfirstly, ruinous disturbance to the natural expansions of her wealth;\nsecondly, famine by intervals for her vast population; thirdly,\nimpoverishment to her recruiting service. These are the dreadful evils\n(some uniform, some contingent) which England would inherit of her\nnative agriculture, but which Rome escaped under that partial transfer,\nnever really accomplished. Meantime, let the reader remember that it is\nRome, and not England--Rome historically, not England politically--which\nforms the _object_ of our exposure. England is but the _means_ of the\nillustration.\n\nIn our own days wars in their ebbs and flows are but another name for\nthe resources of the national exchequer, or expressions of its\nartificial facilities for turning those resources to account. The great\nartifice of anticipation applied to national income--an artifice sure to\nfollow where civilization has expanded, and which would have arisen to\nRome had her civilization been either (_A_) completely developed, or\n(_B_) expanded originally from a true radix--has introduced a new era\ninto national history. The man who, having had property, invests in the\nFunds, and divides between his grandchildren and the five subsequent\ngenerations what will yield them subsistence, is the author of an\nexpansive improvement which has been enjoyed by all in turn, and with\nmore fixed assurance in the last case than in the first. He is a public\nbenefactor in more ways than appears on the surface: he takes the most\nefficient guarantees against needless wars.\n\nCaptain Jenkins's ears[26] might have been redeemed at a less price; but\nstill the war taught a lesson, which, if avoidable at that instant, was\ncertainly blamable; but it had its use in enforcing on other nations the\nconviction that England washed out insult with retribution, and for\nevery drop of blood wantonly spilt demanded an ocean in return. Perhaps\nyou will say _this_ was no great improvement on the old. No; not in\n_appearance_, it may be; but that was because war had to open a field\nwhich mere diplomacy, unsupported by the sword, could not open, and\nsecured what we may well call a _moral_ result in the eye of the whole\nworld, which diplomacy could not secure in our guilty Europe. But was\nthat, you ask, a condition to be contemplated with complete\nsatisfaction? No; nor is it right that it should. But the dawn of a new\nera is approaching, for which that may have done its installment of\npreparation. Not that war will cease for many generations, but that it\nwill continually move more in greater subjection to national laws and\nChristian opinion. Nevermore will it be excited by mere court intrigue,\nor even by ministerial necessities. No more will a quarrel between two\nladies about a pair of gloves, or a fit of ill-temper in a prince toward\nhis minister, call forth the dread scourge by way of letting off\npersonal irritation or redressing the balance of parties.\n\n_Funding_, therefore, was a great step in advance; and even already we\nhave only to look into the Exchequer in order to read the possibilities,\nthe ebbs and flows of war beforehand. This consideration of money, it is\ntrue--even as the sinews of war--was not so great in ancient history.\nAnd the reason is evident. Kings did not then go to war _by_ money, but\n_for_ money. They did not look into the Exchequer for the means of a\ncampaign, but they looked into a campaign for the means of an Exchequer.\nYet even in these nations, more of their history, of their doings and\nsufferings, lay in their economy than anywhere else. The great Oriental\nphantoms, such as the Pharaohs and the Sargons, did, it is true, bring\nnations to war without much more care for the commissariat department\nthan is given in the battles of the Kites and Daws. Yet even there the\npolitical economy made itself felt, obscurely and indirectly it may be,\nbut really and effectively, acting by laws that varied their force\nrather to the eye than to the understanding, and presented indeed a\nfinal restraining force to these kings also. For examine these wars,\nfabulous as they are; look into the when, the whence, the how; into the\nduration of the campaigns, into their objects, and into the quality of\nthe troops, into the circumstances under which they were trained and\nfought, and this will abundantly appear.\n\nCertainly, the commissariat which we do by foresight, they did by brute\nefforts of power; but the leading economical laws which are now clear to\nus, and which, with full perception of their inevitable operation, we\ntake into account, made themselves felt in the last result if only then\nblindly realized; and in the fact that these laws are now clearly\napprehended lies the prevailing reason that modern wars must, on the\nside alike of the commissariat and of social effects in various\ndirections, be widely different from war in ancient times.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[21] One pretended proof of a decline is found in the supposed\nsubstitution of slave labour for free Italian labour. This began, it is\nurged, on the opening of the Nile corn trade. Unfortunately, that is a\nmere romance. Ovid, describing rural appearances in Italy when as yet\nthe trade was hardly in its infancy, speaks of the rustic labourer as\nworking in fetters. Juvenal, in an age when the trade had been vastly\nexpanded, notices the same phenomenon almost in the same terms.\n\n[22] 'The best raw material.' Some people hold that the Romans and\nItalians were a cowardly nation. We doubt this on the whole. Physically,\nhowever, they were inferior to their neighbours. It is certain that the\nTransalpine Gauls were a conspicuously taller race. Caesar says: 'Gallis,\nprae magnitudine corporum quorum, brevitas nostra contemptui est' ('Bell.\nGall.' 2, 30 _fin_.); and the Germans, in a still higher degree, were\nboth larger men and every way more powerful. The kites, says Juvenal,\nhad never feasted on carcases so huge as those of the Cimbri and\nTeutones. But this physical superiority, though great for special\npurposes, was not such absolutely. For the more general uses of the\nlegionary soldier, for marching, for castrametation, and the daily\nlabours of the spade or mattock, a lighter build was better. As to\nsingle combats, it was one effect from the Roman (as from every good)\ndiscipline--that it diminished the openings for such showy but perilous\nmodes of contest.\n\n[23] '_Any considerable portion of this provincial corn growth,' i.e._,\nof the provincial culture which was pursued on account of Rome, meaning\nnot the government of Rome, but, in a rigorous sense, on account of Rome\nthe city. For here lies a great oversight of historians and economists.\nBecause Rome, with a view to her own _privileged_ population, _i.e._,\nthe urban population of Rome, the metropolis, in order that she might\nsupport her public distributions of grain, almost of necessity depended\non foreign supplies, _we are not to suppose that the great mass of\nItalian towns and municipia did so_. Maritime towns, having the benefit\nof ports or of convenient access, undoubtedly were participators in the\nRoman advantage. But inland towns would in those days have forfeited the\nwhole difference between foreign and domestic grain by the enormous cost\nof inland carriage. Of canals there was but one; the rivers were not\ngenerally navigable, and ports as well as river shipping were wanting.\n\n[24] '_Heraclius._' The same prosodial fault affects this name as that\nof _Alexandria_. In each name the Latin _i_ represents a Greek _ei_, and\nin that situation (viz., as a penultimate syllable) should receive the\nemphasis in pronunciation as well as the sound of a long _i_ (that sound\nwhich is heard in Long_i_nus). So again Academ_i_a, not Acad_e_mia. The\nGreek accentuation may be doubted, but not the Roman.\n\n[25] We have already said that Heraclius, who and whose family filled\nthe throne of Eastern Caesar for exactly one hundred years (611-711),\nconsequently interesting in this way (if in no other), that he, as the\nreader will see by considering the limits in point of time, must have\nmet and exhausted the first rage of the Mahometan _avalanche_, merits\naccording to our estimate the title of first and noblest amongst the\nOriental Caesars. There are records or traditions of his earliest acts\nthat we could wish otherwise. Which of us would _not_ offend even at\nthis day, if called upon to act under one scale of sympathies, and to be\njudged under another? In his own day, too painfully we say it, Heraclius\ncould not have followed what we venture to believe the suggestions of\nhis heart, in relation to his predecessor, because a policy had been\nestablished which made it dangerous to be merciful, and a state of\npublic feeling which made it effeminate to pardon. First make it safe to\npermit a man's life, before you pronounce it ignoble to authorize his\ndeath. Strip mercy of ruin to its author, before you affirm upon a\njudicial punishment of death (as then it was) cruelty in the adviser or\nignobility in the approver. Escaping from these painful scenes at the\nthreshold of his public life, we find Heraclius preparing for a war, the\nmost difficult that in any age any hero has confronted. We call him the\nearliest of Crusaders, because he first and _literally_ fought for the\nrecovery of the Cross. We call him the most prosperous of Crusaders,\nbecause he first--he last--succeeded in all that he sought, bringing\nback to Syria (ultimately to Constantinople) that sublime symbol of\nvictorious Christianity which had been disgracefully lost at Jerusalem.\nYet why, when comparing him not with Crusaders, but with Caesars, do we\npronounce him the noblest? Reader, which is it that is felt by a\nthoughtful man--supposing him called upon to select one act by\npreference before all others--to be the grandest act of our own\nWellesley? Is it not the sagacious preparation of the lines at Torres\nVedras, the self-mastery which lured the French on to their ruin, the\nlong-suffering policy which reined up his troops till that ruin was\naccomplished? '_I bide my time_,' was the dreadful watchword of\nWellington through that great drama; in which, let us tell the French\ncritics on Tragedy, they will find _the most_ absolute unity of plot;\nfor the forming of the lines as the fatal noose, the wiling back the\nenemy, the pursuit when the work of disorganization was perfect, all\nwere parts of one and the same drama. If he (as another Scipio) saw\nanother Zama, in this instance he was not our Scipio or Marcellus, but\nour Fabius Maximus:\n\n'Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem.'--'Ann.' 8, 27.\n\nNow, such was the Emperor Heraclius. He also had his avenging Zama. But,\nduring a memorable interval of eleven years, he held back; fiercely\nreined up his wrath; brooded; smiled often balefully; watched in his\nlair; and then, when the hour had struck, let slip his armies and his\nthunderbolts as no Caesar had ever done, except that one who founded the\nname of Caesar.\n\n[26] A brutal outrage on a Captain Jenkins--i.e., cutting off his\nears--was the cause of a war with Spain in the reign of George II.--ED.\n\n\n\n\n_XVIII. NATIONAL MANNERS AND FALSE JUDGMENT OF THEM._\n\n\nAnecdotes illustrative of manners, above all of national manners, will\nbe found on examination, in a far larger proportion than might be\nsupposed, rank falsehoods. Malice is the secret foundation of all\nanecdotes in that class. The ordinary course of such falsehoods is, that\nfirst of all some stranger and alien to those feelings which have\nprompted a particular usage--incapable, therefore, of entering fully\ninto its spirit or meaning--tries to exhibit its absurdity more forcibly\nby pushing it into an extreme or trying case. Coming himself from some\ngross form of _Kleinstaedtigkeit_, where no restraints of decorum exist,\nand where everybody speaks to everybody, he has been utterly confounded\nby the English ceremony of 'introduction,' when enforced as the _sine\nqua non_ condition of personal intercourse. If England is right, then\nhow clownishly wrong must have been his own previous circles! If England\nis not ridiculously fastidious, then how bestially grovelling must be\nthe spirit of social intercourse in his own land! But no man reconciles\nhimself to this view of things in a moment. He kicks even against his\nown secret convictions. He blushes with shame and anger at the thought\nof his own family perhaps brought suddenly into collision with polished\nEnglishmen; he thrills with wrath at the recollection of having himself\ntrespassed upon this code of restriction at a time when he was yet\nunwarned of its existence. In this temper he is little qualified to\nreview such a regulation with reason and good sense. He seeks to make it\nappear ridiculous. He presses it into violent cases for which it was\nnever intended. He supposes a case where some fellow-creature is\ndrowning. How would an Englishman act, how _could_ he act, even under\nsuch circumstances as these? _We_ know, we who are blinded by no spite,\nthat as a bar to personal communication or to any interchange of good\noffices under appeals so forcible as these, this law of formal\npresentation between the parties never did and never will operate. The\nwhole motive to such a law gives way at once.\n\n\n\n\n_XIX. INCREASED POSSIBILITIES OF SYMPATHY IN THE PRESENT AGE._\n\n\nSome years ago I had occasion to remark that a new era was coming on by\nhasty strides for national politics, a new organ was maturing itself for\npublic effects. Sympathy--how great a power is that! Conscious\nsympathy--how immeasurable! Now, for the total development of this\npower, _time_ is the most critical of elements. Thirty years ago, when\nthe Edinburgh mail took ninety-six hours in its transit from London, how\nslow was the reaction of the Scottish capital upon the English! Eight\ndays for the _diaulos_[27] of the journey, and two, suppose, for getting\nup a public meeting, composed a cycle of _ten_ before an act received\nits commentary, before a speech received its refutation, or an appeal\nits damnatory answer. What was the consequence? The sound was\ndisconnected from its echo, the kick was severed from the\nrecalcitration, the '_Take you this!_' was unlinked from the '_And take\nyou that!_' Vengeance was defeated, and sympathy dissolved into the air.\nBut now mark the difference. A meeting on Monday in Liverpool is by\npossibility reported in the London _Standard_ of Monday evening. On\nTuesday, the splendid merchant, suppose his name were Thomas Sands, who\nhad just sent a vibration through all the pulses of Liverpool, of\nManchester, of Warrington, sees this great rolling fire (which hardly\nyet has reached his own outlying neighbourhoods) taken up afar off,\nredoubled, multiplied, peal after peal, through the vast artilleries of\nLondon. Back comes rolling upon him the smoke and the thunder--the\ndefiance to the slanderer and the warning to the offender--groans that\nhave been extorted from wounded honour, aspirations rising from the\nfervent heart--truth that had been hidden, wisdom that challenged\nco-operation.\n\nAnd thus it is that all the nation, thus 'all that mighty heart,'\nthrough nine hundred miles of space, from Sutherlandshire by London to\nthe myrtle climate of Cornwall, has become and is ever more becoming one\ninfinite harp, swept by the same breeze of sentiment, reverberating the\nsame sympathies\n\n    'Here, there, and in all places at one time.'[28]\n\nTime, therefore, that ancient enemy of man and his frail purposes, how\npotent an ally has it become in combination with great mechanic changes!\nMany an imperfect hemisphere of thought, action, desire, that could not\nheretofore unite with its corresponding hemisphere, because separated by\nten or fourteen days of suspense, now moves electrically to its\nintegration, hurries to its complement, realizes its orbicular\nperfection, spherical completion, through that simple series of\nimprovements which to man have given the wings and _talaria_ of Gods,\nfor the heralds have dimly suggested a future rivalship with the\nvelocities of light, and even now have inaugurated a race between the\nchild of mortality and the North Wind.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[27] 'The _diaulos_ of the journey.' We recommend to the amateur in\nwords this Greek phrase, which expresses by one word an egress linked\nwith its corresponding regress, which indicates at once the voyage\noutwards and the voyage inwards, as the briefest of expressions for what\nis technically called '_course of post,' i.e._, the reciprocation of\npost, its systole and diastole.\n\n[28] Wordsworth.\n\n\n\n\n_XX. THE PRINCIPLE OF EVIL._\n\n\nWe are not to suppose the rebel, or, more properly, corrupted\nangels--the rebellion being in the result, not in the intention (which\nis as little conceivable in an exalted spirit as that man should prepare\nto make war on gravitation)--were essentially evil. Whether a principle\nof evil--essential evil--anywhere exists can only be guessed. So gloomy\nan idea is shut up from man. Yet, if so, possibly the angels and man\nwere nearing it continually.\n\nPossibly after a certain approach to that Maelstrom recall might be\nhopeless. Possibly many anchors had been thrown out to pick up, had\nall dragged, and last of all came to the Jewish trial. (Of course,\nunder the Pagan absence of sin, _a fall was impossible_. A return was\nimpossible, in the sense that you cannot return to a place which you\nhave never left. Have I ever noticed this?) We are not to suppose that\nthe angels were really in a state of rebellion. So far from that, it\nwas evidently amongst the purposes of God that what are called false\nGods, and are so in the ultimate sense of resting on tainted\nprinciples and tending to ruin--perhaps irretrievable (though it would\nbe the same thing practically if no restoration were possible but\nthrough vast aeons of unhappy incarnations)--but otherwise were as\nreal as anything can be into whose nature a germ of evil has entered,\nshould effect a secondary ministration of the last importance to man's\nwelfare. Doubt there can be little that without any religion, any\nsense of dependency, or gratitude, or reverence as to superior\nnatures, man would rapidly have deteriorated; and that would have\ntended to such destruction of all nobler principles--patriotism\n(strong in the old world as with us), humanity, ties of parentage or\nneighbourhood--as would soon have thinned the world; so that the\nJewish process thus going on must have failed for want of\ncorrespondencies to the scheme--possibly endless oscillations which,\nhowever coincident with plagues, would extirpate the human race. We\nmay see in manufacturing neighbourhoods, so long as no dependency\nexists on masters, where wages show that not work, but workmen, are\nscarce, how unamiable, insolent, fierce, are the people; the poor\ncottagers on a great estate may sometimes offend you by too obsequious\na spirit towards all gentry. That was a transition state in England\nduring the first half of the eighteenth century, when few\nmanufacturers and merchants had risen to such a generous model. But\nthis leaves room for many domestic virtues that would suffer greatly\nin the other state. Yet this is but a faint image of the total\nindependency. Oaths were sacred only through the temporal judgments\nsupposed to overtake those who insulted the Gods by summoning them to\nwitness a false contract. But this would have been only part of the\nevil. So long as men acknowledged higher natures, they were doubtful\nabout futurity. This doubt had little strength on the side of hope,\nbut much on the side of fear. The blessings of any future state were\ncheerless and insipid mockeries; so Achilles--how he bemoans his\nstate! But the torments were real. By far more, however, they,\nthrough this coarse agency of syllogistic dread, would act to show man\nthe degradation of his nature when all light of a higher existence had\ndisappeared. That which did not exist for natures supposed capable\noriginally of immortality, how should it exist for him? And that man\nmust have observed with little attention what takes place in this\nworld if he needs to be told that nothing tends to make his own\nspecies cheap and hateful in his eyes so certainly as moral\ndegradation driven to a point of no hope. So in squalid dungeons, in\ncaptivities of slaves, nay, in absolute pauperism, all hate each other\nfiercely. Even with us, how sad is the thought--that, just as a man\nneeds pity, as he is stript of all things, when most the sympathy of\nmen should settle on him, then most is he contemplated with a\nhard-hearted contempt! The Jews when injured by our own oppressive\nprinces were despised and hated. Had they raised an empire, licked\ntheir oppressors well, they would have been compassionately loved. So\nlunatics heretofore; so galley-slaves--Toulon, Marseilles, etc. This\nbrutal principle of degradation soon developed in man. The Gods,\ntherefore, performed a great agency for man. And it is clear that God\ndid not discourage _common_ rites or rights for His altar or theirs.\nNay, he sent Israel to Egypt--as one reason--to learn ceremonies\namongst a people who sequestered them. In evil the Jews always clove\nto their religion. Next the difficulty of people, miracles, though\nless for false Gods, and least of all for the meanest, was _alike_ for\nboth. Astarte does not kill Sayth on the spot, but by a judgment.\nGods, no more their God, spake an instant law. Even the prophets are\nproperly no prophets, but only the mode of speech by God,--as clear as\nHe _can_ speak. Men mistake God's hate by their own. So neither could\nHe reveal Himself. A vast age would be required for seeing God.\n\nBut for the thought of man as evil (or of any other form of evil), as\nreconcilable with their idea of a perfect God, a happy idea may, like\nthe categories, proceed upon a necessity for a perfect _inversion_ of\nthe _methodus conspiciendi_. Let us retrace, but in such a form as to be\napprehensible by all readers. Analytic and synthetic propositions at\nonce throw light upon the notion of a category. Once it had been a mere\nabstraction; of no possible use except as a convenient cell for\nreferring (as in a nest of boxes), which may perhaps as much degrade the\nidea as a relative of my own degraded the image of the crescent moon by\nsaying, in his abhorrence of sentimentality, that it reminded him of the\nsegment from his own thumb-nail when clean cut by an instrument called a\nnail-cutter. This was the Aristotelian notion. But Kant could not\ncontent himself with this idea. His own theory (1) as to time and space,\n(2) the refutation of Hume's notion of cause, and (3) his own great\ndiscovery of synthetic and analytic propositions, all prepared the way\nfor a totally new view. But, now, what is the origin of this necessity\napplied to the category as founded in the synthesis? How does a\nsynthesis make itself or anything else necessary? Explain me that.\n\nThis was written perhaps a fortnight ago. Now, Monday, May 23 (day fixed\nfor Dan Good's execution), I _do_ explain it by what this moment I seem\nto have discovered--the necessity of cause, of substance, etc., lies in\nthe intervening synthesis. This you _must_ pass through in the course\ntending to and finally reaching the idea; for the analytical presupposes\nthis synthesis.\n\nNot only must the energies of destruction be equal to those of creation,\nbut, in fact, perhaps by the trespassing a little of the first upon the\nlast, is the true advance sustained; for it must be an advance as well\nas a balance. But you say this will but in other words mean that forces\ndevoted (and properly so) to production or creation are absorbed by\ndestruction. True; but the opposing phenomena will be going on in a\nlarge ratio, and each must react on the other. The productive must meet\nand correspond to the destructive. The destructive must revise and\nstimulate the continued production.\n\n\n\n\n_XXI. ON MIRACLES._\n\n\nWhat else is the laying of such a stress on miracles but the case of 'a\nwicked and adulterous generation asking a sign'?\n\nBut what are these miracles for? To prove a legislation from God. But,\nfirst, this could not be proved, even if miracle-working were the test\nof Divine mission, by doing miracles until we knew whether the power\nwere genuine; _i.e._, not, like the magicians of Pharaoh or the witch of\nEndor, from below. Secondly, you are a poor, pitiful creature, that\nthink the power to do miracles, or power of any kind that can exhibit\nitself in an act, the note of a god-like commission. Better is one ray\nof truth (not seen previously by man), of _moral_ truth, _e.g._,\nforgiveness of enemies, than all the powers which could create the\nworld.\n\n'Oh yes!' says the objector; 'but Christ was holy as a man.' This we\nknow first; then we judge by His power that He must have been from God.\nBut if it were doubtful whether His power were from God, then, until\nthis doubt is _otherwise_, is independently removed, you cannot decide\nif He _was_ holy by a test of holiness absolutely irrelevant. With other\nholiness--apparent holiness--a simulation might be combined. You can\nnever tell that a man is holy; and for the plain reason that God only\ncan read the heart.\n\n'Let Him come down from the cross, and we,' etc. Yes; they fancied so.\nBut see what would really have followed. They would have been stunned\nand confounded for the moment, but not at all converted in heart. Their\nhatred to Christ was not built on their unbelief, but their unbelief in\nChrist was built on their hatred; and this hatred would not have been\nmitigated by another (however astounding) miracle. This I wrote (Monday\nmorning, June 7, 1847) in reference to my saying on the general question\nof miracles: Why these _dubious_ miracles?--such as curing blindness\nthat may have been cured by a _process_?--since the _unity_ given to the\nact of healing is probably (more probably than otherwise) but the\nfigurative unity of the tendency to _mythus_; or else it is that unity\nmisapprehended and mistranslated by the reporters. Such, again, as the\nmiracles of the loaves--so liable to be utterly gossip, so incapable of\nbeing watched or examined amongst a crowd of 7,000 people. Besides, were\nthese people mad? The very fact which is said to have drawn Christ's\npity, viz., their situation in the desert, surely could not have escaped\ntheir own attention on going thither. Think of 7,000 people rushing to a\nsort of destruction; for if less than that the mere inconvenience was\nnot worthy of Divine attention. Now, said I, why not give us (if\nmiracles _are_ required) one that nobody could doubt--removing a\nmountain, _e.g._? Yes; but here the other party begin to _see_ the evil\nof miracles. Oh, this would have _coerced_ people into believing! Rest\nyou safe as to that. It would have been no believing in any proper\nsense: it would, at the utmost--and supposing no vital demur to popular\nmiracle--have led people into that belief which Christ Himself describes\n(and regrets) as calling Him Lord! Lord! The pretended belief would have\nleft them just where they were as to any real belief in Christ.\nPreviously, however, or over and above all this, there would be the\ndemur (let the miracle have been what it might) of, By what power, by\nwhose agency or help? For if Christ does a miracle, probably He may do\nit by alliance with some _Z_ standing behind, out of sight. Or if by His\nown skill, how or whence derived, or of what nature? This obstinately\nrecurrent question remains.\n\nThere is not the meanest court in Christendom or Islam that would not\nsay, if called on to adjudicate the rights of an estate on such evidence\nas the mere facts of the Gospel: 'O good God, how can we do this? Which\nof us knows who this Matthew was--whether he ever lived, or, if so,\nwhether he ever wrote a line of all this? or, if he did, how situated as\nto motives, as to means of information, as to judgment and\ndiscrimination? Who knows anything of the contrivances or the various\npersonal interests in which the whole narrative originated, or when? All\nis dark and dusty.' Nothing in such a case _can_ be proved but what\nshines by its own light. Nay, God Himself could not attest a miracle,\nbut (listen to this!)--but by the internal revelation or visiting of the\nSpirit--to evade which, to dispense with which, a miracle is ever\nresorted to.\n\nBesides the objection to miracles that they are not capable of\nattestation, Hume's objection is not that they are false, but that they\nare incommunicable. Two different duties arise for the man who witnesses\na miracle and for him who receives traditionally. The duty of the first\nis to confide in his own experience, which may, besides, have been\nrepeated; of the second, to confide in his understanding, which says:\n'Less marvel that the reporter should have erred than that nature should\nhave been violated.'\n\nHow dearly do these people betray their own hypocrisy about the divinity\nof Christianity, and at the same time the meanness of their own natures,\nwho think the Messiah, or God's Messenger, must first prove His own\ncommission by an act of power; whereas (1) a new revelation of moral\nforces could not be invented by all generations, and (2) an act of power\nmuch more probably argues an alliance with the devil. I should gloomily\nsuspect a man who came forward as a magician.\n\nSuppose the Gospels written thirty years after the events, and by\nignorant, superstitious men who have adopted the fables that old women\nhad surrounded Christ with--how does this supposition vitiate the report\nof Christ's parables? But, on the other hand, they could no more have\ninvented the parables than a man alleging a diamond-mine could invent a\ndiamond as attestation. The parables prove themselves.\n\n\n\n\n_XXII. 'LET HIM COME DOWN FROM THE CROSS.'_\n\n\nNow, this is exceedingly well worth consideration. I know not at all\nwhether what I am going to say has been said already--life would not\nsuffice in every field or section of a field to search every nook and\nsection of a nook for the possibilities of chance utterance given to any\nstray opinion. But this I know without any doubt at all, that it cannot\nhave been said effectually, cannot have been so said as to publish and\ndisperse itself; else it is impossible that the crazy logic current upon\nthese topics should have lived, or that many separate arguments should\never for very shame have been uttered. Said or not said, let us presume\nit unsaid, and let me state the true answer as if _de novo_, even if by\naccident somewhere the darkness shelters this same answer as uttered\nlong ago.\n\nNow, therefore, I will suppose that He _had_ come down from the Cross.\nNo case can so powerfully illustrate the filthy falsehood and pollution\nof that idea which men generally entertain, which the sole creditable\nbooks universally build upon. What would have followed? This would have\nfollowed: that, inverting the order of every true emanation from God,\ninstead of growing and expanding for ever like a [symbol: <], it would\nhave attained its _maximum_ at the first. The effect for the half-hour\nwould have been prodigious, and from that moment when it began to flag\nit would degrade rapidly, until, in three days, a far fiercer hatred\nagainst Christ would have been moulded. For observe: into what state of\nmind would this marvel have been received? Into any good-will towards\nChrist, which previously had been defeated by the belief that He was an\nimpostor in the sense that He pretended to a power of miracles which in\nfact He had not? By no means. The sense in which Christ had been an\nimpostor for them was in assuming a commission, a spiritual embassy with\nappropriate functions, promises, prospects, to which He had no title.\nHow had that notion--not, viz., of miraculous impostorship, but of\nspiritual impostorship--been able to maintain itself? Why, what should\nhave reasonably destroyed the notion? This, viz., the sublimity of His\nmoral system. But does the reader imagine that this sublimity is of a\nnature to be seen intellectually--that is, insulated and _in vacuo_ for\nthe intellect? No more than by geometry or by a _sorites_ any man\nconstitutionally imperfect could come to understand the nature of the\nsexual appetite; or a man born deaf could make representable to himself\nthe living truth of music, a man born blind could make representable the\nliving truth of colours. All men are not equally deaf in heart--far from\nit--the differences are infinite, and some men never could comprehend\nthe beauty of spiritual truth. But no man could comprehend it without\npreparation. That preparation was found in his training of Judaism;\nwhich to those whose hearts were hearts of flesh, not stony and charmed\nagainst hearing, had already anticipated the first outlines of Christian\nideas. Sin, purity, holiness unimaginable, these had already been\ninoculated into the Jewish mind. And amongst the race inoculated Christ\nfound enough for a central nucleus to His future Church. But the natural\ntendency under the fever-mist of strife and passion, evoked by the\npresent position in the world operating upon robust, full-blooded life,\nunshaken by grief or tenderness of nature, or constitutional sadness, is\nto fail altogether of seeing the features which so powerfully mark\nChristianity. Those features, instead of coming out into strong relief,\nresemble what we see in mountainous regions where the mist covers the\nloftiest peaks.\n\nWe have heard of a man saying: 'Give me such titles of honour, so many\nmyriads of pounds, and then I will consider your proposal that I should\nturn Christian.' Now, survey--pause for one moment to survey--the\nimmeasurable effrontery of this speech. First, it replies to a proposal\nhaving what object--our happiness or his? Why, of course, his: how are\nwe interested, except on a sublime principle of benevolence, in his\nfaith being right? Secondly, it is a reply presuming money, the most\nfleshly of objects, to modify or any way control religion, _i.e._, a\nspiritual concern. This in itself is already monstrous, and pretty much\nthe same as it would be to order a charge of bayonets against\ngravitation, or against an avalanche, or against an earthquake, or\nagainst a deluge. But, suppose it were _not_ so, what incomprehensible\nreasoning justifies the notion that not we are to be paid, but that he\nis to be paid for a change not concerning or affecting our happiness,\nbut his?\n\n\n\n\n_XXIII. IS THE HUMAN RACE ON THE DOWN GRADE?_\n\n\nAs to individual nations, it is matter of notoriety that they are often\nimprogressive. As a whole, it may be true that the human race is under a\nnecessity of slowly advancing; and it may be a necessity, also, that the\ncurrent of the moving waters should finally absorb into its motion that\npart of the waters which, left to itself, would stagnate. All this may\nbe true--and yet it will not follow that the human race must be moving\nconstantly upon an ascending line, as thus:\n\n                           B\n                          /\n                         /\n                        /\n                       /\n                      /\n                     /\n                    A\n\nnor even upon such a line, with continual pauses or rests interposed, as\nthus:\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\nwhere there is no going back, though a constant interruption to the\ngoing forward; but a third hypothesis is possible: there may be\ncontinual loss of ground, yet so that continually the loss is more than\ncompensated, and the total result, for any considerable period of\nobservation, may be that progress is maintained:\n\n[Illustration]\n\nAt O, by comparison with the previous elevation at A, there is a\nrepeated falling back; but still upon the whole, and pursuing the\ninquiry through a sufficiently large segment of time, the constant\nreport is--ascent.\n\nUpon this explanation it is perfectly consistent with a general belief\nin the going forward of man--that this particular age in which we live\nmight be stationary, or might even have gone back. It cannot, therefore,\nbe upon any _a priori_ principle that I maintain the superiority of this\nage. It is, and must be upon special examination, applied to the\nphenomena of this special age. The last century, in its first thirty\nyears, offered the spectacle of a death-like collapse in the national\nenergies. All great interests suffered together. The intellectual power\nof the country, spite of the brilliant display in a lower element, made\nby one or two men of genius, languished as a whole. The religious\nfeeling was torpid, and in a degree which insured the strong reaction of\nsome irritating galvanism, or quickening impulse such as that which was\nin fact supplied by Methodism. It is not with that age that I wish to\ncompare the present. I compare it with the age which terminated thirty\nyears ago--roused, invigorated, searched as that age was through all its\nsensibilities by the electric shock of the French Revolution. It is by\ncomparison with an age so keenly alive, penetrated by ideas stirring and\nuprooting, that I would compare it; and even then the balance of gain in\nwell-calculated resource, fixed yet stimulating ideals, I hold to be in\nour favour--and this in opposition to much argument in an adverse spirit\nfrom many and influential quarters. Indeed, it is a remark which more\nthan once I have been led to make in print: that if a foreigner were to\ninquire for the moral philosophy, the ethics, and even for the\nmetaphysics, of our English literature, the answer would be, 'Look for\nthem in the great body of our Divinity.' Not merely the more scholastic\nworks on theology, but the occasional sermons of our English divines\ncontain a body of richer philosophical speculation than is elsewhere to\nbe found; and, to say the truth, far more instructive than anything in\nour Lockes, Berkeleys, or other express and professional philosophers.\nHaving said this by way of showing that I do not overlook their just\npretensions, let me have leave to notice a foible in these writers which\nis not merely somewhat ludicrous, but even seriously injurious to\ntruth. One and all, through a long series of two hundred and fifty\nyears, think themselves called upon to tax their countrymen--each\nseverally in his own age--with a separate, peculiar, and unexampled\nguilt of infidelity and irreligion. Each worthy man, in his turn, sees\nin his own age overt signs of these offences not to be matched in any\nother. Five-and-twenty periods of ten years each may be taken,\nconcerning each of which some excellent writer may be cited to prove\nthat it had reached a maximum of atrocity, such as should not easily\nhave been susceptible of aggravation, but which invariably the _relays_\nthrough all the subsequent periods affirm their own contemporaries to\nhave attained. Every decennium is regularly worse than that which\nprecedes it, until the mind is perfectly confounded by the _Pelion upon\nOssa_ which must overwhelm the last term of the twenty-five. It is the\nmere necessity of a logical _sorites_, that such a horrible race of\nvillains as the men of the twenty-fifth decennium ought not to be\nsuffered to breathe. Now, the whole error arises out of an imbecile\nself-surrender to the first impressions from the process of abstraction\nas applied to remote objects. Survey a town under the benefit of a ten\nmiles' distance, combined with a dreamy sunshine, and it will appear a\ncity of celestial palaces. Enter it, and you will find the same filth,\nthe same ruins, the same disproportions as anywhere else. So of past\nages, seen through the haze of an abstraction which removes all\ncircumstantial features of deformity. Call up any one of those ages, if\nit were possible, into the realities of life, and these worthy praisers\nof the past would be surprised to find every feature repeated which they\nhad fancied peculiar to their own times. Meanwhile this erroneous\ndoctrine of sermons has a double ill consequence: first, the whole\nchain of twenty-five writers, when brought together, consecutively\nreflect a colouring of absurdity upon each other; separately they might\nbe endurable, but all at once, predicating (each of his own period\nexclusively) what runs with a rolling fire through twenty-five such\nperiods in succession, cannot but recall to the reader that senseless\ndoctrine of a physical decay in man, as if man were once stronger,\nbroader, taller, etc.--upon which hypothesis of a gradual descent why\nshould it have stopped at any special point? How could the human race\nhave failed long ago to reach the point of _zero_? But, secondly, such a\ndoctrine is most injurious and insulting to Christianity. If, after\neighteen hundred years of development, it could be seriously true of\nChristianity that it had left any age or generation of men worse in\nconduct, or in feeling, or in belief, than all their predecessors, what\nreasonable expectation could we have that in eighteen hundred years more\nthe case would be better? Such thoughtless opinions make Christianity to\nbe a failure.\n\n\n\n\n_XXIV. BREVIA: SHORT ESSAYS (IN CONNECTION WITH EACH OTHER.)_\n\n\n1.--PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY--THE IDEAS OF DUTY AND HOLINESS.\n\nThe Pagan God could have perfect peace with his votary, and yet could\nhave no tendency to draw that votary to himself. Not so with the God of\nChristianity, who cannot give His peace without drawing like a vortex to\nHimself, who cannot draw into His own vortex without finding His peace\nfulfilled.\n\n'An age when lustre too intense.'--I am much mistaken if Mr. Wordsworth\nis not deeply wrong here. Wrong he is beyond a doubt as to the _fact_;\nfor there could have been no virtual intensity of lustre (unless merely\nas a tinsel toy) when it was contradicted by everything in the\n_manners_, _habits_, and situations of the Pagan Gods--they who were\ncontent to play in the coarsest manner the part of gay young bloods,\n_sowing_ their wild oats, and with a recklessness of consequences to\ntheir female partners never by possibility rivalled by men. I believe\nand affirm that lustre the most dazzling and blinding would not have any\n_ennobling_ effect except as received into a matrix of previous\nunearthly and holy type.\n\n\nAs to Bacchus being eternally young, the ancients had no idea or power\nto frame the idea of eternity. Their eternity was a limitary thing. And\nthis I say not empirically, but _a priori_, on the ground that without\nthe idea of holiness and unfleshliness, eternity cannot rise buoyant\nfrom the ground, cannot sustain itself. But waive this, and what becomes\nof the other things? If he were characteristically distinguished as\nyoung, then, by a mere rebound of the logic, the others were not so\nhonoured, else where is the special privilege of Bacchus?\n\n\n'And she shall sing there as in the days of her youth' (Hosea ii.\n15).--The case of pathos, a person coming back to places, recalling the\ndays of youth after a long woe, is quite unknown to the ancients--nay,\nthe maternal affection itself, though used inevitably, is never\nconsciously reviewed as an object of beauty.\n\n\nDuties arise everywhere, but--do not mistake--not under their sublime\nform _as_ duties. I claim the honour to have first exposed a fallacy too\ncommon: duties never did, never will, arise save under Christianity,\nsince without it the sense of a morality lightened by religious motive,\naspiring to holiness, not only of act, but of motive, had not before it\neven arisen. It is the pressure of society, its mere needs and palpable\nclaims, which first calls forth duties, but not _as_ duties; rather as\nthe casting of parts in a scenical arrangement. A duty, under the low\nconception to which at first it conforms, is a _role_, no more; it is\nstrictly what we mean when we talk of a _part_. The sense of conscience\nstrictly is not touched under any preceding system of religion. It is\nthe daughter of Christianity. How little did Wordsworth seize the fact\nin his Ode: 'Stern Daughter of the Voice of God' is not enough; the\nvoice of God is the conscience; and neither has been developed except by\nChristianity.\n\n\nThe conscience of a pagan was a conscience pointing to detection: it\npointed only to the needs of society, and caused fear, shame, anxiety,\nonly on the principles of sympathy; that is, from the impossibility of\nreleasing himself from a dependence on the reciprocal feelings--the\nrebound, the dependence on the _re_sentments of others.\n\n\n_Morals._--Even ordinary morals could have little practical weight with\nthe ancients: witness the Roman juries and Roman trials. Had there been\nany sense of justice predominant, could Cicero have hoped to prevail by\nsuch defences as that of Milo and fifty-six others, where the argument\nis merely fanciful--such a _Hein-gespinst_ as might be applauded with\n'very good!' 'bravo!' in any mock trial like that silly one devised by\nDean Swift.\n\n\nThe slowness and obtuseness of the Romans to pathos appears _a priori_\nin their amphitheatre, and its tendency to put out the theatre;\nsecondly, _a posteriori_, in the fact that their theatre was put out;\nand also, _a posteriori_, in the coarseness of their sensibilities to\nreal distresses unless costumed and made sensible as well as\nintelligible. The grossness of this demand, which proceeded even so far\nas pinching to elicit a cry, is beyond easy credit to men of their time.\n\n\nThe narrow range of the Greek intellect, always revolving through seven\nor eight centuries about a few memorable examples--from the Life of\nThemistocles to Zeno or Demosthenes.\n\n\nThe Grecian glories of every kind seem sociable and affable, courting\nsympathy. The Jewish seem malignantly [Greek: autarkeis].\n\n\nBut just as Paganism respected only rights of action, possession, etc.,\nChristianity respects a far higher scale of claims, viz., as to the\nwounds to feelings, to deep injury, though not grounded in anything\nmeasurable or expoundable by external results. Man! you have said that\nwhich you were too proud and obstinate to unsay, which has lacerated\nsome heart for thirty years that had perhaps secretly and faithfully\nserved you and yours. Christianity lays hold on that as a point of\nconscience, if not of honour, to make _amends_, if in no other way, by\nremorse.\n\n\nAs to the tears of Oedipus in the crises. I am compelled to believe that\nSophocles erred as regarded nature; for in cases so transcendent as this\nGreek nature and English nature could not differ. In the great agony on\nMount Oeta, Hercules points the pity of his son Hyllus to the extremity\nof torment besieging him on the humiliating evidence of the tears which\nthey extorted from him. 'Pity me,' says he, 'that weep with sobs like a\ngirl: a thing that no one could have charged upon the man' (pointing to\nhimself); 'but ever without a groan I followed out to the end my\ncalamities.' Now, on the contrary, on the words of the oracle, that\nbeckoned away with impatient sounds Oedipus from his dear sublime\nAntigone, Oedipus is made to weep.\n\nBut this is impossible. Always the tears arose, and will arise, on the\n_relaxation_ of the torment and in the rear of silent anguish on its\nsudden suspense, amidst a continued headlong movement; and also, in\nlooking back, tears, unless checked, might easily arise. But never\nduring the torment: on the rack there are no tears shed, and those who\nsuffered on the scaffold never yet shed tears, unless it may have been\nat some oblique glance at things collateral to their suffering, as\nsuppose a sudden glimpse of a child's face which they had loved in life.\n\n\nIs not every [Greek: aion] of civilization an inheritance from a\nprevious state not so high? Thus, _e.g._, the Romans, with so little of\nChristian restraint, would have perished by reaction of their own vices,\nbut for certain prejudices and follies about trade, manufacture, etc.,\nand but for oil on their persons to prevent contagion. Now, this oil had\nbeen, I think, a secret bequeathed from some older and higher\ncivilization long since passed away. We have it not, but neither have we\nso much needed it. Soon, however, we shall restore the secret by science\nmore perfect.\n\n\nWas Christianity meant to narrow or to widen the road to future\nhappiness? If I were translated to some other planet, I should say:\n\n1. _No_; for it raised a far higher standard--_ergo_, made the\nrealization of this far more difficult.\n\n2. _Yes_; for it introduced a new machinery for realizing this standard:\n(first) Christ's atonement, (second) grace.\n\n\nBut, according to some bigots (as Jeremy Taylor and Sir Thomas Browne),\nas cited by Coleridge, Christianity first opened any road at all. Yet,\nsurely they forget that, if simply to come too early was the fatal bar\nto their claims in the case, Abraham, the father of the faithful, could\nnot benefit.\n\n\nYesterday, Thursday, October 21 (1843), I think, or the day before, I\nfirst perceived that the first great proof of Christianity is the proof\nof Judaism, and the proof of that lies in the Jehovah. What merely\nnatural man capable of devising a God for himself such as the Jewish?\n\n\nOf all eradications of this doctrine (of human progress), the most\ndifficult is that connected with the outward shows--in air, in\ncolouring, in form, in grouping of the great elements composing the\nfurniture of the heavens and the earth. It is most difficult, even when\nconfining one's attention to the modern case, and neglecting the\ncomparison with the ancient, at all to assign the analysis of those\nsteps by which to us Christians (but never before) the sea and the sky\nand the clouds and the many inter-modifications of these, A, B, C, D,\nand again the many interactions of the whole, the sun (S.), the moon\n(M.), the noon (N. S.)--the breathless, silent noon--the gay\nafternoon--the solemn glory of sunset--the dove-like glimpse of Paradise\nin the tender light of early dawn--by which these obtain a power utterly\nunknown, undreamed of, unintelligible to a Pagan. If we had spoken to\nPlato--to Cicero--of the deep pathos in a sunset, would he--would\neither--have gone along with us? The foolish reader thinks, Why, perhaps\nnot, not altogether as to the quantity--the degree of emotion.\nDoubtless, it is undeniable that we moderns have far more sensibility to\nthe phenomena and visual glories of this world which we inhabit. And it\n_is_ possible that, reflecting on the singularity of this characteristic\nbadge worn by modern civilization, he may go so far as to suspect that\nChristianity has had something to do with it. But, on seeking to\ncomplete the chain which connects them, he finds himself quite unable to\nrecover the principal link.\n\nNow, it will prove, after all, even for myself who have exposed and\nrevealed these new ligatures by which Christianity connects man with\nawful interests in the world, a most insurmountable task to assign the\ntotal nidus in which this new power resides, or the total phenomenology\nthrough which that passes to and fro. Generally it seems to stand thus:\nGod reveals Himself to us more or less dimly in vast numbers of\nprocesses; for example, in those of vegetation, animal growth,\ncrystallization, etc. These impress us not primarily, but secondarily on\nreflection, after considering the enormity of changes worked annually,\nand working even at the moment we speak. Then, again, other arrangements\nthrow us more powerfully upon the moral qualities of God; _e.g._, we see\nthe fence, the shell, the covering, varied in ten million ways, by which\nin buds and blossoms He insures the ultimate protection of the fruit.\nWhat protection, analogous to this, has He established for animals; or,\ntaking up the question in the ideal case, for man, the supreme of His\ncreatures? We perceive that He has relied upon love, upon love\nstrengthened to the adamantine force of insanity or delirium, by the\nmere aspect of utter, utter helplessness in the human infant. It is not\nby power, by means visibly developed, that this result is secured, but\nby means spiritual and 'transcendental' in the highest degree.\n\n\nThe baseness and incorrigible ignobility of the Oriental mind is seen in\nthe radical inability to appreciate justice when brought into collision\nwith the royal privileges of rulers that represent the nation. Not only,\nfor example, do Turks, etc., think it an essential function of royalty\nto cut off heads, but they think it essential to the consummation of\nthis function that the sacrifice should rest upon caprice known and\navowed. To suppose it wicked as a mere process of executing the laws\nwould rob it of all its grandeur. It would stand for nothing. Nay, even\nif the power were conceded, and the sovereign should abstain from using\nit of his own free will and choice, this would not satisfy the wretched\nTurk. Blood, lawless blood--a horrid Moloch, surmounting a grim company\nof torturers and executioners, and on the other side revelling in a\nthousand unconsenting women--this hideous image of brutal power and\nunvarnished lust is clearly indispensable to the Turk as incarnating the\nrepresentative grandeur of his nation. With this ideal ever present to\nthe Asiatic and Mohammedan mind, no wonder that even their religion\nneeds the aid of the sword and bloodshed to secure conversion.\n\n\nIn the _Spectator_ is mentioned, as an Eastern apologue, that a vizier\nwho (like Chaucer's Canace) had learned the language of birds used it\nwith political effect to his sovereign. The sultan had demanded to know\nwhat a certain reverend owl was speechifying about to another owl\ndistantly related to him. The vizier listened, and reported that the\nliberal old owl was making a settlement upon his daughter, in case his\nfriend's son should marry her, of a dozen ruined villages. Loyally long\nlife to our noble sultan! I shall, my dear friend, always have a ruined\nvillage at your service against a rainy day, so long as our present\nruler reigns and desolates.\n\n\n_Obliviscor jam injurias tuas, Clodia._--This is about the most\nbarefaced use of the rhetorical trick--viz., to affect _not_ to do, to\npass over whilst actually doing all the while--that anywhere I have met\nwith.--'Pro Caelio,' p. 234 [p. 35, Volgraff's edition].\n\n\n_Evaserint_ and _comprehenderint._--Suppose they had rushed out, and\nsuppose they had seized Licinus. So I read--not _issent._--_Ibid., p.\n236_ [_Ibid., p. 44_].\n\n\n_Velim vel potius quid nolim dicere._--Aristotle's case of throwing\noverboard your own property. He _vult dicere_, else he could not mean,\nyet _nonvult_, for he is shocked at saying such things of\nClodia.--_Ibid., p. 242_ [_Ibid., p. 49_].\n\n\n2.--MORAL AND PRACTICAL.\n\n_Morality._--That Paley's principle does not apply to the higher\nmorality of Christianity is evident from this: when I seek to bring\nbefore myself some ordinary form of wickedness that all men offend by, I\nthink, perhaps, of their ingratitude. The man born to L400 a year thinks\nnothing of it, compares himself only with those above his own standard,\nand sees rather a ground of discontent in his L400 as not being L4,000\nthan any ground of deep thankfulness. Now, this being so odious a form\nof immorality, should--by Paley--terminate in excessive evil. On the\ncontrary, it is the principle, the very dissatisfaction which God uses\nfor keep_ing_ the world mov_ing_ (how villainous the form--these\n'ings'!).\n\n\nAll faith in the great majority is, and ought to be, implicit. That is,\nyour faith is not unrolled--not separately applied to each individual\ndoctrine--but is applied to some individual man, and on him you rely.\nWhat he says, you say; what he believes, you believe. Now, he believes\nall these doctrines, and you implicitly through him. But what I chiefly\nsay as the object of this note is, that the bulk of men must believe by\nan implicit faith. _Ergo_, decry it not.\n\n\nYou delude yourself, Christian theorist, with the idea of offences that\nelse would unfit you for heaven being washed out by repentance. But\nhearken a moment. Figure the case of those innumerable people that,\nhaving no temptation, small or great, to commit murder, _would_ have\ncommitted it cheerfully for half-a-crown; that, having no opening or\npossibility for committing adultery, _would_ have committed it in case\nthey had. Now, of these people, having no possibility of repentance (for\nhow repent of what they have not done?), and yet ripe to excess for the\nguilt, what will you say? Shall they perish because they _might_ have\nbeen guilty? Shall they not perish because the potential guilt was not,\nby pure accident, accomplished _in esse_?\n\n\nHere is a mistake to be guarded against. If you ask why such a man,\nthough by nature gross or even Swift-like in his love of dirty ideas,\nyet, because a gentleman and moving in corresponding society, does not\nindulge in such brutalities, the answer is that he abstains through the\nmodifications of the sympathies. A low man in low society would not be\ndoubtful of its reception; but he, by the anticipations of sympathy (a\nform that should be introduced as technically as Kant's anticipations of\nperception), feels it would be ill or gloomily received. Well now, I,\nwhen saying that a man is altered by sympathy so as to think _that_,\nthrough means of this power, which otherwise he would not think, shall\nbe interpreted of such a case as that above. But wait; there is a\ndistinction: the man does not think differently, he only acts as if he\nthought differently. The case I contemplate is far otherwise; it is\nwhere a man feels a lively contempt or admiration in consequence of\nseeing or hearing such feelings powerfully expressed by a multitude, or,\nat least, by others which else he would not have felt. Vulgar people\nwould sit for hours in the presence of people the most refined, totally\nunaware of their superiority, for the same reason that most people (if\nassenting to the praise of the Lord's Prayer) would do so\nhyper-critically, because its real and chief beauties are negative.\n\n\nNot only is it false that my understanding is no measure or rule for\nanother man, but of necessity it is so, and every step I take towards\ntruth for myself is a step made on behalf of every other man.\n\n\nWe doubt if the world in the sense of a synthesis of action--the\nprocession and carrying out of ends and purposes--_could_ consist with\nthe [Greek: anti]-world (in a religious sense). Men who divide all into\npious people and next to devils see in such a state of evil the natural\ntendency (as in all other _monstrous_ evils--which this must be if an\nevil at all) to correction and redress. But now assume a man, sober,\nhonourable, cheerful, healthy, active, occupied all day long in toilsome\nduties (or what he believes duties) for ends not selfish; this man has\nnever had a thought of death, hell, etc., and looking abroad on those\nwho dwell in such contemplations, he regards them sincerely, not\nunkindly or with contempt; partially he respects them, but he looks on\nthem as under a monstrous delusion, in a fever, in a panic, as in a case\nof broken equilibrium. Now he is right. And, moreover, secondly, two\nother feelings or suspicions come on, (1) of hypocrisy, (2) of the\nviolation of inner shame in publishing the most awful private feelings.\n\n\n_The Tendency of a Good Fortune inherited._--I know not that any man has\nreason to wish a _sufficient_ patrimonial estate for his son. Much to\nhave something so as to start with an advantage. But the natural\nconsequence of having a full fortune is to become idle and vapid. For,\non asking what a young man has that he can employ himself upon, the\nanswer would be, 'Oh! why, those pursuits which presuppose solitude.' At\nonce you feel this to be hollow nonsense. Not one man in ten thousand\nhas powers to turn solitude into a blessing. They care not, _e.g._, for\ngeometry; and the cause is chiefly that they have been ill taught in\ngeometry; and the effect is that geometry must and will languish, if\ntreated as a mere amateur pursuit. So of any other. Secondly, yet of\nEnglishmen I must say that beyond all nations a man so situated does\nnot, in fact, become idle. He it is, and his class, that discharge the\npublic business of each county or district. Thirdly: And in the view,\nwere there no other, one sees at once the use of fox-hunting, let it be\nas boisterous as you please. Is it not better to be boisterous than\ngossip-ridden, eaves-dropping, seeking aliment for the spirits in the\npetty scandal of the neighbourhood?\n\n\n'He' (_The Times_) 'declares that the poorest artisan has a greater\nstake than they' ('the Landed Interest') 'in the prosperity of the\ncountry, and is, consequently, more likely to give sound advice. His\nexposition of the intimate connection existing between the welfare of\nthe poor workman and the welfare of the country is both just and\nadmirable. But he manifestly underrates the corresponding relations of\nthe landowners, and wholly omits to show, even if the artisan's state\nwere the greatest, how his opinions are likely to be most valuable. To\nsuppose that a man is necessarily the best judge in whatever concerns\nhim most is a sad _non-sequitur_; for if self-interest ensured wisdom,\nno one would ever go wrong in anything. Every man would be his own\nminister, and every invalid would be his own best physician. The wounded\nlimbs of the community are the best judges of the pain they suffer; but\nit is the wise heads of the community that best can apply a remedy that\nbest can cure the wound without causing it to break out in another\nquarter. Poverty is blind; but the upper classes \"education has\nenlightened, and habit made foreseeing.\"'\n\n\nWe live in times great from the events and little from the character of\nthe actors. Every month summons us to the spectacle of some new perfidy\nin the leaders of parties and the most conspicuous public servants; and\nthe profligacy which we charge upon the statesmen of the seventeenth\ncentury has revolved in full measure upon our own days.\n\n\n_Justifications of Novels._--The two following justifications of novels\noccur to me. Firstly, that if some dreadful crisis awaited a ship of\npassengers at the line--where equally the danger was mysterious and\nmultiform, the safety mysterious and multiform--how monstrous if a man\nshould say to a lady, 'What are you reading?' 'Oh, I'm reading about our\ndreadful crisis, now so near'; and he should answer, 'Oh, nonsense! read\nsomething to improve your mind; read about Alexander the Great, about\nSpurius Ahala, about Caius Gracchus, or, if you please, Tiberius.' But\njust such nonsense it is, when people ridicule reading romances in which\nthe great event of the fiction is the real great event of a female\nlife.\n\nThere are others, you say--she loses a child. Yes, that's a great event.\nBut that arises out of this vast equinoctial event.\n\nSecondly, as all things are predisposed to the natures which must be\nsurrounded by them, so we may see that the element of social evolution\nof character, manners, caprices, etc., has been adapted to the vast mass\nof human minds. It is a mean element, you say. The revelations of Albert\nSmith, Dickens, etc., are essentially mean, vulgar, plebeian, not only\nin an aristocratic sense, but also in a philosophical sense. True, but\nthe minds that are to live and move in it are also mean, essentially\nmean. Nothing grand in them? Yes, doubtless in the veriest grub as to\ncapacity, but the capacity is undeveloped.\n\n_Ergo_, as to the intrigue or fable, and as to the conduct or evolution\nof this fable--novels must be the chief natural resource of woman.\n\n\n_Moral Certainty._--As that a child of two years (or under) is not party\nto a plot. Now, this would allow a shade of doubt--a child so old might\ncry out or give notice.\n\n\nThis monstrous representation that the great war with France (1803-15)\nhad for its object to prevent Napoleon from sitting on the throne of\nFrance--which recently, in contempt of all truth and common-sense, I\nhave so repeatedly seen advanced--throws a man profoundly on the\nquestion of what _was_ the object of that war. Surely, in so far as we\nare concerned, the matter was settled at Amiens in the very first year\nof the century. December, 1799, Napoleon had been suffered by the\nunsteady public opinion of France--abhorring a master, and yet sensible\nthat for the chief conscious necessity of France, viz., a developer of\nher latent martial powers, she must look for a master or else have her\npowers squandered--to mount the consular throne. He lived, he _could_\nlive, only by victorious war. Most perilous was the prospect for\nEngland. In the path which not Napoleon, but France, was now preparing\nto tread, and which was the path of Napoleon no otherwise than that he\nwas the tool of France, was that servitor who must gratify her grand\ninfirmity or else be rapidly extinguished himself, unhappily for\nherself, England was the main counter-champion. The course of honour\nleft to England was too fatally the course of resistance. Resistance to\nwhat? To Napoleon personally? Not at all; but to Napoleon as pledged by\nhis destiny to the prosecution of a French conquering policy. That\npersonally England had no hostility to Napoleon is settled by the fact\nthat she had at Amiens cheerfully conceded the superior power. Under\nwhat title? would have been the most childish of demurs. That by act she\nnever conceded the title of emperor was the mere natural diplomatic\nresult of never having once been at peace with Napoleon under that\ntitle. Else it was a point of entire indifference. Granting the\nconsulship, she had granted all that could be asked. And what she\nopposed was the determined war course of Napoleon and the schemes of\nultra-Polish partition to which Napoleon had privately tempted her under\ncircumstances of no such sense as existed and still exist for Russia.\nThis policy, as soon as exposed, and not before bitter insults to\nherself, England resisted. And therefore it is that at this day we live.\nBut as to Napoleon, as apart from the policy of Napoleon, no\nchildishness can be wilder.\n\n\nAt some unlucky moment when the Crown commanded unusual resources, the\nDe Quinceys met with the fate ascribed, perhaps fabulously, to some\nsmall heavenly bodies (asteroids or what, I do not precisely know): on\nsome dark day, by mistake perhaps, they exploded, and scattered their\nruins all over the central provinces of England, where chiefly had lain\ntheir territorial influence. Especially in the counties of Leicester,\nLincoln and Rutland were found fragments of the vast landed estates held\nby these potentates when Earls of Winchester.\n\n\nThe hatred of truth at first dawning--that instinct which makes you\nrevolt from the pure beams which search the foul depths and abysses of\nerror--is well illustrated by the action of the atmospheric currents,\nwhen blowing through an open window upon smoke. What do you see?\nSometimes the impression is strong upon your _ocular_ belief that the\nwindow is driving the smoke in. You can hardly be convinced of the\ncontrary--scarcely when five or seven minutes has absolutely rarefied the\nsmoke so much that a book-lettering previously invisible has become even\nlegible. And at last, when the fact, the result, the experience, has\ncorrected the contradictory theory of the eye, you begin to suspect,\nwithout any aid from science, that there were two currents, one of which\ncomes round in a curve [Illustration: )] and effects the exit for the\nother which the window had driven in; just as in the Straits of Gibraltar\nthere is manifestly an upper current setting one way, which you therefore\nconjecture to argue a lower current setting the other, and thus\nredressing the equilibrium. Here the smoke corresponds to bits of chip or\nany loose suspended body in the Gibraltar current. What answers to the\ncurrent of water is the air, and if the equilibrium _is_ kept up, the\nre-entrant current balances your retiring current, and the latter carries\nout the smoke entangled in itself. By the objection, say, of a child,\nthere ought to be a re-entrant column of smoke, which there is not. For\nthe air drives the smoke of the fire up the chimney, and of its own\ncontribution the air has no smoke to give.\n\nOr the Augean stable may image it. Doubtless when the first disturbance\ntook place in the abominable mess, those acting would be apt to question\nfor a moment whether it had not been more advisable to leave it alone.\n\n\nMoralists say, 'Nobody will attack you, or hate you, or blame you for\nyour virtues.' What falsehood! Not _as_ virtues, it may be in their\neyes, but virtues, nevertheless. Connect with Kant the error of\nsupposing _aetas parentum_, etc., to be the doctrine of sin.\n\n\nNot for what you have done, but for what you are--not because in life\nyou did forsake a wife and children--did endure to eat and drink and lie\nsoftly yourself whilst those who should have been as your heart-drops\nwere starving: not because you did that so much is forgiven you, but\nbecause you were capable of that, therefore you are incapable of heaven.\n\n\n_Immodesty._--The greatest mistake occurs to me now (Wednesday, April\n17th, '44). A girl who should have been unhappily conscious of\nvoluptuous hours, her you would call modest in case of her passing with\ndowncast looks. But why, then, is she not so? That girl is immodest who\nreconciles to herself such things, and yet assumes the look of\ninnocence.\n\n\n_About Women._--A man brings his own idle preconceptions, and fancies\nthat he has learned them from his experience.\n\n\nFar more to be feared than any depth of serious love, however absorbing\nand apparently foolish, is that vicious condition in which trifling\ntakes the place of all serious love, when women are viewed only as\ndolls, and addressed with an odious leer of affected knowingness as 'my\ndear,' wink, etc. Now to this tends the false condition of women when\ncalled 'the ladies.' On the other hand, what an awful elevation arises\nwhen each views in the other a creature capable of the same noble\nduties--she no less than he a creature of lofty aspirations; she by the\nsame right a daughter of God as he a son of God; she bearing her eyes\nerect to the heavens no less than he!\n\n\n_Low Degree._--We see often that this takes place very strongly and\ndecidedly with regard to men, notoriously pleasant men and remarkably\ngood-natured, which shows at once in what road the thing travels. And if\nsuch a nature should be combined with what Butler thinks virtue, it\nmight be doubtful to which of the two the tribute of kind attentions\nwere paid; but now seeing the true case, we know how to interpret this\nhypothetical case of Butler's accordingly.\n\n\n'Visit the sins of the fathers,' etc. This people pretend to think\nmonstrous. Yet what else in effect happens and must happen to Jews\ninheriting by filial obedience and natural sympathy all that\nanti-Christian hostility which prevailed in the age succeeding to that\nof Christ? What evil--of suffering, of penalties now or in reserve may\nbe attached to this spirit of hostility--follows the children through\nall generations!\n\n\nCase of Timoleon, whose killing of his brother might afterwards be read\ninto X Y Z or into X a b according to his conduct (either into murder or\npatriotism), is a good illustration of synthesis.\n\n\nTo illustrate Cicero's argument in 'Pro Caelio' as to the frequency of\nmen wild and dissipated in youth becoming eminent citizens, one might\nadduce this case from the word _Themistocles_ in the Index to the Graeci\nRhetorici. But I see or I fancy cause to notice this passage for the\nfollowing cause: it contains only nine words, four in the first comma,\nfive in the last, and of these nine four are taken up in noting the time\n[Greek: to proton to telen]; ergo, five words record the remarkable\nrevolution from one state to another, and the character of each state.\n\nTwo cases of young men's dissipation--1. Horace's record of his father's\nadvice: 'Concessa,' etc.; 2. Cicero's 'Pro Caelio.'\n\n\n_What Crotchets in every Direction!_--1. The Germans, or, let me speak\nmore correctly, some of the Germans (and doubtless full of Hoch beer or\nstrong drink), found out some thirty years ago that there were only\nthree men of genius in the records of our planet. And who were they? (1)\nHomer; (2) Shakespeare; (3) Goethe. So that absolutely Milton was shut\nout from the constellation. Even he wanted a ticket, though Master\nSorrows-of-Werther had one. The porter, it seems, fancied he had no\nmarriage garment, a mistake which a mob might correct, saying, 'No\nmarriage garment! then, damme, he shall have this fellow's' (viz.,\nGoethe's). The trinity, according to these vagabonds, was complete\nwithout Milton, as the Roman pomp was full to the eye of the sycophant\nwithout the bust of Brutus.\n\n2. Macaulay fancied there were only two men of genius in the reign of\nCharles II., viz., Milton and the tinker Bunyan.\n\n3. Coleridge (p. 237, 'Table-Talk') fancied there were only two men of\ngenius in his own generation: W. W. and Sir Humphrey Davy.\n\n\nJeremy Taylor having mentioned two religious men, St. Paul the Hermit\nand Sulpitius, as having atoned for some supposed foolish garrulities,\nthe one by a three years' silence, the other by a lifelong silence, goes\non to express his dissatisfaction with a mode of _rabiosa silentia_ so\nmemorable as this.\n\nYet it is certain in silence there is wisdom, and there may be deep\nreligion. And indeed it is certain, great knowledge, if it be without\nvanity, is the most severe bridle of the tongue. For so I have heard\nthat all the noises and prating of the pool, the croaking of frogs and\ntoads, is hushed and appeased upon the instant of bringing upon them the\nlight of a candle or torch. Every beam of reason and ray of knowledge\nchecks the dissoluteness of the tongue. 'Ut quisque contemplissimus est,\nita solutissimae linguae est,' said Seneca.\n\nThe silence must be [Greek: kairios], not sullen and ill-natured; 'nam\nsic etiam tacuisse nocet'?--of all things in the world a prating\nreligion and much talk in holy things does most profane the\nmysteriousness of it, and dismantles its regard, and makes cheap its\nreverence and takes off fear and awfulness, and makes it loose and\ngarish, and like the laughters of drunkenness.\n\n\n_Public Morality._--It ought not to be left to a man's interest merely\nto protect the animals in his power. Dogs are no longer worked in the\nway they were, although the change must have arbitrarily robbed many\npoor men of half bread. But in a case as valuable as that of the horse,\nit has been known that a man has incurred the total ruin of a series of\nhorses against even his own gain or self-interest. There ought to be a\n_custos veteranorum_, a keeper and protector of the poor brutes who are\nbrought within the pale of social use and service. The difficulty, you\nsay! Legislation has met and dealt effectively with far more complicated\nand minute matters than that. For, after all, consider how few of the\nbrute creation on any wide and permanent scale are brought into the\nscheme of human life. Some birds as food, some fishes as ditto; beeves\nas food and _sometimes_ as appliers of strength; horses in both\ncharacters. These with elephants and camels, mules, asses, goats, dogs,\nand sheep, cats and rabbits, gold-fishes and singing-birds, really\ncompose the whole of our animal equipage harnessed to the car of human\nlife.\n\n\n3.--On Words And Style.\n\nThere are a number of words which, unlocked from their absurd\nimprisonment, would become extensively useful. We should say, for\ninstance, 'condign honours,' 'condign treatment' (treatment appropriate\nto the merits), thus at once realizing two rational purposes, viz.,\ngiving a useful function to a word, which at present has none, and also\nproviding an intelligible expression for an idea which otherwise is left\nwithout means of uttering itself except through a ponderous\ncircumlocution. Precisely in the same circumstances of idle and absurd\nsequestration stands the term _polemic_. At present, according to the\npopular usage, this word has some fantastic inalienable connection with\ncontroversial theology. There cannot be a more childish chimera. No\ndoubt there is a polemic side or aspect of theology; but so there is of\n_all_ knowledge; so there is of _every_ science. The radical and\ncharacteristic idea concerned in this term _polemic_ is found in our own\nParliamentary distinction of _the good speaker_, as contrasted with _the\ngood debater_. The good speaker is he who unfolds the whole of a\nquestion in its affirmative aspects, who presents these aspects in their\njust proportions, and according to their orderly and symmetrical\ndeductions from each other. But the good debater is he who faces the\nnegative aspects of the question, who meets sudden objections, has an\nanswer for any momentary summons of doubt or difficulty, dissipates\nseeming inconsistencies, and reconciles the geometrical smoothness of _a\npriori_ abstractions with the coarse angularities of practical\nexperience. The great work of Ricardo is of necessity, and almost in\nevery page, polemic; whilst very often the particular objections or\ndifficulties, to which it replies, are not indicated at all, being\nspread through entire systems, and assumed as _precognita_ that are\nfamiliar to the learned student.\n\n\nWriting to scholastic persons, I should be ashamed to explain, but\nhoping that I write to many also of the non-scholastic, and even of the\nunlearned, I rejoice to explain the proper sense of the word _implicit_.\nAs the word _condign_, so capable of an extended sense, is yet\nconstantly restricted to one miserable association, viz., that with the\nword _punishment_ (for we never say, as we might say, 'condign\nrewards'), so also the word _implicit_ is in English always associated\nwith the word _faith_. People say that Papists have an _implicit_ faith\nin their priests. What they mean is this: If a piece of arras, or a\ncarpet, is folded up, then it is _implicit_ according to the original\nLatin word; if it is unfolded and displayed, then it is _explicit_.\nTherefore, when a poor illiterate man (suppose a bog-trotter of Mayo or\nGalway) says to his priest (as in effect always he _does_ say), 'Sir, I\ncannot comprehend all this doctrine; bless you, I have not the\nthousandth part of the learning for it, so it is impossible that I\nshould directly believe it. But your reverence believes it, the thing is\n_wrapt up_ (implicit) in you, and I believe it on that account.' Here\nthe priest believes explicitly: _he_ believes implicitly.\n\n\n_Modern._--Is it not shameful that to this hour even literary men of\ncredit and repute cannot for the life of them interpret this line from\n'As You Like It'--\n\n    'Full of wise saws and modern instances'?\n\nA man as well read as Mr. Theodore Hook, and many a hundred beside, have\nseriously understood it to mean 'Full of old proverbs, the traditionary\nwisdom of nations, and of illustrative examples drawn from modern\nexperience.' Nonsense! The meaning is, 'Full of old maxims and proverbs,\nand of trivial attempts at argument.' That is, tediously redundant in\nrules derived from the treasury of popular proverbs,' and in feeble\nattempts at connecting these general rules with the special case before\nhim. The superannuated old magistrate sets out with a proverb, as for\ninstance this, that _the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's\nwing_. That proverb forms his major proposition. In his minor\nproposition he goes on to argue that the trespass charged upon the\nparticular prisoner before him was very little bigger than a midge's\nwing. And then in his conclusion triumphantly he infers, Ergo, the\nprisoner at the bar is the mother of mischief. But says the constable,\n'Please, your worship, the prisoner is a man, a hulking clodhopper, some\nsix or seven feet high, with a strong black beard.' 'Well, that makes no\nodds,' rejoins his worship; 'then he's the father of mischief. Clerk,\nmake out his mittimus.'\n\nThe word 'instance' (from the scholastic _instantia_) never meant\n_example_ in Shakespeare's age. The word 'modern' never once in\nShakespeare means what it means to _us_ in these days. Even the monkish\nLatin word 'modernus' fluctuated in meaning, and did not always imply\n_recens_, _neotericus_; but in Shakespeare never. What _does_ it mean in\nShakespeare? Once and for ever it means _trivial_, _inconsiderable_. Dr.\nJohnson had too much feeling not to perceive that the word 'modern' had\nthis value in Shakespeare's acceptation; practically, he felt that it\n_availed_ for that sense, but theoretically he could not make out the\n_why_. It means that, said the Doctor; but feebly and querulously, like\none sick of the pip, he added, 'Yet I don't know why.' Don't you? Now,\nwe _do_. The fact is, Dr. Johnson was in a fit of the dismals at that\ntime; he had recently committed a debauch of tea, having exceeded his\nusual allowance by seventy-five cups, so that naturally he had a\n'curmurring' in the stomach. Else he could not have failed to see what\nwe are now going to explain with a wet finger. Everybody is aware that\nto be _material_ is the very opposite of being trivial. What is\n'material' in a chain of evidence, or in an argument, can never be\ntrifling. Now, therefore, if you can find a word that will flatly\ncontradict this word _material_, then you have a capital term for\nexpressing what is trivial. Well, you find in the word _immaterial_ all\nthat you are seeking. 'It is quite immaterial' will suit Mr. Touts's\npurpose just as well as 'It is really of no consequence, of no\nconsequence in the world.' To say in a law court that the objection is\nimmaterial is otherwise to say that it is trivial. Here, then, is the\nfirst step: to contradict the idea of _material_ is effectually to\nexpress the idea of _trivial_. Let us now see if we can find any other\ncontradiction to the idea of _material_, for one antithesis to that idea\nwill express as well as any other antithesis the counterpole of the\ntrivial. Now, clearly the substance of a thing, the material out of\nwhich it is made, is oftentimes of great importance by comparison with\nits shape, fashion, or mode. It is of value in your eyes to know whether\nyour family plate is in substance of gold or of silver; but whether such\na vessel is round or square, ornamented with a wreath of acanthus or\nivy, supported by tigers or by fawns, may be a trivial consideration, or\neven worse; for the fashion of your plate, after it has once become\nobsolete, may count against you for so much loss as something that will\ncost a good deal of money to alter. Here, then, is another contradiction\nto the material, and therefore another expression for the trivial:\nmatter, as against vacancy or the privation of matter, yields the\nantithesis of material or immaterial, substantial and unsubstantial;\nmatter, as against form, yields the antithesis of substance and shape,\nor otherwise of material and modal--what is matter and what is the mere\nmodification of matter, its variation by means of ornament or shape.\n\nThe word 'modern' is therefore in Shakespeare uniformly to be pronounced\nwith the long _o_, as in the words m_o_dal, m_o_dish, and never with the\nshort _o_ of m[)o]derate, m[)o]dest, or our present word m[)o]dern. And\nthe law under which Shakespeare uses the word is this: whatsoever is so\ntrivial as to fall into the relation of a mere shape or fleeting mode to\na permanent substance, _that_ with Shakespeare is modish, or (according\nto his form) modern.[29] Thus, a weak, trivial argument (or _instantia_,\nthe scholastic term for an argument not latent merely, or merely having\nthe office of sustaining a truth, but urged as an objection, having the\npolemic office of contradicting an opponent) is in Shakespeare's idiom,\nwhen viewed as against a substantial argument, a _modern_ argument.\n\nAgain, when Cleopatra, defending herself against the perfidy of her\nsteward, wishes to impress upon Octavius that any articles which she may\nhave kept back from the inventory of her personal chattels are but\ntrifles, she expresses this by saying that they are but\n\n    'Such as we greet modern friends withal;'\n\n_i.e._, such as we bestow, at welcoming or at parting, upon the\nslightest acquaintances. The whole stress of the logic lies upon the\nepithet _modern_--for simply as friends, had they been substantial\nfriends, they might have levied any amount from the royal lady's bounty;\nkingdoms would have been slight gifts in her eyes, and _that_ would soon\nhave been objected to by her conqueror. But her argument is, that the\npeople to whom such gifts would be commensurate are mere _modish_\nfriends, persons known to us on terms of bare civility, people with whom\nwe exchange salutations in the street, or occasional calls, what now we\ncall acquaintances, for whom in Shakespeare's time there was no\ndistinguishing expression.\n\nAnother case we remember at this moment in 'All's Well that Ends Well.'\nIt occurs in Act II., at the very opening of scene iii.; the particular\nedition, the only one we can command at the moment, is an obscure one\npublished by Scott, Webster and Geary, Charterhouse Square, 1840, and we\nmention it thus circumstantially because the passage is falsely\npunctuated; and we have little doubt that in all other editions, whether\nwith or without the false punctuation, the syntax is generally\nmisapprehended. In reality, the false punctuation has itself grown out\nof the false apprehension of the syntax, and not _vice versa_. Thus the\nwords stand _literatim et punctuatim_: 'They say, miracles are past: and\nwe have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things,\nsupernatural and causeless.' The comma ought to have been placed after\n'familiar,' the sense being this--and we have amongst us sceptical and\nirreligious people to represent as trivial and of daily occurrence\nthings which in reality are supernatural and causeless (that is, not\nlying amongst the succession of physical causes and effects, but sent as\nmiracles by the immediate agency of God). According to the true sense,\n_things supernatural and causeless_ must be understood as the subject,\nof which _modern and familiar_ is the predicate.\n\n\nMr. Grindon fancies that _frog_ is derived from the syllable [Greek:\ntrach (k)] of [Greek: batrachos]. This will cause some people to smile,\nand recall Menage's pleasantry about Alfana, the man of Orlando; It is\ntrue that _frog_ at first sight seems to have no letter in common except\nthe snarling letter (_litera canina_). But this is not so; the _a_ and\nthe _o_, the _s_ and the _k_, are perhaps essentially the same. And even\nin the case where, positively and literally, not a single letter is\nidentical, it is odd, but undeniable, that the two words may be nearly\nallied as mother and child. One instance is notorious, but it is worth\nciting for a purpose of instructive inference. 'Journal,' as a French\nword, or, if you please, as an English word--whence came that?\nUnquestionably and demonstrably from the Latin word _dies_, in which,\nhowever, visibly there is not one letter the same as any one of the\nseven that are in journal. Yet mark the rapidity of the transition.\n_Dies_ (a day) has for its derivative adjective _daily_ the word\n_diurnus_. Now, the old Roman pronunciation of _diu_ was exactly the\nsame as _gio_, both being pronounced as our English _jorn_. Here, in a\nmoment, we see the whole--_giorno_, a day, was not derived directly from\n_dies_, but secondarily through _diurnus_. Then followed _giornal_, for\na diary, or register of a day, and from that to French, as also, of\ncourse, the English _journal_. But the _moral_ is, that when to the eye\nno letter is the same, may it not be so to the ear? Already the _di_ of\n_dies_ anticipates and enfolds the _giorno_.\n\nMr. Grindon justly remarks upon the tendency, in many instances, of the\nGerman _ss_ to reappear in English forms as _t_. Thus _heiss_ (hot),\n_fuss_ (foot), etc. These are Mr. Grindon's own examples, and a striking\nconfirmation occurs in the old English _hight_, used for _he was\ncalled_, and again for the participle _called_, and again, in the 'Met.\nRomanus,' for _I was called_: 'Lorde, he saide, I highth Segramour.'\nNow, the German is _heissen_ (to be called). And this is a tendency\nhidden in many long ages: as, for instance, in Greek, every person must\nremember the transition of [Greek: tt] and [Greek: ss] as in [Greek:\nthatto], [Greek: thasso].\n\n\n_On Pronunciation and Spelling._--If we are to surrender the old\nvernacular sound of the _e_ in certain situations to a ridiculous\ncriticism of the _eye_, and in defiance of the protests rising up\nclamorously from every quarter of old English scholarship, let us at\nleast know to _what_ we surrender. What letter is to usurp the vacant\nseat? What letter? retorts the purist--why, an _e_, to be sure. An _e_?\nAnd do you call _that_ an _e_? Do you pronounce 'ten' as if it were\nwritten 'tun', or 'men' as if written 'mun'? The 'Der' in Derby,\nsupposing it tolerable at all to alter its present legitimate sound,\nought, then, to be pronounced as the 'Der' in the Irish name Derry, not\nas 'Dur'; and the 'Ber' in Berkeley not as 'Bur,' but as the 'Ber' in\nBeryl. But the whole conceit has its origin in pure ignorance of English\narchaeology, and in the windiest of all vanities, viz., the attempt to\nharmonize the spelling and the pronunciation of languages.\n\nNaturally, it fills one with contempt for these 'Derby' purists to find\nthat their own object, the very purpose they are blindly and\nunconsciously aiming at, has been so little studied or steadily\ncontemplated by them in anything approaching to its whole extent. Why,\nupon the principle which they silently and virtually set up, though\ncarrying it out so contradictorily (driving out an _a_ on the plea that\nit is not an _e_, only to end by substituting, _and without being\naware_, the still remoter letter _u_), the consequence must be that the\nwhole language would go to wreck. Nine names out of every ten would need\ntinkering. 'London,' for instance, no more receives the normal sound of\nthe _o_ in either of its syllables than does the _e_ in 'Derby.' The\nnormal sound of the _o_ is that heard in 'song,' 'romp,' 'homage,'\n'drop.' Nevertheless, the sound given to the _o_ in 'London,'\n'Cromwell,' etc., which strictly is the short sound of _u_ in 'lubber,'\n'butter,' etc., is a secondary sound of _o_ in particular combinations,\nthough not emphatically its proper sound. The very same defence applies\nto the _e_ in 'Berkeley,' etc. It is the legitimate sound of the English\n_e_ in that particular combination, viz., when preceding an _r_, though\nnot its normal sound. But think of the wild havoc that would be made of\nother more complex anomalies, if these purists looked an inch in\nadvance. Glocester or Gloucester, Worcester, Cirencester, Pontefract,\netc. What elaborate and monstrous pronunciations would they affix to\nthese names? The whole land would cease to recognise itself. And that\nthe purists should never have contemplated these veritable results, this\nit is which seals and rivets one's contempt for them.\n\nNow, if such harmony were at all desirable (whereas, on the contrary, we\nshould thus be carrying ruin into the traditions and obliteration into\nthe ethnological links of languages, industriously, in fact, throwing up\ninsuperable obstacles in the path of historical researches), it would be\nfar better, instead of adjusting the pronunciation to the imaginary\nvalue of the spelling, inversely to adjust the spelling to the known and\nestablished pronunciation, as a certain class of lunatics amongst\nourselves, viz., the _phonetic gang_, have for some time been doing\nsystematically.\n\nHere, therefore, I hope is one fixed point. Here there is anchorage. The\nusage is the rule, at any rate; and the law of analogy takes effect only\nwhere _that_ cannot be decisively ascertained.\n\n\n_The Latin Word 'Felix.'_--The Romans appear to me to have had no term\nfor _happy_, which argues that they had not the idea. _Felix_ is tainted\nwith the idea of success, and is thus palpably referred to life as a\ncompetition, which for Romans every distinguished life was. In fact,\napart from his city the Roman was nothing. Too poor to have a villa or\nany mode of retirement, it is clear that the very idea of Roman life\nsupposes for the vast majority a necessity of thick crowded intercourse,\nwithout the possibility of solitude. I, for my peculiar constitution of\nmind, to whom solitude has in all periods of life been more of a\nnecessity almost than air, view with special horror the life of a Roman\nor Athenian. All the morning he had to attend a factious hustings or a\ncourt--assemblies deliberative or judicial. Here only he was somebody,\nand yet, however, somebody through others. Combining with one leader and\nmany underlings like himself, he also became a power; but in himself and\nfor himself, after all, he was consciously nothing. When Cicero speaks\nof his _nunquam minus Solus quam cum solus_, he is announcing what he\nfeels to be, and knows will be, accepted as a very extraordinary fact.\nFor even _in rure_ it is evident that friends made it a duty of\nfriendship to seek out and relieve their rusticating friends.\n\n\n_On the Distinction between 'Rhetorica utens' and 'Rhetorica\ndocens'._--It was a perplexity, familiar to the experience of the\nSchoolmen, that oftentimes one does not know whether to understand by\nthe term _logic_ the act and process of reasoning involved and latent in\nany series of connected propositions, or this same act and process\nformally abstracting itself as an art and system of reasoning. For\ninstance, if you should happen to say, 'Dr. Isaac Watts, the English\nNonconformist, was a good man, and a clever man; but alas! for his\nlogic, what can his best friend say for it? The most charitable opinion\nmust pronounce it at the best so, so'--in such a case, what is it that\nyou would be understood to speak of? Would it be the general quality of\nthe Doctor's reasoning, the style and character of his philosophical\nmethod, or would it be the particular little book known as 'The Doctor:\nhis _Logic_,' price 5s., bound in calf, and which you might be very shy\nof touching with a pair of tongs, for fear of dimming their steel\npolish, so long as your wife's eye was upon your motions? The same\nambiguity affects many other cases. For instance, if you heard a man\nsay, 'The _rhetoric_ of Cicero is not fitted to challenge much\ninterest,' you might naturally understand it of the particular style and\nrhetorical colouring--which was taxed with being florid; nay, Rhodian;\nnay, even Asiatic--that characterizes that great orator's compositions;\nor, again, the context might so restrain the word as to _force_ it into\nmeaning the particular system or theory of rhetoric addressed to\nHerennius, a system which (being traditionally ascribed to Cicero) is\nusually printed amongst his works. Here, and in scores of similar cases,\nlies often a trap for the understanding; but the Schoolmen evaded this\ntrap by distinguishing between 'Rhetorica _utens_,' and 'Rhetorica\n_docens_,' between the rhetoric that laid down or delivered didactically\nthe elements of oratorical persuasion as an art to be learned, and\nrhetoric, on the other hand, as a creative energy that _wielded_ these\nelements by the mouth of Pericles in the year 440 B. C., or by the mouth\nof Demosthenes, 340 B. C.; between rhetoric the scholastic art and\nrhetoric the heaven-born _power;_ between the rhetoric of Aristotle that\nilluminated the solitary student, and the rhetoric of Demosthenes that\nran along in rolling thunders to the footstool of Artaxerxes' throne.\nOh, these dear spindle-shanked Schoolmen! they were people, respected\nreader, not to be sneezed at. What signifies having spindle-shanks?\n\n\n_Synonyms._--A representative and a delegate, according to Burke, are\nidentical; but there is the same difference as between a person who on\nhis own results of judgment manages the interests of X, and a person\nmerely reporting the voice of X. Probably there never was a case which\nso sharply illustrated the liability of goodish practical understanding\nto miss, to fail in seeing, an object lying right before the eyes; and\nthat is more wonderful in cases where the object is not one of\nmultitude, but exists almost in a state of insulation. At the coroner's\ninquest on a young woman who died from tight-lacing, acting, it was\nsaid, in combination with a very full meal of animal food, to throw the\nheart out of position, Mr. Wakely pronounced English or British people\nall distorted in the spine, whereas _Continental_ people were all right.\nContinental! How unlimited an idea! Why, it meant nothing; it defines\nnothing, limits nothing, excludes nothing. Who or what is Continental?\nApparently it means anyone out of 240 millions not being one of the 27\nmillions in the Britannides. Every man escapes an insane folly who\nhappens to breathe an air E. (N. E., S. E., N. N. E., S. S. E., etc.) of\nthe Britannides. Vanity, the inevitable wish to improve, or rather to\navail, one's self of a natural means offered for deepening and marking\nout the natural outline of the shape, _i.e._, of the sexual\ncharacteristics, has no effect, dies out, the instant that a family is\none of those who have the privilege of basking anywhere 2,000 miles E.\nor 2,000 miles N. and S.!\n\n\nA whistling to a horse: Poppysme (_vide_ Whistling, Lat. Dict.); but\npoppysme is a patting, a clapping, on the back, neck, or, doubtless,\nwherever the animal is sensible of praise.\n\n\n'Takest away.' This beautiful expression, though exquisitely treated by\nposition--\n\n          'That all evil thoughts and aims\n    Takest away,'\n\nis yet originally borrowed by Mr. W. from the Litany: 'O Lamb of God,\nthat takest away the sins of the world.'\n\n\nIn style to explain the true character of note-writing--how compressed\nand unrambling and direct it ought to be, and _illustrate_ by the\nvillainous twaddle of many Shakespearian notes.\n\n\n_Syllogism._--In the _Edin. Advertiser_ for Friday, January 25, 1856, a\npassage occurs taken from _Le Nord_ (or _Journal du Nord_), or some\npaper whose accurate title I do not know, understood to be Russian in\nits leanings, which makes a most absurd and ignorant use of this word.\nThe Allies are represented as addressing an argument to Russia,\namounting, I think, to this, viz.: that, in order to test her sincerity,\nwould it not be well for Russia at once to cede such insulated points of\nterritory as were valuable to Russia or suspicious to the Allies simply\nas furnishing means for invasion of Turkey? And this argument is called\na _syllogism_.\n\n\n'_Laid in wait_ for him.'--This false phrase occurs in some article (a\nCrimea article, I suppose) in the same _Advertiser_ of January 25. And I\nmuch doubt whether any ordinary ear would reconcile itself to _lay in\nwait_ (as a _past_ tense) even when instructed in its propriety.\n\n\nThose Scotticisms are worst which are nonsensical, as _e.g._:\n\n    'Whenever he died\n     Fully more.'\n\n\n_Timeous_ and _dubiety_ are bad, simply as not authorized by any but\nlocal usage. A word used only in Provence or amongst the Pyrenees could\nnot be employed by a classical French writer, except under a _caveat_\nand for a special purpose.\n\n\nPlent_y_, used under the absurd misleading of its terminal 'y' as an\nadjective. _Alongst_, remember _of_; able _for_, the worse _of_ liquor,\nto call _for, to go the length_ of, as applied to a distance; 'I don't\nthink _it_,' instead of 'I don't think _so_.'\n\n\nIn the _Lady's Newspaper_ for Saturday, May 8, 1852 (No. 280), occurs\nthe very worst case of exaggerated and incredible mixed silliness and\nvulgarity connected with the use of _assist_ for _help_ at the\ndinner-table that I have met with. It occurs in the review of a book\nentitled 'The Illustrated London Cookery Book,' by Frederick Bishop. Mr.\nBishop, it seems, had 'enjoyed the office of cuisinier at the Palace,\nand among some of our first nobility.' He has, by the way, an\nintroductory 'Philosophy of Cookery.' Two cases occur of this matchless\nabsurdity:\n\n1. An ideal carver is described: he, after carving, 'is as cool and\ncollected as ever, and _assists_ the portions he has carved with as much\ngrace as he displayed in carving the fowl.'\n\n2. Further on, when contrasting, not the carvers, but the things _to be_\ncarved, coming to '_Neck of Veal_,' he says of the carver: 'Should the\nvertebrae have not been jointed by the butcher, you would find yourself\nin the position of the ungraceful carver, being compelled to exercise a\ndegree of strength which should never be suffered to appear, very\npossibly, too, _assisting_ gravy in a manner not contemplated by the\nperson unfortunate enough to receive it.'\n\n\n_Genteel_ is the vulgarest and most plebeian of all known words.\nAccordingly (and strange it is that the educated users of this word\nshould not perceive that fact), aristocratic people--people in the most\nundoubted _elite_ of society as to rank or connections--utterly ignore\nthe word. They are aware of its existence in English dictionaries; they\nknow that it slumbers in those vast repositories; they even apprehend\nyour meaning in a vague way when you employ it as an epithet for\nassigning the pretensions of an individual or a family. Generally it is\nunderstood to imply that the party so described is in a position to make\nmorning calls, to leave cards, to be presentable for anything to the\ncontrary apparent in manners, style of conversation, etc. But these and\nother suggestions still leave a vast area unmapped of blank charts in\nwhich the soundings are still doubtful.\n\nThe word 'genteel' is so eminently vulgar apparently for this reason,\nthat it presents a non-vulgar distinction under a gross and vulgar\nconception of that distinction. The true and central notion, on which\nthe word revolves, is elevating; but, by a false abstraction of its\nelements, it is degraded. And yet in parts of this island where the\nprogress of refinement is torpid, and the field of vision is both narrow\nand unchanging in all that regards the _nuances_ of manners, I have\nremarked that the word 'genteel' maintains its old advantageous\nacceptation; and as a proof of this, eminent and even revolutionary\nthinkers born and bred in such provincial twilight, use the word as if\nuntainted and hardly aware that it is flyblown.\n\nAmong ourselves it is certain that a peculiar style of gossip, of\nbabble, and of miniature intriguing, invests the atmosphere of little\n'townishness,' such as often entangles the more thoughtful and\ndignified of the residents in troublesome efforts at passive resistance\nor active counter-action. In dealing with this matter, Mr. Wordsworth\ninstanced Northampton and Nottingham; but a broader difference could\nhardly be than between these towns. And just as 'genteel' remains the\nvulgarest of all words, so the words 'simple' and 'simplicity,' amongst\nall known words, offer the most complex and least simple of ideas.\n\nHaving made this deprecation on behalf of my own criminality in using\nsuch a word as 'genteel,' I go on to say that whilst Northampton was\n(and _is_, I believe) of all towns the most genteel, Nottingham for more\nthan two centuries has been the most insurrectionary and in a scarlet\nexcess democratic. Nottingham, in fact, has always resembled the\nAlexandria of ancient days; whilst Northampton could not be other than\naristocratic as the centre of a county more thickly gemmed by the\nancestral seats of our nobility than any beside in the island. Norwich,\nagain, though a seat of manufacturing industry, has always been modified\nconsiderably by a literary body of residents.\n\n\n'Mein alter Herr' (von Stein) 'pflegte dann wohl scherzend zu sagen: Ich\nmuesse von irgend eine Hexe meinen Altem als ein Wechselbalg in's Nest\ngelegt seyn; ich gehoere offenbar einem Stamm amerikanischer wilden an,\nund habe noch die Huehnerhundnase zum Auswittern des verschiedenen\nBlutes.' Arndt, speaking of his power to detect at sight (when seen at a\ndistance) Russians, English, etc., says that Von Stein replied thus in\nhis surprise. But I have cited the passage as one which amply\nillustrates the suspensive form of sentence in the German always\nindicated by a colon (:), thus: 'zu sagen: Ich muesse'--to say that I\nmust have been (p. 164).\n\n\nThe active sense of _fearful_, viz., that which causes and communicates\nterror--not that which receives terror--was undoubtedly in Shakespeare's\nage, but especially amongst poets, the preponderant sense. Accordingly I\nam of opinion that even in neutral cases, such as are open indifferently\nto either sense, viz., that which affrights, or that which is itself\naffrighted, the bias in Shakespeare's interpretation of the feeling lay\ntowards the former movement. For instance, in one of his sonnets:\n\n    'Oh, fearful meditation! where, alas!'\n\nthe true construction I believe to be--not this: Oh, though _deriving_\nterror from the circumstances surrounding thee, _suffering_ terror from\nthe _entourage_ of considerations pursuing thee; but this: Oh, thought\nimpressing and creating terror, etc. A 'fearful' agent in Shakespeare's\nuse is not one that shrinks in alarm from the act, but an agent that\ncauses others to shrink; not panic-struck, but panic-striking.\n\n\nMiss Edgeworth, let me remark, commits trespasses on language that are\nreally past excusing. In one place she says that a man 'had a\n_contemptible_ opinion' of some other man's understanding. Such a\nblunder is not of that class which usage sanctions, and an accuracy not\nmuch short of pedantry would be argued in noticing: it is at once\nilliterate and vulgar in the very last degree. I mean that it is common\namongst vulgar people, and them only. It ranks, for instance, with the\ncommon formula of '_I_ am agreeable, if you prefer it.'\n\n\nStyle is the disentangling of thoughts or ideas reciprocally involved in\neach other.\n\n\n4.--THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.\n\nReligion under any of its aspects, revealing or consoling--religion in\nconnection with any of its affinities, ethics or metaphysics, when\n_self_-evoked by a person of earnest nature, not imposed from without by\nthe necessities of monastic life, not caught as a contagion from the\nexample of friends that surround you, argues some 'vast volcanic agency'\nmoving at subterraneous depths below the ordinary working mind of daily\nlife, and entitled by its own intrinsic grandeur to ennoble the\ncuriosity (else a petty passion) which may put questions as to its\norigin. In any case of religion arising, as a spontaneous birth, in the\nmidst of alien forces, it is inevitable to ask for its _why_ and its\n_whence_. Religion considered as a sentiment of devotion, as a yearning\nafter some dedication to an immeasurable principle of that noblest\ntemple among all temples--'the upright heart and pure,' or religion,\nagain, as the apprehension of some mighty synthesis amongst truths dimly\nperceived heretofore amidst separating clouds, but now brought into\nstrict indissoluble connection, proclaims a revolution so great that it\nis otherwise not to be accounted for than as the breaking out of a germ\nof the supernatural in man as a seed from a hitherto barren soil.\n\n\nSin is that secret word, that dark _aporreton_ of the human race,\nundiscoverable except by express revelation, which having once been laid\nin the great things of God as a germinal principle, has since blossomed\ninto a vast growth of sublime ideas known only to those nations who have\nlived under the moulding of Scriptural truth--and comprehending _all_\nfunctions of the Infinite operatively familiar to man. Yes, I affirm\nthat there is no form through which the Infinite reveals itself in a\nsense comprehensible by man and adequate to man; that there is no\nsublime agency which _compresses_ the human mind from infancy so as to\nmingle with the moments of its growth, positively none but has been in\nits whole origin--in every part--and exclusively developed out of that\ntremendous mystery which lurks under the name of sin.\n\nYes, I affirm that even in its dreams every Christian child is invested\nby an atmosphere of sublimity unknown to the greatest of Pagan\nphilosophers: that golden rays reach it by two functions of the\nInfinite; and that these, in common with those emanations of the\nInfinite that do not settle upon the mind until mature years, are all\nprojections--derivations or counterpositions--from the obscure idea of\nsin; could not have existed under any previous condition; and for a\nPagan mind would not have been intelligible.\n\n\n_Sin._--It is not only that the Infinite arises as part of the entire\nsystem resting on sin, but specifically from sin apart from its\ncounterforces or reactions, viz., from sin as a thing, and the only\nthing originally shadowy and in a terrific sense mysterious.\n\n\n_Stench._--I believe that under Burke's commentary, this idea would\nbecome a high test of the doctrine of the Infinite. He pronounces it\nsublime, or sublime in cases of intensity. Now, first of all, the\nintense state of everything or anything is but a mode of power, that\nidea or element or moment of greatness under a varied form. Here, then,\nis nothing _proper_ or separately peculiar to stench: it is not stench\n_as_ stench, but stench as a mode or form of sensation, capable\ntherefore of intensification. It is but a case under what we may suppose\na general Kantian rule--that every sensation runs through all\ngradations, from the lowest or most obscure and nascent to the highest.\nSecondly, however, pass over to the contemplation of stench _as_ stench:\nthen I affirm--that as simply expounding the decay, and altering or\nspoiling tendency or state of all things--simply as a register of\nimperfection, and of one which does not (as ruins to the eye) ever put\non a pleasing transitional aspect, it is merely disagreeable, but also\nat the same time mean. For the imperfection is merely transitional and\nfleeting, not absolute. First, midst and last, it is or can be grand\nwhen it reverts or comes round upon its mediating point, or point of\nreaction.\n\n\nThe arrangement of my Infinite must be thus: After having expounded the\nidea of holiness which I must show to be now potent, proceed to show\nthat the Pagan Gods did not realize and did not meet this idea; that\nthen came the exposure of the Pagan Gods and the conscious presence of a\nnew force among mankind, which opened up the idea of the Infinite,\nthrough the awakening perception of holiness.\n\n\nI believe that in every mode of existence, which probably is always by\nan incarnation, the system of flesh is made to yield the organs that\nexpress the alliance of man with the Infinite. Thus the idea of mystery,\n[Greek: aporreta], finds its organ of expression in the sensualities of\nthe human race. Again, the crime, whatever it were, and the eternal\npollution is expressed in these same organs. Also, the prolongation of\nthe race so as to find another system is secured by the same organs.\n\n\nGenerally, that is, for a million against a unit, the awful mystery by\nwhich the fearful powers of death, and sorrow, and pain, and sin are\nlocked into parts of a whole; so as, in fact, to be repetitions,\nreaffirmations of each other under a different phase--this is nothing,\ndoes not exist. Death sinks to a mere collective term--a category--a\nword of convenience for purposes of arrangement. You depress your hands,\nand, behold! the system disappears; you raise them, it reappears. This\nis nothing--a cipher, a shadow. Clap your hands like an Arabian girl,\nand all comes back. Unstop your ears, and a roar as of St. Lawrence\nenters: stop your ears, and it is muffled. To and fro; it is and it is\nnot--is not and is. Ah, mighty heaven, that such a mockery should cover\nthe whole vision of life! It is and it is not; and on to the day of your\ndeath you will still have to learn what is the truth.\n\nThe eternal now through the dreadful loom is the overflowing future\npoured back into the capacious reservoir of the past. All the active\nelement lies in that infinitesimal _now_. The future is not except by\nrelation; the past is not at all, and the present but a sign of a nexus\nbetween the two.\n\n\nGod's words require periods, so His counsels. He cannot precipitate\nthem any more than a man in a state of happiness _can_ commit suicide.\nDoubtless it is undeniable that a man may arm his hand with a sword: and\nthat his flesh will be found penetrable to the sword, happy or not. But\nthis apparent physical power has no existence, no value for a creature\nhaving a double nature: the moral nature not only indisposes him to use\nhis power, but really creates a far greater antagonist power.\n\n\nThis God--too great to be contemplated steadily by the loftiest of human\neyes; too approachable and condescending to be shunned by the meanest in\naffliction: realizing thus in another form that reconcilement of\nextremes, which St. Paul observed: far from all created beings, yet also\nvery near.\n\n\n'A conviction that they needed a Saviour was growing amongst men.' How?\nIn what sense? Saviour from what? You can't be saved from nothing. There\nmust be a danger, an evil threatening, before even in fancy you can\nthink of a deliverer. Now, what evil was there existing to a Pagan? Sin?\nMonstrous! No such idea ever dawned upon the Pagan intellect. Death?\nYes; but that was inalienable from his nature. Pain and disease? Yes;\nbut these were perhaps inalienable also. Mitigated they might be, but it\nmust be by human science, and the progress of knowledge. Grief? Yes; but\nthis was inalienable from life. Mitigated it might be, but by superior\nphilosophy. From what, then, was a Saviour to save? If nothing to save\nfrom, how any Saviour? But here arises as the awful of awfuls to me, the\ndeep, deep exposure of the insufficient knowledge and sense of what is\npeculiar to Christianity. To imagine some sense of impurity, etc.,\nleading to a wish for a Saviour in a Pagan, is to defraud Christianity\nof all its grandeur. If Paganism could develop the want, it is not at\nall clear that Paganism did not develop the remedy. Heavens! how\ndeplorable a blindness! But did not a Pagan lady feel the insufficiency\nof earthly things for happiness? No; because any feeling tending in that\ndirection would be to her, as to all around her, simply a diseased\nfeeling, whether from dyspepsia or hypochondria, and one, whether\ndiseased or not, worthless for practical purposes. It would have to be a\nChristian lady, if something far beyond, something infinite, were not\nconnected with it, depending on it. But if this were by you ascribed to\nthe Pagan lady, then _that_ is in other words to make her a Christian\nlady already.\n\n\n_Exhibition of a Roman Dialogue on Sin._--What! says the ignorant and\nunreflecting modern Christian. Do you mean to tell me that a Roman,\nhowever buried in worldly objects, would not be startled at hearing of a\nSaviour? Now, hearken.\n\nROMAN. Saviour! What do you mean? Saviour for what? In good faith, my\nfriend, you labour under some misconception. I am used to rely on myself\nfor all the saving that I need. And, generally speaking, if you except\nthe sea, and those cursed north-east winds, I know of no particular\ndanger.\n\nCHRISTIAN. Oh, my friend, you totally mistake the matter. I mean saving\nfrom sin.\n\nROMAN. Saving from a fault, that is--well, what sort of a fault? Or, how\nshould a man, that you say is no longer on earth, save me from any\nfault? Is it a book to warn me of faults that He has left?\n\nCHRISTIAN. Why, yes. Not that He wrote Himself; but He talked, and His\nfollowers have recorded His views. But still you are quite in the dark.\nNot faults, but the fountain of all faults, that is what He will save\nyou from.\n\nROMAN. But how? I can understand that by illuminating my judgment in\ngeneral He might succeed in making me more prudent.\n\nCHRISTIAN. 'Judgment,' 'prudent'--these words show how wide by a whole\nhemisphere you are of the truth. It is your will that He applies His\ncorrection to.\n\nROMAN. 'Will!' why I've none but peaceable and lawful designs, I assure\nyou. Oh! I begin to see. You think me a partner with those pirates that\nwe just spoke to.\n\nCHRISTIAN. Not at all, my friend. I speak not of designs or intentions.\nWhat I mean is, the source of all desires--what I would call your wills,\nyour whole moral nature.\n\nROMAN (_bridling_). Ahem! I hope Roman nature is quite as little in need\nof improvement as any other. There are the Cretans; they held up their\nheads. Accordingly they had their fire institutions, and that true\ninstitution against bribery and luxury, and all such stuff. They fancied\nthemselves impregnable. Why, bless you! even Marcus Tullius, that was a\nprosing kind of man and rather peevish about such things, could not keep\nin the truth. 'Why, Cato, my boy,' says he, 'you talk.' And to hear you,\nbribery and luxury would not leave one a stick to fight for. Why, now,\nthese same Cretans--lord! we took the conceit out of them in\ntwenty-five minutes. No more time, I assure you, did it cost three of\nour cohorts to settle the whole lot of them.\n\nCHRISTIAN. My friend, you are more and more in the dark. What I mean is\nnot present in your senses, but a disease.\n\nROMAN. Oh, a disease! that's another thing. But where?\n\nCHRISTIAN. Why, it affects the brain and the heart.\n\nROMAN. Well, now, one at a time. Take the brain--we have a disease, and\nwe treat it with white hellebore. There may be a better way. But answer\nme this. If you are generally affected, what right have you to bring, as\nyou are supposing, a diseased brain to a sound one? We Romans are all\nsound--sound as a bell.\n\nThen Christian goes on to the history of the fall. But the whole would\nbe self-baffled and construed away from want of sin as the antithesis of\nholiness.\n\n\n_Why St. Paul and the Athenians did not come to an Understanding._--So,\nagain, if you think that St. Paul had a chance with the Athenians. If he\nhad, it would tax his divine benevolence to see that he forbore to\npursue it. This attempt shows that he was under a misconception. He\nfancied a possibility of preaching a pure religion. What followed? He\nwas, he must have been defeated. That is, practically, else why did he\nnot persist? But his confutation was the factual confutation of\nexperience. It was no go. That he found too surely. But why? I am sure\nthat he never found out. Enough that he felt--that under a strong\ninstinct he misgave--a deep, deep gulf between him and them, so that\nneither could he make a way to their sense, nor they, except\nconjecturally, to his. For, just review the case. What was the [Greek:\neuangelion], the good tidings, which he announced to man? What burthen\nof hope? What revelation of a mystery of hope arising out of a deeper\nmystery of despair? He announced a deliverer. Deliverer! from what?\nAnswer that--from what? Why, from evil, you say. Evil! of what kind?\nWhy, you retort, did not the Pagans admit that man was lying under evil?\nNot at all; nothing of the kind. But you are sure you have heard of such\nthings? Very likely. And now you are forced back upon your arguments you\nremember specially that evil as to its origin was a favourite\nspeculation of theirs. Evil, in its most comprehensive designation,\nwhence is it? How came it? Now, mark, even to that extent, viz., the\nextent indicated by this problem, the ancients had no conception of evil\ncorresponding to, no, nor dimly approaching to, a correspondence with\nours. They had no ineffable standard of purity; how, then, any function\nof impurity? They had no ineffable doctrine of pain or suffering\nanswering to a far more realized state of perception, and, therefore,\nunimaginably more exquisite; how, then, could they raise a question on\nthe nature or fountains of such pains? They executed no synthesis, and\ncould execute none upon the calamities of life; they never said in\nordinary talk that this was a world of sorrow, either apostrophizing a\nnewborn child, or a world of disappointment, bemoaning a mature victim;\nneither as in the anguish of meditative reflection, nor in the prudence\nof extenuating apology. The grand _sanctus_ which arises from human\nsensibility, Perish empires and the crowns of kings, etc., first arose\nin connection with Christianity.[30] Life was a good life; man was a\nprosperous being. Hope for men was his natural air; despondency the\nelement of his own self-created folly. Neither could it be otherwise.\nFor, besides that, it would be too immeasurable a draught of woe to say\nin one breath that this only was the crux or affirmation of man's fate,\nand yet that this also was wretched _per se_; not accidentally made\nwretched by imprudence, but essentially and irrevocably so by necessity\nof its nature. Besides all this, which has a lurking dependency upon\nman's calculations of what is safe, he sees that this mode of thinking\nwould leave him nothing; yet even that extreme consequence would not\ncheck some honest or sincere or desperate minds from uttering their\nconvictions that life really _was_ this desperate game--much to lose\nand nothing in the best case to win. So far there would have been a\ndangerous gravitation at all times to the sad conclusion of Paganism.\nBut, meanwhile, this dangerous gravitation was too dangerous, and\nProvidence has deeply counteracted it by principles laid down in human\nnature. I affirm that where the ideas of man, where the possible\ninfinities are not developed, then also the exorbitant on the other\nfield is strongly pulled up. No ideals of evil can take place except\nunder ideals of happiness that passeth all understanding. No synthesis\ncan ever be executed, that is, no annumeration of A, B, C into a common\ntotal, viewed as elements tending to a common unity, unless previously\nthis unity has been preconceived, because the elements are not elements,\nviz., original constituents of a representative whole (a series tending\nto a summation), unless that which is constituted--that whole--is\npreviously given in idea. Since A and B and C could not be viewed as\ntending to a unity, having no existence except through them, unless\npreviously that unity had existed for the regulation and eduction of its\ncomponent elements. And this unity in the case of misery never could\nhave been given unless far higher functions than any which could endure\nPaganism, or which Paganism could endure. Until the sad element of a\ndiseased will is introduced, until the affecting notion is developed of\na fountain in man himself welling up the misery for ever, no idea of\nmisery could arise. Suffering is limited and transitory. What pain is\npermanent in man? Even the deepest laceration of the human heart, that\nwhich is inflicted by the loss of those who were the pulses of our\nhearts, is soothed (if never wholly healed) by time. One agency of time\nwould avail for this effect were there no other. The features of the\nindividual whom we mourn grow dimmer and dimmer as time advances; and,\n_pari passu_, the features of places and collateral objects and\nassociated persons from whom reverberated these afflicting reminiscences\nof the lost object.\n\nI return: Deliverer from what? From suffering or misery. But that was\nnot acknowledged, nor could have been, we could see no misery as a\nhypothesis except in these two modes: First, as a radication in man by\nmeans of something else, some third thing. Secondly, as a synthesis--as\na gathering under a principle which must act prior to the gathering in\norder to provoke it. (The synthesis must be rendered possible and\nchallenged by the _a priori_ unity which otherwise constitutes that\nunity.) As a metaphysical possibility evil was recognised through its\nunfathomable nature. But this was because such a nature already\npresupposed a God's nature, realizing his own ends, stepped in with\neffect. For the highest form--the normal or transcendent form--of virtue\nto a Pagan, was in the character of citizen. Indeed, the one sole or\naffirmative form of virtue lay in this sole function, viz., of public,\nof patriotic virtue. Since here only it was possible to introduce an\n_additional_ good to the world. All other virtue, as of justice between\nindividual and individual, did but redress a previous error, sometimes\nof the man himself, sometimes of social arrangement, sometimes of\naccident. It was a _plus_ which balanced and compensated a pre-existing\n_minus_--an action _in regressu_, which came back with prevailing power\nupon an action _in progressu_. But to be a patriot was to fulfil a call\nof the supererogatory heart--a great nisus of sympathy with the one sole\ninfinite, the sole practical infinite that man pre-Christian ever could\ngenerate for his contemplation. Now, therefore, it followed that the\nidea of virtue here only found its realization. Virtue, in fact, was not\nderivatively or consequentially connected with patriotism, it was\n_immanent_; not transitively associated by any links whatever, but\nimmanently intertwisted, indwelling in the idea. Therefore it happened\nthat a man, however heartsick of this tumid, bladdery delusion, although\nto him it was a balloon, by science punctured, lacerated, collapsing,\ntrailed through ditch and mud under the rough handling and the fearful\nrealities of life, yet he durst not avow his private feelings. That\nwould have been even worse than with us: it would have been to proclaim\nvirtue and vice mere bubbles and chimeras. He who really thinks so even\nwe reasonably suspect of _practical_ indifference unless when we believe\nhim to speak as a misanthrope.\n\nThe question suppose to commence as to the divine mission of Christ. And\nthe feeble understanding is sure to think this will be proved best by\nproving the subject of this doubt to have been a miracle-working power.\nAnd of all miracles, to have mastered (not merely escaped or evaded)\ndeath will be in his opinion the greatest. So that if Christ could be\nproved to have absolutely conquered death, _i.e._, to have submitted to\ndeath, but only to recoil from his power and overthrow it, to have died\nand subsequently to have risen again, will, _a fortiori_, prove Him to\nhave been sent of God.\n\nNot so. All and every basis of credibility must be laid in the _moral_\nnature, where the thing to be believed is important, _i.e._, moral. And\nI therefore open with this remark absolutely _zermalmende_ to the common\nintellect: That from a holy faith you may infer a power of resurrection,\nbut not from a power of resurrection fifty times repeated can we infer a\nholy faith. What in the last result is the thing to be proved? Why, a\nholy revelation, not of knowledge, but of things practical; of agenda,\nnot scienda. It is essential that this holy should also be _new_,\n_original_, _revelatum_. Because, else, the divinest things which are\n_connata_ and have been common to all men, point to no certain author.\nThey belong to the dark foundations of our being, and cannot challenge a\ntrust, faith, or expectation as suspended upon any particular individual\nman whatever.\n\nHere, then, arises the [Greek: protontokinon]. Thick darkness sits on\nevery man's mind as to Christ's revelation. He fancies that it amounts\nto this: 'Do what is good. Do your duty. Be good.' And with this vague\nnotion of the doctrine, natural is it that he should think it as old as\nthe hills. The first step to a saner view is, to understand--if a man\nhas sense enough to reach so high--that the subtlest discoveries ever\nmade by man, all put together, do not make one wave of that Atlantic as\nto novelty and originality which lies in the moral scheme of\nChristianity. I do not mean in the total scheme of Christianity,\nredemption, etc. No, but in the ethics.\n\nAll ethics that ever Greece refined or Rome illustrated, was, and could\nbe, only the same universal system of social ethics--ethics proper and\nexclusive to man and man _inter se_, with no glimpse of any upward\nrelationship.\n\nNow Christianity looks upward for the first time. This in the first\nplace. Secondly, out of that upward look Christianity looks secondarily\ndown again, and reacts even upon the social ethics in the most\ntremendous way.\n\n\n_For my Book on the Relations of Christianity to Man._--S. T. C. cites\nJeremy Taylor, etc., for horrible passages on the gloomy state of the\nchances for virtuous Pagans. S. T. C. in a more liberal generation is\nshocked; and of course in his readers as in himself secretly, he\nprofesses more liberal ideas. Aye, but how is he entitled to these\nideas? For, on further consideration, it is not Cicero only, or\nEpictetus only, that would suffer under this law of Christianity viewed\nin its reagency, but also Abraham, David, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hezekiah.\nBecause, how could they benefit by a Redeemer not yet revealed--nay, by\na Redeemer not even existing? For it is not the second person in the\nTrinity--not He separately and abstractedly--that is the Redeemer, but\nthat second person incarnated. St. Paul apparently wished to smuggle\nthis tremendous question into a fraudulent solution, by mixing up\nAbraham (with others pre-Christian and Christian) into the long array of\nthose whose _Faith_ had saved them. But faith in whom? General faith in\nGod is not the thing, it is faith in Jesus Christ; and we are solemnly\ntold in many shapes that no other name was given on earth through which\nmen could be delivered. Indeed, if not, how is the Messiah of such\nexclusive and paramount importance to man? The Messiah was as yet (viz.,\nin Abraham's time) a prophecy--a dim, prophetic outline of one who\n_should_ be revealed. But if Abraham and many others could do without\nHim, if this was a dispensable idea, how was it in any case, first or\nlast, indispensable? Besides, recur to the theory of Christianity. Most\nundeniably it was this, that neither of the two elements interested in\nman could save him; not God; He might have power, but His purity\nrevolted. Power (or doubtfully so), but no will. Not man--for he, having\nthe will, had no power. God was too holy; manhood too _un_holy. Man's\ngifts, applicable, but insufficient. God's sufficient, but\ninapplicable. Then came the compromise. How if man could be engrafted\nupon God? Thus only, and by such a synthesis, could the ineffable\nqualities of God be so co-ordinated with those of man.\n\n\nSuppose even that a verbal inspiration could have been secured--secured,\nobserve, against _gradual_ changes in language and against the\nreactionary corruption of concurrent versions, which it would be\nimpossible to guarantee as also enjoying such an inspiration (since, in\nthat case, _what_ barrier would divide mine or anybody's wilfully false\ntranslations from that pretending to authority? I repeat _what_? None is\nconceivable, since what could you have beyond the assurance of the\ntranslator, even which could only guarantee his intentions)--here is a\ncause of misinterpretation amounting to ruin, viz., after being read for\ncenturies as if practically meant for our guidance, such and such a\nchapter (_e.g._, Jael and Sisera), long proscribed by the noble as a\nrecord of abominable perfidy, has at length been justified on the ground\nthat it was never meant for anything else. Thus we might get rid of\nDavid, etc., were it not that for his flexible obedience to the _clerus_\nhe has been pronounced the man after God's own heart.\n\nIs it not dreadful that at the very vestibule of any attempt to execute\nthe pretended law of God and its sentences to hell we are interrupted by\none case in every three as exceptional? Of the deaths, one in three are\nof children under five. Add to these surely _very_ many up to twelve or\nthirteen, and _many_ up to eighteen or twenty, then you have a law which\nsuspends itself for one case in every two.\n\n_Note in the argument drawn from perishableness of language._ Not only\n(which I have noted) is any language, _ergo_ the original, Chaldaean,\nGreek, etc., perishable even for those who use it, but also the vast\nopenings to error which all languages open to translators form a separate\nsource of error in translators, viz.:\n\n1. The old one on my list that for them the guidance of inspiration has\nceased, else, if not, you must set up an inspiration separately to\ntranslators, since, if you say--No, not at all, why, which then?\n\n2. The uncertainty of a foreign language even in a day contemporary with\nthe original writer, and therefore over and above what arises from lapse\nof time and gradual alterations.\n\n\n_On Human Progress._--Oftentimes it strikes us all that this is so\ninsensible as to elude observation the very nicest. Five years add\nnothing, we fancy. Now invert your glass. In 1642 Englishmen are\nfighting for great abstract principles. In 1460-83 (_i.e._, 100 + 17 +\n42 years before, or 159 years) they are fighting for persons, for rival\ncandidates. In 1460 they could not have conceived more than an Esquimaux\ncan entertain a question about the constitution of lyric poetry, or the\ndifferential principles of English and Greek tragedy, the barest\napproximation to questions that in 1642 are grounds of furious quarrel,\nof bloody quarrel, of extermination. Now then, looking forward, you\nwould see from year to year little if any growth; but inverting your\nglass, looking back from the station of 1642 to 1460, you see a progress\nthat if subdivided amongst all the 159 years would give to each _x_/0 as\nits quota, _i.e._ infinity. In fact, it is like the progression from\nnothing to something. It is--creation.\n\nAll the body of the Christian world would fly out in a rage if you\nshould say that Christianity required of you many things that were easy,\nbut one thing that was _not_. Yet this is undoubtedly true; it requires\nyou to _believe_, and even in the case where you know what it is to\nbelieve, and so far are free from perplexity, you have it not in your\nown power to ensure (though you can influence greatly) your own power to\nbelieve. But also great doubt for many (and for all that are not\nsomewhat metaphysical) attends the knowledge of what is believing.\n\n\nAs to my mother's fancy that Sir W. Jones had found in the East proofs\nof Christianity, having gone out an infidel.\n\nTo do her justice, never once after she had adopted a theory of\nChristianity did she inquire or feel anxious about its proof. But to\nreview the folly of this idea.\n\n1. That Christianity there where it reigned and was meant to reign\nshould be insufficient in its proofs; but that in a far distant land,\nlurking in some hole or corner, there should be proofs of its truth,\njust precisely where these proofs were not wanted. And again, that these\nshould be reserved for one scholar rambling into a solitary path, where\nin a moral sense _nobody_ could follow him (for it _is_ nobody--this or\nthat oriental scholar). And we are sure that his proof was not of that\norder to shine by its own light, else it would have resounded through\nEngland.\n\n2. That for many hundreds of years Christianity should have been\nreceived, generation after generation should have lived under its vital\naction, upon no sufficient argument, and suddenly such an argument\nshould turn up as a reward to a man in a country not Christian for being\nmore incredulous than his neighbours; how impossible!\n\nThat fraudulent argument which affects to view the hardships of an\nadventurous life and its perils as capable of one sole impression--that\nof repulsion--and secondly as the sole circumstances about such\nadventures, injures from the moment when it is perceived: not\n\n1. The writer only; no matter for him, worthless liar, how much he sinks\nin the opinion of his readers: but\n\n2. The Apostles. Now see the injury of falsehood. Suddenly it snaps, and\nwith a great reaction causes a jar to the whole system, which in\nordinary minds it is never likely to recover. The reason it is not\noftener perceived is that people read such books in a somnolent,\ninactive state of mind, one-tenth coming to a subject on which they have\nalready made up their minds, and open to no fresh impressions, the other\nnine-tenths caring not one straw about the matter, as reading it in an\nage of irreflectiveness and purely through an act of obedience to their\nsuperiors, else not only does this hypocritical attempt to varnish give\nway all at once, and suddenly (with an occasion ever after of doubt, and\ncausing a reflection to any self-sufficient man, suddenly coming to\nperceive that he has been cheated, and with some justification for\njealousy thenceforwards to the maker up of a case), but also it robs the\nApostles of the human grace they really possessed. For if we suppose\nthem armed against all temptations, snares, seductions, by a\nsupernatural system of endowments, this is but the case of an\nangel--nay, not of an angel, for it is probable that when an angel\nincarnated himself, or one of the Pagan deities, who was obliged first\nto incarnate himself before he could act amongst men, or so much as be\nseen by men, he was bound by all the defects of man, _i.e._, he could\nchoose only an ideal, so far ideal as to elude the worst effects from\nvice, intemperance, etc. The angel who wrestled with Jacob probably did\nhis best; he was a stout fellow, but so was the patriarch. The very\ncondition of incarnation, and this because the mere external form\nalready includes limitations (as of a fish, not to fly; of a man, not to\nfly, etc.) probably includes as a _necessity_, not as a choice, the\nadoption of all evils connected with the nature assumed. Even the Son of\nGod, once incarnated, was not exempted from any evil of flesh; He grew,\npassed through the peculiar infirmities of every stage up to mature\nlife; would have grown old, infirm, weak, had He lived longer; was\nliable to death, the worst of all human evils, and was not, we may be\nsure, exempted from any one fleshly desire with regard to sex, or\nenemies, or companions, but because that divine principle, which also\n_is in man_, yes, in every man the foulest and basest--this light which\nthe darkness comprehended not, and which in some is early extinguished,\nbut in _all_ fights fitfully with the winds and storms of this human\natmosphere, in Him was raised to a lustre unspeakable by His pure and\nholy will.\n\nIf the Apostles were more celestially armed in any other sense than as\nwe are all armed from above by calling forth our better natures, if in\nany other sense than as sorrow arms us by purifying our natures, as\nsorrowful reflection, as meditation and earnest endeavours to resist our\nangry instincts (which, on the contrary, how often do men _obey_ under\nthe vile pretence of being put by conscience on a painful duty), then, I\nsay, what were the Apostles to us? Why should we admire them? How can we\nmake them models of imitation? It is like that case of Anarcharsis the\nScythian.\n\n\nIt does certainly incense a Christian to think that stupid Mahommedans\nshould impute to us such _childish_ idolatries as that of God having a\nson and heir--just as though we were barbarous enough to believe that\nGod was liable to old age--that the time was coming, however distant,\nwhen somebody would say to him, 'Come, Sir,' or 'Come, my Lord, really\nyou are not what you were. It's time you gave yourself some ease\n([Greek: euphemi], time, indeed, that you resigned the powers to which\nyou are unequal), and let a younger man take the reins.' None but a\nfilthy barbarian could carry forward his thoughts so little as not to\nsee that this son in due time would find himself in the same\npredicament.\n\nNow mark how Christian lands would enforce this doctrine of unity by\nhorrid coercions. They hang, drown, burn, crucify those who deny it. So\nthat, be assured you are planting your corner-stone on the most windy of\ndelusions. You yourselves do not ascribe any merit to Mahommed separate\nfrom that of revealing the unity of God. Consequently, if that is a\nshaken craze arising from mere inability on his part, a little, a very\nlittle information would have cut up by the very roots the whole\npeculiarity of Islam. For if a wise man could have assembled these\nconceited Arabians and told them: Great thieves, you fancy yourselves to\nhave shot far ahead of the Christians as to the point of unity, and if\nyou had I would grant that you had made a prodigious advance. But you\nare deceiving quarrellers. It is all a word--mere smoke, that blinds\nyou. The Christian seems to affirm three Gods, and even to aggravate\nthis wickedness by calling one of them 'a Son,' thus seeming to accept\nthat monstrous notion that God is liable to old age and decrepitude, so\nas to provide wisely against His own dotage. But all this is an error:\nthese three apparent Gods are but one, and in the most absolute sense\none.\n\n\nThe most shockingly searching, influential, and permanent blunder that\never has affected the mind of man has been the fancy that a religion\nincludes a creed as to its [Greek: aporrheta], and a morality; in short,\nthat it was doctrinal by necessity, enactory, and (which has been the\npractical part of the blunder) therefore exclusive, because:\n\n1. With our notion of a religion as essentially doctrinal, the very\nfirst axiom about it is, that being true itself it makes all others\nfalse. Whereas, the capital distinction of the Pagan was--that given,\nsupposing to be assumed, 10,000 religions--all must be true\nsimultaneously, all equally. When a religion includes any distinct\npropositions offered to the understanding (that is, I think, resting\nupon a principle or tendency to a consequence by way of differencing\nfrom facts which also are for the understanding, but then barely to\ncontemplate not with a power of reacting on the understanding, for every\nprinciple introduces into the mind that which may become a modification,\na restraint; whereas, a fact restrains nothing in the way of thought\nunless it includes a principle), it would rise continually in its\nexclusive power according to the number of those propositions. At first\nit might exclude all but ten, eight, seven, and so on; finally, as\nintegrated it would exclude all.\n\n2. If you ask on what principle a Pagan believed his religion, the\nquestion to him was almost amusing and laughable. I will illustrate the\ncase. A man meets you who inquires in a hurried, suppose even in an\nagitated way, whether you met a tall man, blind of one eye, dressed in\nsuch a coloured dress, etc. Now, does it ever occur to you that the\ninquirer is lying? Lying! Wherefore should he lie? Or again, if you say\nthat your house stands under a hill, that three out of four chimneys\nsmoke, and that you must indeed try some of the inventions for remedying\nthis annoyance, would any man in his senses think of speculating on the\npossibility that all this should be a romance? Or, to come nearer in the\nkind of fact, if a man represented his family fortune as having been\nbequeathed by a maiden aunt in the last generation, would any man say\notherwise than that doubtless the man knew his own benefactors and\nrelatives best? On this same principle, when Christ was mentioned as the\ndivinity adored by a certain part of the Jews who were by way of\ndistinction called Christians, why should a Roman object? What motive\ncould he have for denying the existence or the divine existence of\nChrist? Even the idea of dissent or schism, some Jews worshipping, some\nprotesting, would not much puzzle him. Something like it had occurred in\nPagan lands. Neptune and Athene had contended for Attica. And under the\nslight inquiry which he would ever make, or listen to when made by\nothers, he might wonder at the rancour displayed by the protesting\nparty, but he would take it for granted that a divinity of some local\nsection had been unduly pushed into pre-eminence over a more strictly\nepichorial divinity. He would go off with this notion, that whereas, the\nelder Jews insisted on paying vows, etc., to a God called Jehovah, a\nsection sought to transfer that allegiance to a divinity called Christ.\nIf he were further pressed on the subject, he would fancy that very\npossibly, as had been thought, found or imagined in the case of Syrian\ndeities or Egyptian, etc., that perhaps Christ might correspond to\nApollo, as Astarte to Diana, Neptune of Latium to the Poseidon of\nGreece. But if not, that would cause no scruple at all. Thus far it was\nby possibility a mere affair of verbal difference. But suppose it\nascertained that in no point of the symbols surrounding the worship of\nChrist, or the conception of His person, He could be identified with any\npreviously-known Pagan God--that would only introduce Him into the\nmatricula of Gods as a positive novelty. Nor would it have startled a\nRoman to hear that in India or any country large enough there should be\na separate Pantheon of many thousand deities, _plus_ some other Pantheon\nof divinities corresponding to their own. For Syria--but still more in\none section of Syrian Palestine--this would surprise him _quoad_ the\ndegree, not _quoad_ the principle. The Jew had a separate or peculiar\nGod, why not? No nation could exist without Gods: the very separate\nexistence of a people, trivial as it might be in power and wealth,\nargued a tutelary God, but, of course, proportioned to the destinies at\nleast (and in part to the present size) of the country. Thus far no\ndifficulties at all. But the morality! Aye, but that would never be\naccounted a part of religion. As well confound a science with religion.\nAye, but the [Greek: aporrheta]. These would be viewed as the rites of\nAdonis, or of Ceres; you could not warn him from his preconception that\nthese concerned only Jews. Where, therefore, lodged the offence? Why\nhere, as personalities--for such merely were all religions--the God must\nbe measured by his nation. So some Romans proposed to introduce Christ\ninto the Roman Pantheon. But what first exploded as a civil offence was\nthe demand of supremacy and the inconceivable principle set up of\nincompatibility. This was mere folly.\n\n\nA much more solemn, significant and prophetic meaning than the common\none may be secured to the famous passage in St. Matthew--'And thou shalt\ncall His name _Jesus_.' This injunction wears the most impressive\ncharacter belonging to heavenly adjuration, when it is thus confided to\nthe care and custody of a special angel, and in the very hour of\ninauguration, and amongst the very birth-throes of Christianity. For in\ntwo separate modes the attention is secretly pointed and solicited to\nthe grand serpentine artifice, which met and confronted the almost\ninsurmountable difficulty besetting Christianity on its very threshold:\nFirst, by the record of the early _therapeutic_ miracles, since in that\nway only, viz., by a science of healing, which the philosopher equally\nwith the populace recognised as resting upon inspiration from God, could\nthe magistrate and civil authority have been steadily propitiated;\nsecondly, by the very verbal suggestion couched in the name _Jesus_, or\n_Healer_. At the most critical of moments an angel reveals himself, for\nthe purpose of saying '_Thou shalt call His name Jesus_'--and why Jesus?\nBecause, says the angel, 'He shall heal or cleanse His people from sin\nas from a bodily disease.' Thus, in one and the same moment is suggested\nprospectively to the early Christian, who is looking forward in search\nof some adequate protection against the civil magistrate, and\ntheoretically and retrospectively is suggested to the Christian of our\nown philosophizing days, that admirable resource of what by a shorthand\nexpression I will call _Hakimism_. The _Hakim_, the _Jesus_, the\n_Healer_, comes from God. Mobs must not be tolerated. But neither must\nthe deep therapeutic inspirations of God be made of none effect, or\nnarrowed in their applications. And thus in one moment was the panic\nfrom disease armed against the panic from insurgent mobs; the privileged\nHakim was marshalled against the privileged magistrate; and the deep\nsuperstition, which saw, and not unreasonably, a demon raging in a\nlawless mob, saw also a demon not less blind or cruel in the pestilence\nthat walked in darkness. And, as one magnet creates other magnets, so\nalso the Hakim, once privileged, could secretly privilege others. And\nthe physical Hakim could by no test or shibboleth be prevented from\nsilently introducing the spiritual Hakim. And thus, whilst thrones and\ncouncils were tumultuating in panic, behold! suddenly the Christian\nsoldier was revealed amongst them as an armed man.\n\n\n'_Ecrasez l'infame_,' I also say: and who is he? It would be mere\ninsanity to suppose that it could be _any_ teacher of moral truths. Even\nI, who so much despise Socrates, could not reasonably call him\n_l'infame_.\n\nBut who, then, is _l'infame_? It is he who, finding in those great ideas\nwhich I have noticed as revelations from God, and which throw open to\nthe startled heart the heaven of heavens, in the purity, the holiness,\nthe peace which passeth all understanding, finding no argument of\ndivinity, then afterwards _does_ find it in the little tricks of\nlegerdemain, in conjuring, in praestigia. But here, though perhaps roused\na little to see the baseness of relying on these miracles, and also in\nthe rear a far worse argument against them, he still feels uncomfortable\nat such words applied to things which Christ did. Christ could not\nmake, nor wished to make, that great which was inherently mean; that\nrelevant, which was originally irrelevant. If He did things in\nthemselves mean, it was because He suited Himself to mean minds,\nincapable of higher views; wretches such as exist amongst us of modern\ndays by millions, on whom all His Divine words were thrown away,\nwretches deaf and blind and besotted, to whom it was said in vain: 'He\nthat looketh upon a woman,' and what follows, creating by a rod of\ndivinity in man's heart a far superior ideal of the moral; who heard\nwith indifference His 'Bless those who persecute you;' yes, listened\nunmoved to His 'Suffer little children to come unto Me;' who heard with\nanger His 'In heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage;'\nwho abhorred His great doctrine that the counsels of God were not read\nin the events of things[31]; who slighted as trivial that prayer which a\nwise man might study with profit for a thousand years; beasts, wretches,\nthat turned away deaf and blind, even as their sons turn away, from\nthese arguments of a truth far transcending all that yet had come\namongst men; but whilst trampling with their brutal hoofs upon such\nflowers of Paradise, turned in stupid wonderment to some mere\nlegerdemain or jugglery.\n\n\n_The Truth._--But what tongue can express, what scale can measure, the\nawful change in man's relations to the unseen world? Where there had\nbeen a blank not filled by anything, not by any smoke or dusky tarnish\nof suspicion, not filled by so much as any shadowy outline or vague\nphantom of possibility, _there_ was now seen rising, 'like Teneriffe or\nAtlas'--say rather, by symbolizing the greatest of human interests by\nthe greatest of human visual objects, like the snowy peaks of the\nHimalaya, peaks that by men's feelings are referred to the heavens\nrather than to the earth; to the beings 'whose dwelling is no thick\nflesh,' rather than to men who have in no age succeeded in scaling them;\nand who in their steps to those mighty thrones have heard nothing but\ndread crashes of sound--again to fade or vanish, the colossal form,\nnever the mighty idea of 'The Truth.'[32] Where there had been nothing,\na blank, a chasm, there stood in solemn proportions a new object for\nman, called The Truth. Why was it called _The_ Truth? How could such an\nidea arise? Many persons will be weak enough to fancy that, as [Greek:\nhopoetes] was sometimes an artifice of rhetoric for expressing the\nexclusive supremacy of Homer, and as by a pure affectation and movement\nof dissimulation a man was called by the title of _The Orator_, his own\nfavourite Greek or Roman thus affecting for the moment to know of no\nother (for all such emphatic and exclusive uses of _the_ imply a\nmomentary annihilation of the competitors, as though in comparison of\nthe ideal exemplification these minor and approximating forms had no\nexistence--or at least, not _quoad hunc locum_--as 'the mountain in\nSicily' would rightly indicate Etna), on the same artificial principle\nthey may imagine rhetoricians to have denominated (or if not, to have\nhad it in their power to denominate) some one department of truth which\nthey wished to favour as _the_ truth. But this conventional denomination\nwould not avail, and for two reasons: First, that rival modes of truth\n(physics against mathematics, rhetoric against music) would contest the\ntitle, and no such denomination would have a basis of any but a sort of\ncourtesy or vicarious harmonious reality from the very first. Secondly,\nthat, standing in no relation whatever to God, every mode, form,\ndivision or subdivision of truth merely intellectual would gain nothing\nat all by such ostentatious arts. Algebra has been distinguished by\nglorious names; so has the fancied knowledge of transmutation applied to\nthe metals; so, doubtless, has many a visionary speculation of magic;\nso, again, has the ridiculous schwermerey of the Rabbis in particular\nages. But those are as transient and even for the moment as partial\ntitles as the titles of Invincible or Seraphic applied to scholastic\ndivines. Out of this idea the truth grew, next (suppose _x_) another\n_Martyrdom_.\n\nThe difference between all human doctrines and this is as between a\nmarble statue and a quick thing. The statue may be better, and it may be\nof better material; it may be of ivory, of marble, and amongst marbles\nknown to the ancient sculptors of several different kinds the most\nprized; of silver gilt, of hollow gold, of massy gold, and in all\ndegrees of skill; but still one condition applies to all--whatever the\nmaterial, whoever the artist, the statue is inanimate, the breath of\nlife is not within its nostrils. Motion, spontaneity, action and\nantagonist action, the subtle watch-work of the brain, the mighty\nlaboratory of the heart, vision, sensibility, self-propagated warmth,\npleasure, hope, memory, thought, liberty--not one of these divine gifts\ndoes it possess. It is cold, icy, senseless, dull, inert matter. Let\nPhidias have formed the statue, it is no better. Let the purest gold be\nits material, it is no worthier than the meanest model in clay to the\nvaluation of the philosopher. And here, as in so many cases, the great\nphilosopher meets with the labouring man; both meet with the little\ninnocent child. All have the same undervaluation of the statue. And if\nany man values it preposterously, it will be neither a great\nphilosopher, nor a labouring man with horny fists, nor a little innocent\nand natural child. It will be some crazy simpleton, who dignifies\nhimself as a man of taste, as _elegans formarum spectator_, as one\nhaving a judicious eye for the distinctions of form. But now, suddenly,\nlet one of the meanest of these statues begin to stir and shiver with\nthe mystery of life, let it be announced that something 'quick' is in\nthe form, let the creeping of life, the suffusion of sensibility, the\nawful sense of responsibility and accountability ripen themselves, what\na shock--what a panic! What an interest--how profound--would diffuse\nitself in every channel. Such is the ethics of God as contrasted with\nthe ethics of Greek philosophers. The only great thing ever done by\nGreece or by Greek philosophers was the ethics. Yet, after all, these\nwere but integrations of the natural ethics implanted in each man's\nheart. Integrations they were, but rearrangements--redevelopments from\nsome common source.\n\n\nIt is remarkable that the Scriptures, valuing clearness and fencing\nagainst misunderstandings above all things, never suspend--there is no\n[Greek: epoche] in the scriptural style of the early books. And,\ntherefore, when I first came to a text, 'If when,' I was thunderstruck,\nand I found that this belongs to the more cultivated age of Hebrew\nliterature.\n\n\n'_And the swine because it divideth the hoof, yet cheweth not the cud,\nit is unclean unto you_' (Deut. xiv. 8). Now the obvious meaning is,\n_prima facie_, that the ground of its uncleanness was its dividing the\nhoof. Whereas, so far from this, to divide the hoof is a ground of\ncleanness. It is a fact, a _sine qua non_--that is, a negative condition\nof cleanness; but not, therefore, taken singly the affirmative or\nefficient cause of cleanness. It must in addition to this chew the\ncud--it must ruminate. Which, again, was but a _sine qua non_--that is,\na negative condition, indispensable, indeed; whose absence could not be\ntolerated in any case, but whose presence did not therefore, and as a\nmatter of course, avail anything. For the reverse case occurred in the\ncamel, hare, and rabbit. They _do_ chew the cud, the absence of which\nhabit caused the swine to be rejected, but then they 'divide not the\nhoof.' Accordingly they were equally rejected as food with the swine.\n\n\nWe see the great Jewish lawgiver looking forward to cases which actually\noccurred nearly five hundred years after, as demanding a king, and again\nlooking still farther to cases eight hundred and a thousand years\nafter--their disobedience and rebellion to God. Now, many will think\nthat it must have been an easy thing for any people, when swerving from\ntheir law, and especially in that one great fundamental article of\nidolatry as the Jews so continually did, and so naturally when the case\nis examined, to always have an easy retreat: the plagues and curses\ndenounced would begin to unfold themselves, and then what more easy than\nto relinquish the idolatrous rites or customs, resuming with their old\nrituals to God their old privileges? But this was doubly impossible.\nFirst, because men utterly misconceive the matter when they suppose that\nwith direct consecutive succession the judgment would succeed the\ntrespass. Large tracts of time would intervene. Else such direct\nclockwork as sin and punishment, repentance and relief, would dishonour\nGod not less than they would trivialize the people. God they would\noffend by defeating all His purposes; the people they would render vile\nby ripening into mechanic dissimulation. The wrath of God slept often\nfor a long season; He saw as one who saw not. And by the time that His\nlarge councils had overtaken them, and His judgments were fast coming up\nwith the offenders, they had so hardened themselves in error that a\nwhole growth of false desires had sprung up, and of false beliefs, blind\nmaxims, bad habits, bad connections, and proverbs, which found out a\nreconciliation of that irreconcilable truth with the foulest pollutions.\nThe victims of temptation had become slow even to suspect their own\ncondition. And, if some more enlightened did so, the road of existence\nwas no longer easy. Error had woven chains about them. They were\nenmeshed. And it is but a faint emblem of their situation to say, that\nas well may a man commence a habit of intoxication for the purpose of\nhaving five years' pleasure, and then halting in his career, as the Jews\nmay contaminate themselves tentatively with idolatrous connections under\nthe delusion that it would always be time enough for untreading their\nsteps when these connections had begun to produce evil. For they could\nnot recover the station from which they swerved. They that had now\nrealized the _casus foederis_, the case in which they had covenanted\nthemselves to desist from idolatry, were no longer the men who had made\nthat covenant. They had changed profoundly and imperceptibly. So that\nthe very vision of truth was overcast with carnal doubts; the truth\nitself had retired to a vast distance and shone but feebly for them, and\nthe very will was palsied in its motions of recovery.\n\nIn such a state, suppose it confirmed and now threatening towards a\ntotal alienation from the truth once delivered, what could avail to save\nthem? Nothing but affliction in the heaviest form. Vain it was now to\nhope for a cheaper restoration, since the very first lightening of their\njudicial punishment would seem to them a reason for relapsing, by\nseeming to argue that there had been two principles. It was but a false\nalarm, they would say, after all. Affliction, therefore, was past all\nsubstitution or remedy. Yet even this case, this prostration to the\nground, had been met for a thousand years by God's servants.\n\n\nIf I have shown that quickening spirit which, diffusing itself through\nall thoughts, schemata, possible principles, motives of sensibility, and\nforms of taste, has differenced the pre-Christian man from the\npost-Christian; if I have detected that secret word which God subtly\nintroduced into this world, kept in a state of incubation for two\nmillennia, then with the flames and visible agency of a volcanic\nexplosion forced into infinite disruption, caused to kindle into a\ngeneral fire--that word by which sadness is spread over the face of\nthings, but also infinite grandeur--then may I rightly lay this as one\nchapter of my Emendation of Human Knowledge.\n\n\nThe same thing precisely takes place in literature as in spiritual\nthings. When a man is entangled and suffocated in business, all relating\nto that which shrinks up to a point--and observe, I do not mean that\nbeing conceived as a tent above his head it contracts, but that, viewed\nas a body at a distance, it shrinks up to a point, and really vanishes\nas a real thing--when this happens, having no subjective existence at\nall, but purely and intensely objective, he misconceives it just in the\nsame way as a poor ignorant man misconceives learning or knowledge;\nfancying, _e.g._, like Heylius senior, that he ought to know the road\nout of the wood in which they were then entangled.\n\n\nIt is probable that Adam meant only the unity of man as to his nature,\nwhich also is meant by making all men of one blood. Similarly\nBoeckh--[Greek: en genei]--which does not mean that Gods _and_ men are\nthe same, but that of each the separate race has unity in itself. So the\nfirst man, Adam, will mean the earliest race of men, perhaps spread\nthrough thousands of years.\n\n\nIt is a violent case of prejudice, this ordinary appeal of Bossuet,\n'Qu'ont gagne les philosophes avec leurs discours pompeux?' (p. 290).\nNow how _should_ that case have been tried thoroughly before the\nprinting of books? Yet it may be said the Gospel _was_ so tried. True,\nbut without having the power of fully gratifying itself through the\nwhole range of its capability. That was for a later time, hence a new\nproof of its reality.\n\n\n_An Analogy._--1. I have somewhere read that a wicked set of Jews,\nprobably, when rebuked for wickedness, replied, 'What! are we not the\npeculiar people of God? Strange, then, if we may not have a privilege\nmore than others to do wrong!' The wretches fancied that to be the\npeople of God--the chosen people--implied a license to do wrong, and had\na man told them, No, it was just the other way; they were to be better\nthan others, absolutely, they would have trembled with wrath.\n\n2. Precisely the same idea, I am sure, lurks in many minds as to\nrepentance. It is odious to think of, this making God the abettor and\nencourager of evil; but I am sure it is so, viz., that, because God has\nsaid He will have mercy on the penitent, they fancy that, as the chief\nconsequence from that doctrine, they may commit sins without anxiety;\nthough others, not under the Christian privilege, would be called to\naccount for the same sin, penitent or not penitent. But they--such is\ntheir thought--are encouraged to sin by the assurance that repentance\nwill always be open to them, and this they may pursue at leisure.\n\nNow, if a man should say: 'But, my friends, this means _real\npenitence_;' they would reply, 'Oh, but we mean _real penitence_.'\n'Well, if you do, you must know that that is not always possible.' 'Not\npossible!' Then make them understand that; they will roar with wrath,\nand protest against it as no privilege at all.\n\n\nThe literal interpretation of the Mosaic Cosmogony is the very\nexpression of a barbarian mind and people, relying so far on magic as to\nmake all natural process of generation or production impossible, relying\nso far on natural processes as to make the fiat of supreme power\nevidently inapplicable. It is exactly the Minerva of the Pagans draggled\nin her skirts.\n\n\n_Idolatry._--It is not only a mere blind crotchet of Isaiah's\n(Jeremiah's?) to ridicule idols--utterly wide of any real imperfection,\nbut also it misses all that really might be bad. The true evil is not to\nkindle the idea of Apollo by an image or likeness, but to worship\nApollo, _i.e._, a god to be in some sense false--belonging to a system\nconnected with evil. That may be bad; but there can be no separate evil\nin reanimating the idea of this Apollo by a picture.\n\n\nI have observed many times, but never could understand in any rational\nsense, the habit of finding a confirmation of the Bible in mere\narchaeologic facts occasionally brought to light and tallying with the\nBiblical records. As in the Pharaonic and Egyptian usages, and lately in\nthe case of Nimrod, a great collateral confirmation of Ezekiel has been\nfancied. But how? Supposing Ezekiel to have recited accurately the\ndimensions of Nineveh, how should _that_ make him a true prophet? Or\nsupposing him a false one, what motive should that furnish for\nmismeasuring Nineveh? The Gospels appear to have been written long after\nthe events, and when controversies or variations had arisen about them,\nthey have apparently been modified and shaped to meet those disputes.\n\n\n_The sun stands still._ I am persuaded that this means no such\nincredible miracle as is ordinarily imagined. The interpretation arises\nfrom misconceiving an Oriental expression, and a forcible as well as\nnatural one. Of all people the Jews could least mistake the nature of\nthe sun and moon, as though by possibility they could stand in a\nrelation to a particular valley: that the sun could have stood still in\nGibeon, and the moon in Ajalon. Since they viewed sun and moon as two\ngreat lights, adequated and corresponding to day and night, that alone\nshows that they did not mean any objective solstice of the hour, for\nelse why in Ajalon? Naturally it would be a phenomenon chiefly made\nknown to the central sanctity of that God whose miraculous interposition\nhad caused so unknown an arrest of ordinary nature; Jerusalem was not\nthen known, it was Jebus, a city of Jebusites; and the fact which\nsubsequently created its sanctity did not occur till more than four\ncenturies afterwards (viz., on the threshing-floor of Araunah). But\nShiloh existed, and Horeb, and Sinai, and the graves of the Patriarchs.\nAnd all those places would have expounded the reference of the miracle,\nwould have traced it to the very source of its origin; so as to show not\nthen only, not to the contemporaries only, but (which would be much more\nimportant) to after generations, who might suspect some mistake in their\nancestors as explaining their meaning, or in themselves as understanding\nit. What it really means, I am persuaded, is merely to express that the\nday was, of all historical days, the most important. What! do people\nnever reflect on the [Greek: to] positive of their reading? If they\n_did_, they would remember that the very idea of a great cardinal event,\nas of the foundation of the Olympiads, was as an arrest, a pausing, of\ntime; causing you to hang and linger on that time. And the grandeur of\nthis Jewish Waterloo in which God established possessions for His people\nand executed an earthly day of judgment on the ancient polluters\n(through perhaps a thousand years) of the sacred land (already sacred as\nthe abode and burying-place of His first servants under a covenant) was\nexpressed by saying that the day lingered, arrested itself by a burthen\nof glorious revolution so mighty as this great day of overthrow. For\nremember this: Would not God have changed Pharaoh's heart, so\nintractable, by such a miracle, had it been at all open to His eternal\nlaws? Whereas, if you say, Aye, but on that account why grant even so\nmuch distinction to the day as your ancestor does? answer, it was the\n_final-cause_ day.\n\n\nThe English Church pretends to give away the Bible without note or\ncomment, or--which, in fact, is the meaning--any impulse or bias to the\nreader's mind. The monstrous conceit of the Protestant Churches, viz.,\nthe right of private judgment (which is, in effect, like the right to\ntalk nonsense, or the right to criticise Sir John Herschel's books\nwithout mathematics), is thus slavishly honoured. Yet all is deception.\nAlready in the translation at many hundred points she has laid a\nrestraining bias on the reader, already by the division of verses,\nalready by the running abstracts over the Prophets, she has done this.\n\n\nCan the power adequated to a generation of minds, or to a succession of\nmany generations, find its comprehension in an individual? Can the might\nwhich overflows the heaven of heavens be confined within a local\nresidence like that which twice reared itself by its foundations, and\nthree times by its battlements, above the threshing-floor of\nAraunah?[33] Of that mystery, of that local circumscription--in what\nsense it was effected, in what sense not effected, we know nothing. But\nthis by mere human meditation, this profound difficulty we may humanly\nunderstand and measure, viz., the all but impossibility of reaching the\nman who stands removed to an extent of fifteen centuries. But here comes\nin the unspiritual mind which thinks only of facts--yet mark me so far,\nRome by an augury of wicked gods stretched to a period of 1,200 years.\nYet how open to doubt in one sense! Not, I am sure, in any sense\nunderstood by man, but I doubt not in the ominous sense intended.\nChanged in all things essential, she was yet a mighty sceptered potentate\nfor the world until her dependency on Attila's good-will and\nforbearance. 444 after Christ added to 752 B. C. complete the period.\nBut period for what? For whom? For a great idea that could not be lost.\nThe conception could not perish if the execution perished. But, next\nthink of the temptation to _mythus_. And, finally, of God's plan\nunrealized, His conceptions unanswered. We should remember that by the\nconfusion introduced into the economy of internal Divine operations\nthere is a twofold difficulty placed between the prayer and the\nattainment of the prayer. 1st, the deflection, slight though it may seem\nto the man, from the state of perfect simplicity and of natural desire;\n2ndly, the deflection of the object desired from the parallelism with\nthe purposes _now_ became necessary to God in order to remedy\n_abnormous_ shifting of the centre by man. And again, in the question of\nthe language of Scripture, I see the same illustration. Sir William\nJones, in a fit of luxurious pleasure-giving, like Gibbons' foolish\nfit[34] as to the Archbishop of Carthagena, praises the language of\nScripture as unattainable. I say, No. This is hypocrisy. It is no\ndishonour if we say of God that, in the sense meant by Sir William\nJones, it is not possible for Him to speak better than powerful writers\ncan speak. They have the same language as their instrument, and as\nimpossible would it be for Apollonius or Sir William Jones to perform a\nsimple process of addition better than an ordinary keeper of a shop. In\nthe schemata, because in the original ideas, God says indeed what man\ncannot, for these are peculiar to God; but who before myself has shown\nwhat they were? As to mere language, however, and its management, we\nhave the same identically. And when a language labours under an\ninfirmity, as all do, not God Himself could surmount it! He is\ncompromised, coerced, by the elements of language; but what of that? It\nis an element of man's creating. And just as in descending on man by His\nanswers God is defeated or distorted many times by the foul atmosphere\nin which man has thrown himself, so in descending upon the mind (unless\nby dreams, or some language that he may have kept pure), God is thwarted\nand controlled by the imperfections of human language. And, apart from\nthe ideas, I myself could imitate the Scriptural language--I know its\nsecret, its principle of movement which lies chiefly in high\nabstractions--far better than is done in most parts of the Apocrypha.\n\nThe power lies in the spirit--the animating principle; and verily such a\npower seems to exist. And the fact derived from the holiness, the\nrestraints even upon the Almighty's power through His own holiness,\ngoodness, and wisdom, are so vast that, instead of the unlimited power\nwhich hypocritical glorifiers ascribe to Him by way of lip-honour, in\nreaching man _ex-abundantibus_ in so transcendent a way that mere excess\nof means would have perplexed a human choice, on the contrary, I am\npersuaded that besides the gulf of 1,500 years so as to hold on, so as\nto hold hard, and to effect the translation of His will unaltered,\nuncorrupted, through the violent assaults of idolatries all round, and\nthe perverse, headstrong weakness of a naturally unbelieving people,[35]\ndown to the time of Christ from the time of Moses--there was the labour\nhardly to be effected; and why? I have always been astonished at men\ntreating such a case as a simple _original_ problem as to God. But far\notherwise. It was a problem secondary to a change effected by man. His\nrays, His sun, still descended as ever; but when they came near to the\nfoul atmosphere of man, no ray could pierce unstained, unrefracted, or\neven untwisted. It was distorted so as to make it hardly within the\nlimits of human capacity (observe, the difficulty was in the human power\nto receive, to sustain, to comprehend--not in the Divine power to\nradiate, to receive what was directed to it). Often I have reflected on\nthe tremendous gulf of separation placed between man, by his own act,\nand all the Divine blessings which could visit him. (This is illustrated\nby prayer; for, while we think it odd that so many prayers of good men\nfor legitimate objects of prayer should seem to be unanswered, we\nnevertheless act as to our prayers in a kind of unconscious hypocrisy,\nas though to our sense they had been answered in some ineffable way, and\nall the while our conduct, to speak strictly, lies outside all this, and\nremains wholly uninfluenced by it).\n\nThese ideas of God have life only by their own inherent power: yet what\nrisk that Jews should lapse into supposing themselves separately a\nfavoured people? By this very error they committed the rebellion against\nwhich they had been warned--in believing that they only were concerned\nin receiving a supernatural aid of redemption: thus silently\nsubstituting their own merits for the Divine purposes. All which did in\nfact happen. But their errors were overruled, else how could the human\nrace be concerned in their offences, errors, or ministries? The Jews\nforgot what we moderns forget, that they were no separate objects of\nfavour with God, but only a means of favour.\n\nWhat occasion to 'argal-bargal' about why God did not sooner accomplish\nthe scheme of Christianity? For besides that, 1st, possibly the scheme\nin its expansion upon earth required a corresponding expansion\nelsewhere; 2ndly, it is evident even to our human sense that none but\nthe most childish eudamonist, whose notion of happiness is that of lazy\nluxury, would think of cramming men, bidding them open their mouths, and\nat once drugging them with a sensual opium (as all blessing must be\nwithout previous and commensurate elevation to the level of that\nblessing); 3rdly, the physical nature of the evil to be undone was such\nas would not have _been_ (_objectively_ would not have been, but still\nless could it _subjectively_ have been) for the conception of man that\ndreadful mystery which it really is, had the awful introversion been\nmeasured back by fewer steps; 4thly, and finally, it seems at first\nsight shocking to say of God that He cannot do this and this, but it is\nnot so. Without adverting to the dark necessities that compass our\nchaotic sense when we ascend by continual abstraction to the _absolute_,\nwithout entangling ourselves vainly in those wildernesses that no\ncreated intellect can range or measure--even one sole attribute of God,\nHis holiness, makes it as impossible for Him to proceed except by\ncertain steps as it would be impossible for a man, though a free agent,\nand apparently master, as he feels and thinks, of his own life, to cut\nhis throat while in a state of pleasurable health both of mind and\nbody.\n\n\n5.--Political, etc.\n\nSir Robert Walpole, as to patriots, was like a man who has originally,\nfrom his nursery up, been thoroughly imbued with the terror of ghosts,\nwhich by education and example afterwards he has been encouraged to\ndeny. Half he does disbelieve, and, under encouraging circumstances, he\ndoes disbelieve it stoutly. But at every fresh plausible alarm his early\nfaith intrudes with bitter hatred against a class of appearances that,\nafter all, he is upon system pledged to hold false. Nothing can be more\nludicrous than his outcry, and his lashing of his own tail to excite his\ncourage and his wrath and his denial--than his challenge of the lurking\npatriots in what he conceives the matter of frauds on the revenue. He\nassaults them as if he saw them standing in a row behind the door, and\nyet he pummels them for being mere men of the shades--horrible\nmockeries. Had there been any truth in their existence, surely, so\nstrongly as they muster by their own report, some one or other of this\nfact should have given me warning--should have exposed the frauds. But\nno, all are silent as the grave. But here Sir Robert Walpole is as much\nwrong as if, doubting the value or power of Methodist preachers, he\nshould make it the test of their useful existence that, as often as a\nhighwayman, a footpad, started out of the wayside, from the other side\nshould start a Methodist preacher to reason with him and to convert\nhim.\n\n\nAre the Whigs less aristocratic than the Tories? Not at all. In tendency\nby principle they are the same. The real difference is not in the creed,\nin the groundwork, but in certain points of practice and method.\n\n\n'He took his stand upon the truth'--said by me of Sir Robert Peel--might\nseem to argue a lower use of '_the_ truth,' but in fact it is as happens\nto the article _the_ itself: you say _the_ guard, speaking of a coach;\n_the_ key, speaking of a trunk or watch, _i.e._, _the_ as by usage\nappropriated to every coach, watch, trunk. So here the truth, namely, of\nthe particular perplexity.\n\n\nThe Sepoy mutiny will be best understood if you suppose the Roman\nemperors, from Romulus to Augustus, from the Alban Fathers down to the\nOstrogoths--the whole line of a thousand years crowded into two.\n\n\nTrunkmakers may be great men: they clearly have the upper hand of\nauthors whom all the world admits to be great men. For the trunkmaker is\nthe _principal_ in the concern--he makes the trunk, whereas the author,\nquite a secondary artist, furnishes only the linings.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Case of Casuistry._--Wraxall justly notices that errors like Prince\nRupert's from excess of courage, however ruinous, are never resented by\na country. _Ergo_ the inference that prudence would be, always if in\nByng's or Lord St. German's cases, in a matter of doubt held to be bold\nfighting; and yet in morals is that an allowable position?\n\n\n6.--Personal Confessions, etc.\n\nAvaunt, ye hypocrites! who make a whining pretence, according to a fixed\nrule, of verbally uttering thanks to God for every chastisement, and who\nsay this is good for you. So do not I, being upright, and God seeing my\nheart, who also sees that I murmur not; but if it were not good in the\nend, yet I submit. He is not offended that with upright sincerity I give\nno thanks for it. And I say that, unless a man perceives the particular\nway in which it has been good for him, he cannot sincerely, truly, or so\nas not to mock God with his lips, give thanks simply on an _a priori_\nprinciple, though, of course, he may submit in humbleness.\n\n\nI do not believe that the faith of any man in the apparent fact that he\nwill never again see such a person (_i.e._, by being removed by death)\nis real. I believe that the degree of faith in this respect is regulated\nby an original setting or fixing of our nature quite unconscious to\nourselves. So, again, I believe that hope is never utterly withdrawn,\ndespair is never absolute. And again, I believe that, at the lowest\nnadir, the resource of dying as a means of escape and translation to new\nchances and openings is lodged in every man far down below the\nsunlights of consciousness. He feels that his death is not final; were\nit otherwise he could not rush at the escape so lightly. Indeed, were\nhis fate fixed immutably, I feel that it would not have been left\npossible for him to commit suicide.\n\n\n_Justice._--You say in the usual spirit of vanity, Y or X has the same\ndegree of the spirit of justice as V. This is easily said, but the test\nis, what will he _do_ for it? Suppose a man to propose rewards\nexclusively to those who assisted at a fire, then X and Y, suppose, have\nequally seen that many did _not_ assist, even refused to do so. But X\nperhaps will shrink from exposing them; V will encounter any hatred for\ntruth and justice by exposing the undeserving.\n\n\nIt is a foolish thing to say 'Hard words break no bones.' How impossible\nto call up from the depths of forgotten times all the unjust or shocking\ninsinuations, all the scornful refusals to understand one aright, etc.\nBut surely an injury is nothing to them; for that may be measured, made\nsensible, and cannot be forgotten, whereas the other case is like the\ndispute, 'Is he wrong as a _poet_?' compared with this, 'Is he wrong as\na _geometrician_?' There need be no anger with the latter dispute; it is\ncapable of decision.\n\n\nThen, again, a heart so lacerated is required by Christianity to forgive\nthe lacerator. Hard it is to do, and imperfectly it is ever done, except\nthrough the unbuckling of human nature under higher inspirations\n_working together with time_.\n\n\nInstead of being any compliment it is the most profound insult, the\nidea one can write something rapidly. It is no homage to the writer; it\nis villainous insensibility to the written.\n\n\nTwo subjects of stories occur to me. 1. For my Arabian tales, founded on\nthe story of the Minyas Treasure-House at Orchomenus. 2. Another of an\nabbess, who was such by dispensation, but had been married; her\naccomplished son succeeds in carrying off a nun. She labours for the\ndiscovery and punishment of the unknown criminal, till she learns who he\nis; then parting from him for ever in the early dawn, she, sacrificing\nto a love that for her was to produce only hatred and the total\ndestruction of the total hopes of her ageing life. Splendide Mendax! and\nthe more angel she.\n\n\nI find the double effect as the reason of my now reading again with\nprofit every book, however often read in earlier times, that by and\nthrough my greater knowledge and the more numerous questions growing out\nof that knowledge, I have deeper interest, and by and through this\ndeeper interest I have a value put upon those questions, and I have\nother questions supervening through the interest alone. The interest is\nincarnated in the wider knowledge; the knowledge is incarnated in the\ninterest, or at least the curiosity and questions.\n\n\nUpon trying to imprint upon my memory that at such a period the Argives\nceased to be called Pelasgi, and were henceforward called Danai, I felt\nhow impracticable (and doubtless in their degree injurious, for though\nan infinitesimal injury only as regards any single act doubtless, yet,\n_per se_, by tendency doubtless all blank efforts of the memory\nunsupported by the understanding are bad), must be any violent efforts\nof the memory not falling in with a previous preparedness.\n\n\n_Music._--I am satisfied that music involves a far greater mystery than\nwe are aware of. It is that universal language which binds together all\ncreatures, and binds them by a profounder part of their nature than\nanything merely intellectual ever could.\n\n\nIt is remarkable (as proving to me the delibility of caste) that the\nSudras of Central India, during its vast confusions under the Mahrattas\nhave endeavoured to pass themselves for descendants of the Kshatriyas\n(or warrior caste) by assuming the sacred thread, also assumed by the\nRajpoots, and also by some of the Sikhs.\n\n\nI never see a vast crowd of faces--at theatres, races, reviews--but one\nthing makes them sublime to me: the fact that all these people have to\ndie. Strange it is that this multitude of people, so many of them\nintellectually, but also (which is worse) morally, blind, are without\nforethought or sense of the realities of life.\n\n\nThough I love fun, eternal jesting, buffoonery, punning absolutely kills\nme. Such things derive all their value from being made to intervene well\nwith other things.\n\n\nThis is curious:\n\n    Shame, pain, and poverty shall I endure,\n    When ropes or opium can my ease procure?\n\nThis offends nobody, not till you say, 'I'll buy a rope.' But now:\n\n    When money's gone, and I no debts can pay,\n    _Self-murder_ is an honourable way--\n\nthough the same essentially, this shocks all men.\n\n\nI have in the course of my misfortunes fasted for thirty years: a\ndreadful fate, if it had been to come. But, being past, it is lawful to\nregard it with satisfaction, as having, like all fasting and\nmortification, sharpened to an excruciating degree my intellectual\nfaculties. Hence my love and even furor now for mathematics, from which\nin my youth I fled.\n\n\nThe _Arrow Ketch_, six guns, is recorded in the _Edinburgh Advertiser_\nfor June 14th, 1844, as having returned home (to Portsmouth) on\nThursday, June 7th, 'after six years and upwards in commission,' most of\nit surveying the Falkland Islands; 'has lost only two men during this\nlong service, and those from natural causes;' 'never lost a spar, and\nhas ploughed the ocean for upwards of 100,000 miles.'\n\n\nAnecdotes from _Edinburgh Advertiser_, for June and May. The dog of a\nboy that died paralytic from grief. Little child run over by railway\nwaggon and horse, clapping its hands when the shadow passed away,\nleaving it unhurt. Little girl of six committing suicide from fear of a\nstepmother's wrath.\n\n\nTo note the dire reactions (?) of evils: young thieves growing to old\nones, no sewers, damp, famine-engendering, desolating and wasting\nplagues or typhus fever, want of granaries or mendacious violence\ndestroying food, civil feuds coming round in internecine wars, and\ngeneral desolations, and, as in Persia, eight millions occupying the\nhomesteads of three hundred millions. Here, if anywhere, is seen the\nalmighty reactions through which the cycle of human life, oscillating,\nmoves.\n\n\nIn the speech of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh (reported on June 14th,\n1844), it is recited that boys 'left to stroll about the streets and\ncloses,' acquire habits so fixed, if not of vice, at least of idleness,\nthat in consequence of their not being trained to some kind of\ndiscipline in their early years, the habit of vagabondizing acquires\nsuch power that it is uncontrollable. And how apt and forcible was that\nquotation in the place assigned it: 'If thou forbear to deliver them\nthat are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; if thou\nsayest, _Behold, we knew it not_, doth not He that pondereth the heart,\nconsider it?'--consider it, regard it, make account of it.\n\n\n_Manners._--The making game of a servant before company--a thing\nimpossible to well-bred people. Now observe how this is illustrative of\nH---- Street.\n\n\nI confess myself wholly at a loss to comprehend the objections of the\nWestminster reviewer and even of my friend Dr. Nichol, to my commentary\non the strange appearance in Orion. The reviewer says that this\nappearance (on which he seems to find my language incomprehensible) had\nbeen dispersed by Lord Rosse's telescope. True, or at least so I hear.\nBut for all this, it was originally created by that telescope. It was\nin the interval between the first report and the subsequent reports\nfrom Lord Rosse's telescope that I made my commentary. But in the case\nof contradiction between two reports, more accurate report I have not.\nAs regards the reviewer, there had been no time for this, because the\nbook, which he reviews, is a simple reprint in America, which he knows I\nhad had no opportunity of revising. But Dr. Nichol perplexes me. That a\nnew stage of progress had altered the appearances, as doubtless further\nstages will alter them, concerns me nothing, though referring to a\ncoming republication; for both alike apparently misunderstood the case\nas though it required a _real_ phenomenon for its basis. To understand\nthe matter as it really is, I beg to state this case. Wordsworth in at\nleast four different places (one being in the fourth book of 'The\nExcursion,' three others in Sonnets) describes most impressive\nappearances amongst the clouds: a monster, for instance, with a\nbell-hanging air, a dragon agape to swallow a golden spear, and various\nothers of affecting beauty. Would it have been any just rebuke to\nWordsworth if some friend had written to him: 'I regret most sincerely\nto say that the dragon and the golden spear had all vanished before nine\no'clock'? So, again, of Hawthorne's face on a rock. The very beauty of\nsuch appearances is in part their evanescence.\n\n\nTo be or _not_ to be. 'Not to be, by G----' said Garrick. This is to be\ncited in relation to Pope's--\n\n    'Man never is, but always to be blessed.'\n\n\n_Political Economy._--Which of these two courses shall I take? 1. Shall\nI revise, extend, condense my logic of Political Economy, embodying\nevery doctrine (and numbering them) which I have amended or\nre-positioned, and introduce them thus in a letter to the\nPolitico-Economical Society: 'Gentlemen, certain ideas fundamental to\nPolitical Economy I presented in a book in the endeavour to effect a\ncertain purpose. These were too much intermingled with less elementary\nideas in consequence of my defective self-command from a dreadful\nnervous idea, and thus by interweaving they were overlapped and lost.\nBut I am not disposed to submit to that wrong. I affirm steadily that\nthe foundations of Political Economy are rotten and crazy. I defy, and\ntaking up my stand as a scholar of Aristotle, I defy all men to gainsay\nthe following exposures of folly, one or any of them. And when I show\nthe darkness all round the very base of the hill, all readers may judge\nhow great is that darkness.' Or, 2. Shall I introduce them as a chapter\nin my Logic?\n\n\n7.--PAGAN LITERATURE.\n\nWe must never forget, that it is not _impar_ merely, but also _dispar_.\nAnd such is its value in this light, that I protest five hundred kings'\nransoms, nay, any sum conceivable as a common contribution from all\nnations would not be too much for the infinite treasure of the Greek\ntragic drama alone. Is it superior to our own? No, nor (so far as\ncapable of collation) not by many degrees approaching to it. And were\nthe case, therefore, one merely of degrees, there would be no room for\nthe pleasure I express. But it shows us the ultimatum of the human mind\nmutilated and castrated of its infinities, and (what is worse) of its\nmoral infinities.\n\nYou must imagine not only everything which there is dreadful in fact,\nbut everything which there is mysterious to the imagination in the\npariah condition, before you can approach the Heracleidae. Yet, even with\nthis pariah, how poorly do most men conceive it as nothing more than a\ncivil, a police, an economic affair!\n\n\nValckenaer, an admirable Greek scholar, was not a man of fine\nunderstanding; nor, to say the truth, was Porson. Indeed, it is\nremarkable how mean, vulgar, and uncapacious has been the range of\nintellect in many first-rate Grecians; though, on the other hand, the\nreader would deeply deceive himself if he should imagine that Greek is\nan attainment other than difficult, laborious, and requiring exemplary\ntalents. Greek taken singly is, to use an indispensable Latin word,\n_instar_, the knowledge of all other languages. But men of the highest\ntalents have often beggarly understandings. Hence, in the case of\nValckenaer, we must derive the contradictions in his diatribe. He\npractises this intolerable artifice; he calls himself [Greek:\nphilenripideios]; bespeaks an unfair confidence from the reader; he\ntakes credit for being once disposed to favour and indulge Euripides. In\nthis way he accredits to the careless reader all the false charges or\nbaseless concessions which he makes on any question between Euripides\nand his rivals. Such men as Valckenaer it is who are biased and\ninflected beforehand, without perceiving it, by all the commonplaces of\ncriticism. These, it is true, do not arise out of mere shadows. Usually\nthey have a foundation in some fact or modification. What they fail in\nis, in the just interpretation of these truths, and in the reading of\ntheir higher relations. 'The Correggiosity of Correggio' was precisely\nmeant for Valckenaer. The Sophocleity of Sophocles he is keen to\nrecognise, and the superiority of Sophocles as an artist is undeniable;\nnor is it an advantage difficult to detect. On the other hand, to be\nmore Homeric than Homer is no praise for a tragic poet. It is far more\njust, pertinent praise, it is a ground of far more interesting praise,\nthat Euripides is granted by his undervalues to be the most _tragic_\n([Greek: tragichotatos]) of tragic poets. After that he can afford to\nlet Sophocles be '[Greek: Homerichotos], who, after all, is not '[Greek:\nHomerichotutos], so long as AEschylus survives. But even so far we are\nvaluing Euripides as a poet. In another character, as a philosopher, as\na large capacious thinker, as a master of pensive and sorrow-tainted\nwisdom, as a large reviewer of human life, he is as much beyond all\nrivalship from his scenic brethren as he is below one of them as a\nscenic artist.\n\nIs the Nile ancient? So is Homer. Is the Nile remote and hiding its head\nin fable? So is Homer. Is the Nile the diffusive benefactor of the\nworld? So is Homer.[36]\n\n_The AEneid._--It is not any supposed excellence that has embalmed this\npoem; but the enshrining of the differential Roman principle (the grand\naspiring character of resolution), all referred to the central principle\nof the aggrandizement of Rome.\n\nThe sublime of wrath is nowhere exhibited so well as in Juvenal. Yet in\nJuvenal pretty glimpses of rural rest--\n\n    '... infans cum collusore catello.'[37]\n\nThat is pretty! There is another which comes to my mind and suggests his\nrising up and laying aside, etc., and shows it to be an _occasional_\nact, and, _ergo_, his garden is but a relaxation, amusement.\n\nGlances which the haughty eyes of Rome threw sometimes gently and\nrelentingly aside on man or woman, children or the flowers.\n\nHerodotus is as sceptical as Plutarch is credulous. How often is _now_\nand _at this time_ applied to the fictitious present of the author,\nwhilst a man arguing generally beforehand would say that surely a man\ncould always distinguish between _now_ and _then_.\n\n\n\n\n8.--HISTORICAL, ETC.\n\n\n_Growth of the House of Commons._--The House of Commons was the power of\nthe purse, and what gave its emphasis to that power? Simply the growing\nnecessity of standing forces, and the growing increase of war, so that\nnow out of twenty millions, fifteen are applied to army and navy.\n\nOne great evil, as in practice it had begun to show itself, pressed with\nequal injustice on the party who suffered from it (viz., the nation),\nand the party who seemed to reap its benefit. This was the fact that as\nyet no separation had taken place between the royal peculiar revenue,\nand that of the nation. The advance of the nation was now (1603, 1st of\nJames I.) approaching to the point which made the evil oppression, and\nyet had not absolutely reached the point at which it could be undeniably\nperceived. Much contest and debate divided the stage of incipient evil\nfrom the stage of confessed grievance. In spending L100,000 upon a\nsingle fete, James I. might reasonably allege that he misapplied, at any\nrate, his own funds. Wise or not, the act concerned his own private\nhousehold. Yet, on the other hand, in the case of money _really_ public,\nthe confusion of the two expenditures invited and veiled the transfer\nof much from national objects that could wait, and were, at any rate,\nhidden from effectual scrutiny to the private objects which tempted the\nking's profusion. When Mr. Macaulay speaks so often of England sinking\nunder this or that Stuart to a third-rate power, he is anachronizing.\nThere was no scale of powers. Want of roads and intercommunication\nforbade it. And hence until the Thirty Years' War there was no general\nwar. Austria, as by fiction the Roman Empire, and always standing\nawfully near to North Italy, had a natural relation and gravitation\ntowards Rome. France, by vainglory and the old literary pretensions of\nAnjou, had also a balancing claim upon Italy. Milanese formed indeed (as\nFlanders afterwards) the rendezvous for the two powers. Otherwise, only\nAustria and Spain (and Spain not till joined to Austria) and France--as\ngreat powers that touched each other in many points--had ever formed a\nwarlike trio. No quadrille had existed until the great civil war for\nlife and death between Popery and Protestantism. It was another great\nevil that the functions towards which, by inevitable instincts and\ntendency of progress, the House of Commons was continually\ntravelling,--not, I repeat, through any encroaching spirit as the Court\nand that House of Commons itself partially fancied,--were not yet\ndeveloped: false laws of men, _i.e._, laws framed under theories\nmisunderstood of rights and constitutional powers, having as much\ndistorted the true natural play of the organic manifestation and\ntendency towards a whole, as ever a dress too tight, or a flower-pot too\nnarrow, impeded the development of child or plant. Queen Elizabeth,\ntherefore, always viewed the House of Commons as a disturber of the\npublic peace, as a mutineer and insurrectionist, when any special\naccident threw it upon its natural function; she spoke of State\naffairs, and especially of foreign affairs, as beyond their\n'_capacity_,' which expression, however, must in charity be interpreted\nphilosophically as meaning the range of comprehension consistent with\ntheir _total_ means of instruction and preparation, including,\ntherefore, secret information, knowledge of disposable home resources as\nknown to the official depositaries of State secrets, etc., and not, as\nthe modern reader will understand it, simply and exclusively the\nintellectual power of appreciation. Since, with all her disposition to\nexalt the qualities of princely persons, she could not be so absurdly\nhaughty as to claim for princes and the counsellors whom interest or\nbirth had suggested to them a precedency in pure natural endowments.\n\nCharles was a sincere believer but not an earnest believer of the Roman\nCatholic faith. James was both sincere and preternaturally earnest.\n\n\n_The Reformation._--This seems to show two things: 1st, that a deep\nsearching and 'sagacious-from-afar' spirit of morality can mould itself\nunder the prompting of Christianity, such as could not have grown up\nunder Paganism. For it was the abominations in point of morality (_en\nfait de moralite?_)--indulgences, the confessional, absolution, the\nprevalence of a mere ritual--the usurpation of forms--these it was which\nRome treated violently; and if she draw in her horns for the present,\nstill upon any occasion offering, upon the cloud of peril passing away,\nclearly she would renew her conduct. It was a tendency violently and\ninevitably belonging to the Roman polity combined with the Roman\ninterest, unless, perhaps, as permanently controlled by a\ncounter-force. 2ndly, the synthesis of this curative force is by\napposition of parts separately hardly conscious of the danger or even of\ntheir own act. For we cannot suppose the vast body of opposition put\nforward was so under direct conscious appreciation of the evil and by an\nadequate counter-action--doubtless it was by sympathy with others having\nbetter information. These last burned more vividly as the evil was\nfiercer. That more vivid sympathy drew increase of supporters.\n\n\n_Memorandum._--In my historical sketches not to forget the period of\nwoe, _anterior_ to the Siege of Jerusalem, which Josephus describes as\noccurring in all the Grecian cities, but which is so unaccountably\noverlooked by historians.\n\nThe rule is to speak like the foolish, and think like the wise, and\ntherefore I agree to call our worthy old mother 'little'--our 'little\nisland'--as that seems to be the prevailing notion; otherwise I myself\nconsider Great Britain rather a tall island. A man is not called short\nbecause some few of his countrymen happen to be a trifle taller; and\nreally I know but of two islands, among tens of thousands counted up by\ngazetteers on our planet, that are taller; and I fancy, with such\nfigures as theirs, they are neither of them likely to think of any\nrivalship with our dear old mother. What island, for instance, would\nchoose to be such a great fat beast as Borneo, as broad as she is long,\nwith no apology for a waist? Talk of lacing too tight, indeed! I'm sure\nBorneo does not injure herself in that way. Now our mother, though she's\nold, and has gone through a world of trouble in her time, is as jimp\nabout the waist as a young lass of seventeen. Look at her on any map of\nEurope, and she's quite a picture. It's an old remark that the general\noutline of the dear creature exactly resembles a lady sitting. She turns\nher back upon the Continent, no doubt, and that's what makes those\nforeigneering rascals talk so much of her pride. But she _must_ turn her\nback upon somebody, and who is it that should have the benefit of her\ncountenance, if not those people in the far West that are come of her\nown blood? They say she's 'tetyy' also. Well, then, if she is, you let\nher alone, good people of the Continent. She'll not meddle with you if\nyou don't meddle with her. She's kind enough, and, as to her person, I\ndo maintain that she's quite tall enough, rather thin, it's true, but,\non the whole, a bonny, elegant, dear old fighting mamma.\n\n\n_Mora Alexandrina._--Note on Middleton's affected sneer. A villa of\nCicero's, where probably the usual sound heard would be the groans of\ntormented slaves, had been changed for the cells of Christian monks. Now\nmark: what the hound Middleton means is, how shocking to literary\nsensibilities that where an elegant master of Latinity had lived, there\nshould succeed dull, lazy monks, writing (if they wrote at all) in a\nbarbarous style, and dreaming away their lives in torpor. Now permit me\nto pause a little. This is one of those sneers which Paley[38] and\nBishop Butler[39] think so unanswerable, that we must necessarily lie\ndown and let the sneer ride rough-shod over us all. Let us see, and for\nthis reason, reader, do not grudge a little delay, especially as you may\n'skip' it.\n\nDr. Conyers ought to have remembered, in the first place, that the villa\ncould not long remain in the hands of Cicero. Another owner would\nsucceed, and then the chances would be that the sounds oftenest\nascending in the hour of sunset or in the cool of the dawn would be the\nshrieks of slaves under torture. By their own poor miserable fare\ncontrasted with the splendour reeking around them, these slaves had a\nmotive, such as our tenderly-treated (often pampered) servants can never\nknow the strength of, for breaking the seal of any wine cask. From the\nanecdote told of his own mother by the wretched Quintus Cicero, the foul\nbrother of Marcus, it appears that generally there was some\nencouragement to do this, on the chance of 'working down' on the master\nthat the violated seal had been amongst the casks legitimately opened.\nFor it seems that old Mrs. Cicero's housewifely plan was to seal up all\nalike, empty and not empty. Consequently with her no such excuse could\navail. Which proves that often it _did_ avail, since her stratagem is\nmentioned as a very notable artifice. What follows? Why, that the slave\nwas doubly tempted: 1st, by the luxury he witnessed; 2ndly, by the\nimpunity on which he might calculate. Often he escaped by sheer weight\nof metal in lying. Like Chaucer's miller, he swore, when charged with\nstealing flour, that it was not so. But this very prospect and\nlikelihood of escape was often the very snare for tempting to excesses\ntoo flagrant or where secret marks had been fixed. Besides, many other\nopenings there were, according to the individual circumstances, but this\nwas a standing one, for tempting the poor unprincipled slave into\ntrespass that irritated either the master or the mistress. And then came\nthose periodical lacerations and ascending groans which Seneca mentions\nas the best means of telling what o'clock it was in various households,\nsince the punishments were going on just at that hour.\n\nAfter, when the gracious revolution of Christianity had taught us, and\nby a memento so solemn and imperishable, no longer to pursue our human\nwrath, that hour of vesper sanctity had come, which, by the tendency of\nthe Christian law and according to the degree in which it is observed,\nis for us a type and a symbol and a hieroglyphic of wrath extinguished,\nof self-conquest, of charity in heaven and on earth.\n\nNow, the monks, it is supposable, might be commonplace drones. Often,\nhowever, they would be far other, transmitters by their copying toils of\nthose very Ciceronian works which, but for them, would have perished.\nAnd pausing duly here, what sense, what propriety would there be in\ncalling on the reader to notice with a shock the profanation of\nclassical ground in such an example as this: 'Mark the strange\nrevolutions of ages; there, where once the divine Plato's Academus\nstood, now rises a huge printing-house chiefly occupied for the last two\nyears in reprinting Plato's works.' Why, really Plato himself would look\ngraciously on that revolution, Master Conyers. But next, the dullest of\nthese monks would hear the Gloria in Excelsis.\n\n\nOh, how pitiful it is to hear B---- alleging against Mahomet that he had\ndone no public miracles. What? Would it, then, alter your opinion of\nMahomet if he _had_ done miracles? What a proof, how full, how perfect!\nThat Christianity, in spirit, in power, in simplicity, and in truth, had\nno more hold over B---- than it had over any Pagan Pontiff in Rome, is\nclear to me from that. So, then, the argument against Mahomet is not\nthat he wants utterly the meekness--wants? wants? No, that he utterly\nhates the humility, the love that is stronger than the grave, the purity\nthat cannot be imagined, the holiness as an ideal for man that cannot be\napproached, the peace that passeth all understanding, that power which\nout of a little cloud no bigger than a man's hand grows for ever and\never until it will absorb the world and all that it inherit, that first\nof all created the terror of death and the wormy grave; but that first\nand last she might triumph over time--not these, it seems by B----, are\nthe arguments against Mahomet, but that he did not play legerdemain\ntricks, that he did not turn a cow into a horse!\n\nIn which position B---- is precisely on a level with those Arab Sheikhs,\nor perhaps Mamelukes, whom Napoleon so foolishly endeavoured to surprise\nby Chinese tricks: 'Aye, all this is very well, but can you make one to\nbe in Cairo and in Damascus at the same moment?' demanded the poor\nbrutalized wretches. And so also for B---- it is nothing. Oh, blind of\nheart not to perceive that the defect was entirely owing to the age.\nMahomet came to a most sceptical region. There was no semblance or\nshadow among the Arabs of that childish credulity which forms the\natmosphere for miracle. On the contrary, they were a hard, fierce\npeople, and in that sense barbarous; but otherwise they were sceptical,\nas is most evident from all that they accomplished, which followed the\nfoundation of Islamism. Here lies the delusion upon that point. The\nArabs were evidently like all the surrounding nations. They were also\nmuch distinguished among all Oriental peoples for courage. This fact has\nbeen put on record in (1) the East Indies, where all the Arab troops\nhave proved themselves by far more formidable than twelve times the\nnumber of effeminate Bengalese and Mahrattas, etc. (2) At Aden, where as\nrude fighters without the science of war they have been most ugly\ncustomers. (3) In Algeria, where the French, with all advantage of\ndiscipline, science, artillery, have found it a most trying and\nexhausting war. Well, as they are now, so they were before Mahomet, and\njust then they were ripe for conquest. But they wanted a _combining_\nmotive and a _justifying_ motive. Mahomet supplied both these. Says he,\n'All nations are idolaters; go and thrust them into the mill that they\nmay be transformed to our likeness.'\n\nConsequently, the great idea of the truth, of a truth transcending all\navailable rights on the other side, was foreign to Mahometanism, and any\nglimmering of this that may seem to be found in it was borrowed, was\nfilched from Christianity.\n\n\n9.--LITERARY.\n\nThe three greatest powers which we know of in moulding human feelings\nare, first, Christianity; secondly, the actions of men emblazoned by\nhistory; and, in the third place, poetry. If the first were represented\nto the imagination by the atmospheric air investing our planet, which we\ntake to be the most awful laboratory of powers--mysterious, unseen, and\nabsolutely infinite--the second might be represented by the winds, and\nthe third by lightning. Napoleon and Lord Byron have done more mischief\nto the moral feelings, to the truth of all moral estimates, to the\ngrandeur and magnanimity of man, in this present generation, than all\nother causes acting together. But how? Simply by throwing human feelings\ninto false combinations. Both of them linked the mean to the grand, the\nbase to the noble, in a way which often proves fatally inextricable to\nthe poor infirm mind of the ordinary spectator. Here is Napoleon, simply\nbecause he wields a vast national machinery, throwing a magic of\ncelerity and power into a particular action which absolutely overpowers\nthe _genus attonitorum_, so that they are reconciled by the dazzle of a\nsplendour not at all _in_ Napoleon, to a baseness which really _is_ in\nNapoleon. The man that never praised an enemy is shown to this vile mob\nby the light thrown off from the radiant power of France as the greatest\nof men; he is confounded with his supporting element, even as the\nJupiter Olympus of Phidias, that never spared a woman in his lust,\nseemed the holiest of deities when his rottenness was concealed by ivory\nand gold, and his libidinous head was lighted up by sunbeams from above.\nHere is Lord Byron connecting, in the portrait of some poor melodramatic\nhero possibly, some noble quality of courage or perseverance with scorn\nthe most puerile and senseless. Prone enough is poor degraded human\nnature to find something grand in scorn; but, after this arbitrary\ncombination of Lord Byron's, never again does the poor man think of\nscorn but it suggests to him moral greatness, nor think of greatness but\nit suggests scorn as its indispensable condition.\n\n\nWordsworth is always recording phenomena as they are enjoyed; Coleridge\nas they reconcile themselves with opposing or conflicting phenomena.\n\n\nW. W.'s social philosophy is surely shallow. It is true the man who has\na shallow philosophy under the guidance of Christianity has a profound\nphilosophy. But this apart, such truths as 'He who made the creature\nwill allow for his frailties,' etc., are commonplace.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n_Invention as a Characteristic of Poets._--I happened this evening\n(Saturday, August 3rd, '44) to be saying of W. W. to myself: 'No poet is\nso free from all cases like this, viz., where all the feelings and\nspontaneous thoughts which they have accumulated coming to an end, and\nyet the case seeming to require more to finish it, or bring it round,\nlike a peal of church bells, they are forced to invent, and form\ndescants on raptures never really felt. Suddenly this suggested that\ninvention, therefore, so far from being a differential quality of\npoetry, was, in fact, the polar opposite, spontaneousness being the true\nquality.\n\n\n_Tragedy._--I believe it is a very useful thing to let young persons\ncultivate their kind feelings by repeated indulgences. Thus my children\noften asked when anything was to be paid or given to any person, that\nthey might have the satisfaction of giving it. So I see clearly that\nyoung boys or girls allowed to carry abroad their infant brothers and\nsisters, when the little creature feels and manifests a real dependence\nupon them in every act and movement, which _matre praesente_ they would\nnot have done, which again seen and felt calls out every latent goodness\nof the elder child's heart. So again (here I have clipped out the case).\nHowever, feeding rabbits, but above all the action upon women's hearts\nin the enormous expansion given by the relation to their own children,\ndevelops a feeling of tenderness that afterwards sets the model for the\nworld, and would die away, or freeze, or degenerate, if it were\ngenerally balked. Now just such an action has tragedy, and if the\nsympathy with calamities caused to noble natures by ignobler, or by dark\nfates, were never opened or moved or called out, it would slumber\ninertly, it would rust, and become far less ready to respond upon any\ncall being made. Such sensibilities are not consciously known to the\npossessor until developed.\n\n\n_Punctuation._--Suppose an ordinary case where the involution of clauses\nwent three deep, and that each was equally marked off by commas, now I\nsay that so far from aiding the logic it would require an immense effort\nto distribute the relations of logic. But the very purpose and use of\npoints is to aid the logic. If indeed you could see the points at all in\nthis relation\n\n              strophe                     antistrophe\n      1     2     3                    3     2    1\n    ----, ----, ----,       apodosis ----, ----, ----,\n\nthen indeed all would be clear, but the six commas will and must be\nviewed by every reader unversed in the logical mechanism of sentences as\nmerely a succession of ictuses, so many minute-guns having no internal\nsystem of correspondence, but merely repeating and reiterating each\nother, exactly as in men, guns, horses, timbrels, baggage-waggons,\nstandards.\n\n\n_Sheridan's Disputatiousness._--I never heard of any case in the whole\ncourse of my life where disputatiousness was the author of any benefit\nto man or beast, excepting always one, in which it became a storm anchor\nfor poor Sheridan, saving him from sudden shipwreck. This may be found\nin Mr. Moore's life, somewhere about the date of 1790, and in chapter\nxiii. The book is thirty-seven miles off, which is too far to send for\nwater, or for scandal, or even for 'extract,' though I'm 'fond of\nextract.' Therefore, in default of Mr. Moore's version, I give my own.\nThe situation was this: Sheridan had been cruising from breakfast to\ndinner amongst Jews, Christians, and players (men, women, and\nHerveys),[40] and constantly in the same hackney coach, so that the\nfreight at last settled like the sand-heap of an hour-glass into a\nfrightful record of costly moments. _Pereunt et imputantur_, say some\nimpertinent time-pieces, in speaking of the hours. They perish and are\ndebited to our account. Yes, and what made it worse, the creditor was an\ninexorable old Jarvie, who, though himself a creditor, had never heard\nthe idea of credit. A guinea might be owing, and Sheridan, seldom\nremembering his purse, had but a shilling, which even in a court of\nIrish law seemed too small a compromise to offer. Black looked the\nhorizon, stormy the offing, and night was coming on, whilst the port of\nconsignment was now within thirty minutes' sail. Suddenly a sight of joy\nwas described. Driving before the wind, on bare poles, was a well-known\nfriend of Sheridan's, Richardson, famed for various talent, but also for\nan invincible headlong necessity of disputing. To pull the check-string,\nto take his friend on board, and to rush into fierce polemic\nconversation was the work of a moment for Sheridan. He well understood\nwith this familiar friend how to bring on a hot dispute. In three\nminutes it raged, yard-arm to yard-arm. Both grew warm. Sheridan grew\npurple with rage. Violently interrupting Richardson, he said: 'And these\nare your real sentiments?' Richardson with solemnity and artificial\nrestraint replied: 'Most solemnly they are.' 'And you stand to them, and\nwill maintain them?' 'I will,' said Richardson, with menacing solemnity\nand even mournfulness. 'I will to my dying day.' 'Then,' said Sheridan\nfuriously, 'I'm hanged if I'll stay another minute with a man capable of\nsuch abominable opinions!' Bang went the door, out he bounced, and\nRichardson, keeping his seat, pursued him with triumphant explosions.\n'Ah, wretch! what? you can't bear the truth. You're obliged to hate the\ntruth. That is why you cut and run before it. Huzza! Mr. Sheridan, M.\nP. for Stafford, runs like a hare for fear that he should hear the\ntruth.' Precisely so, the truth it was that he ran from. The truth at\nthis particular moment was too painful to his heart. Sheridan had fled;\nthe awful truth amounted to eighteen shillings.\n\nYes, virtuous Richardson, you were right; truth it was that he fled\nfrom; truth had just then become too painful to his infirm mind,\nalthough it was useless to tell him so, as by this time he was out of\nhearing. 'Yes,' said Richardson meditatively to himself, 'the truth has\nat last become insupportable to this unhappy man.' Right, it _had_ so.\nAnd in one minute more it became insupportable even to the virtuous\nRichardson, when the coachman revealed the odious extent of the truth,\nviz., that the fare now amounted to two-and-twenty shillings.\n\nAs I hate everything that the people love, and above all the odious\nlevity with which they adopt every groundless anecdote, especially where\nit happens to be calumnious, I beg not to be supposed a believer in the\ncommon stories current about Sheridan's carelessness of pecuniary\nobligations. So far from 'never paying,' which is what public slander\nhas not ceased to report of him, he was (in Mr. Moore's language)\n'_always_ paying;' and for once that he paid too little, a thousand\ntimes he paid a great deal too much. Had, indeed, all his excesses of\npayment been gathered into one fund, that fund would have covered his\ndeficits ten times over. It is, however, true that, whilst he was\ncontinually paying the hundred-pound demands against him, with all their\nJewish accumulations of interest, he was continually unfurnished with\nmoney for his 'menus plaisirs' and trifling personal expenses.\n\nBy strong natural tendency of disposition, Sheridan was a man of\npeculiarly sensitive honour, and the irregularities into which he fell,\nmore conspicuously after the destruction of Drury Lane by fire, pained\nnobody so much as himself. It is the sense of this fact, and the belief\nthat Sheridan was never a defaulter through habits of self-indulgence,\nwhich call out in _my_ mind a reaction of indignation at the stories\ncurrent against him.\n\n\n_Bookbinding and Book-Lettering._--Literature is a mean thing enough in\nthe ordinary way of pursuing it as what the Germans call a\n_Brodstudium_; but in its higher relations it is so noble that it is\nable to ennoble other things, supposing them in any degree ministerial\nto itself. The paper-maker, ergo the rag-maker, ergo the linen\ncloth-maker, is the true and original creator of the modern press, as\nthe Archbishop of Dublin long ago demonstrated. For the art of printing\nhad never halted for want of the typographic secret; _that_ was always\nknown, known and practised hundreds of years before the Christian era.\nIt halted for want of a material cheap enough and plentiful enough to\nmake types other than a most costly substitute for hand-copying. Do you\nhear _that_, gentlemen blockheads, that seldom hear anything but\nyourselves? Next after the paper-maker, who furnished the _sine qua\nnon_, takes rank, not the engraver or illustrator (our modern novelist\ncannot swim without this caricaturing villain as one of his bladders;\nall higher forms of literature laugh at him), but the binder; for he, by\nraising books into ornamental furniture, has given even to\nnon-intellectual people by myriads a motive for encouraging literature\nand an interest in its extension.\n\nAny specimen of Mr. Ferrar's binding I never saw, but by those who\n_have_, it is said to have been magnificent. He and his family were\nonce, if not twice, visited by Charles I., and they presented to that\nprince a most sumptuous Bible of their own binding; which Bible, a lady\nonce told me, was in that collection gradually formed by George III. at\nBuckingham House, and finally presented to the nation by his son. I\nshould fear it must be in ruins as a specimen of the Little Gidding\nworkmanship. The man who goes to bed in his coffin dressed in a jewelled\nrobe and a diamond-hilted sword, is very liable to a visit from the\nresurrection-man, who usually disarms and undresses him. The Bible that\nhas its binding inlaid with gold, sowed with Oriental pearl, and made\nhorrent with rubies, suggests to many a most unscriptural mode of\nsearching into its treasures, and too like the Miltonic Mammon's mode of\nperusing the gorgeous floors of heaven. Besides that, if the Bible\nescaped the Parliamentary War, the true _art_ of the Ferrar family would\nbe better displayed in a case of less cost and luxury. Certainly, in no\none art was the stupidity of Europe more atrociously recorded than in\nthis particular art practised by the Ferrars. Boundless was the field\nfor improvement. And in particular, I had myself drawn from this art, as\npractised of old, one striking memorial of that remarkable genius for\nstupidity, which in all ages alike seems to haunt man as by an\ninspiration, unless he is roused out of it by panic. It is this. Look at\nthe lettering--that is, the labels lettered with the titles of books--in\nall libraries that are not of recent date. No man would believe that the\nvery earliest attempt to impress a mark of ownership upon some bucket of\nthe Argonauts, or the rudest scrawl of Polyphemus in forging a tarry\nbrand upon some sheep which he had stolen, could be _so_ bad, _so_\nstaggering and illegible, as are these literary inscriptions. How much\nbetter to have had a thin tablet or veneering of marble or iron adjusted\nto the back of the book. A stone-cutter in a rural churchyard once told\nme that he charged a penny _per_ letter. That may be cheap for a\ngravestone, but it seems rather high for a book. _Plato_ would cost you\nfivepence, _Aristotle_ would be shocking; and in decency you must put\nhim into Latin, which would add twopence more to every volume. On a\nlibrary like that of Dresden or the Vatican, it would raise a national\ndebt to letter the books.\n\n\n_Cause of the Novel's Decline._--No man, it may be safely laid down as a\ngeneral rule, can obtain a strong hold over the popular mind without\nmore or less of real power. A reality there must be. The artifice, the\ntrickery, cannot arise in this first stage, as by any substitution of a\nshadow for a reality. If the mass of readers _feel_ a power, and\nacknowledge a power, in that case power there must be. It was the just\nremark of Dr. Johnson that men do not deceive themselves in their\namusements. And amusement it is that the great public seek in\nliterature. The meaner and the more sensual the demands of a man are, so\nmuch the less possible it becomes to cheat him. Seeking for warmth, he\ncannot be wrong when he says that he has found it. Asking for _alcohol_,\nhe will never be cheated with water. His feelings in such a case, his\nimpressions, instantaneously justify themselves; that is, they bear\nwitness past all doubting to the certainty of what they report. So far\nthere is no opening to mistake. The error, the opening to the spurious\non the largest scale, arises first upon the _quality_ of the power.\nStrength varies upon an endless scale, not merely by its own gradations,\nbut by the modes and the degrees in which it combines with other\nqualities. And there are many combinations, cases of constant\nrecurrence, in which some natural vigour, but of no remarkable order,\nenters into alliance with animal propensities; where a portentous\nsuccess will indicate no corresponding power in the artist, but only an\nunusual insensibility to decency and the opinion of thoughtful persons.\n\nNovels are the one sole class of books that ever interest the public,\nthat reach its heart, or even catch its eye. And the reason why novels\nare becoming much more licentious, and much grosser in the arts by which\nthey court public favour, lies undoubtedly in the quality of that new\nreading public which the extension of education has added to the old\none. An education miserably shallow, whilst unavailing for any purpose\nof real elevation, lets in upon the theatre of what is called by\ncourtesy literature a vast additional audience that once would have been\nexcluded altogether. This audience, changed in no respect from its\nformer condition of intellect and manners and taste, bringing only the\nsingle qualification of ability to read, is now strong enough in numbers\nto impress a new character upon literature in so far as literature has a\nmotive for applying itself to _their_ wants. The consequences are\nshowing themselves, and _will_ show themselves more broadly. It is\ndifficult with proper delicacy to seek illustrations amongst our own\nliving writers. Illustrations were all too easily found did we care to\nenter on the task.\n\nIt is true that, during the currency of any year, whilst the quantity\nis liable to indeterminate augmentation, ballads will be rather looking\ndown in the market. But that is a shadow which settles upon every\nearthly good thing. No Greek book, for instance, amongst the many that\nhave perished, would so much rejoice many of us by its resurrection as\nthe comedies of Menander. Yet, if a correspondent should write word from\nPompeii that twenty-five thousand separate dramas of Menander had been\nfound in good preservation, adding in a postscript that forty thousand\nmore had been impounded within the last two hours, and that there was\nevery prospect of bagging two hundred thousand more before morning, we\nshould probably petition Government to receive the importing vessels\nwith chain-shot. Not even Milton or Shakespeare could make head against\nsuch a Lopez de Vega principle of ruinous superfluity. Allowing for this\none case of preternatural excess, assuming only that degree of\nlimitation which any absolute past must almost always create up to that\npoint, we say that there is no conceivable composition, or class of\ncompositions, which will not be welcomed into literature provided, as to\nmatter, that it shall embody some natural strain of feeling, and\nprovided, as to manner, that it illustrate the characteristic style of a\nknown generation.\n\nIt might suffice for our present purpose to have once firmly\ndistinguished between the two modes of literature. But it may be as well\nto point out a few corollaries from this distinction, which will serve\nat the same time to explain and to confirm it. For instance, first of\nall, it has been abundantly insisted on in our modern times, that the\nvalue of every literature lies in its characteristic part; a truth\ncertainly, but a truth upon which the German chanticleer would not have\ncrowed and flapped his wings so exultingly, had he perceived the\noriginal and indispensable schism between the literature of knowledge\nand the literature of power, because in this latter only can anything\ncharacteristic of a man or of a nation be embodied. The science of no\nman can be characteristic, no man can geometrize or chemically analyze\nafter a manner peculiar to himself. He may be the first to open a new\nroad, and in that meaning it may be called _his_ road; but _his_ it\ncannot be by any such peculiarities as will found an _incommunicable_\nexcellence. In literature proper, viz., the literature of power, this is\notherwise. There may doubtless have been many imitative poets, wearing\nlittle or nothing of a natural individuality; but of no poet, that ever\n_led_ his own class, can it have been possible that he should have been\notherwise than strongly differenced by inimitable features and by traits\nnot transferable. Consequently the [Greek: to] characteristic, of which\nin German cloudland so noisy a proclamation is made as of some\ntranscendental discovery, is a mere inference from the very idea of a\nliterature. For we repeat that in blank knowledge a separate peculiarity\nmarking the individual is not conceivable, whereas in a true literature\nreflecting human nature, not as it represents, but as it wills, not as a\npassive minor, but as a self-moving power, it is not possible to avoid\nthe characteristic except only in the degree by which the inspiring\nnature happens to be feeble. The exorbitations that differentiate them\nmay be of narrow compass, but only where the motive power was originally\nweak. And agreeably to this remark it may be asserted that in all\nliterature properly so-called genius, is always manifested, and talent\ngenerally; but in the literature of knowledge it may be doubted very\nseriously whether there is any opening for more than talent. Genius may\nbe defined in the severest manner as _that which is generally\ncharacteristic_; but a thousand times we repeat that one man's mode of\nknowing an object cannot differ from another man's. It _cannot_ be\ncharacteristic, and its geniality cannot be externally manifested. To\nhave said, therefore, of the poetry surviving from ancient Latium, from\nCastile, from England, that this is nationally characteristic, and\nknowable apart by inalienable differences, is saying no more than\nfollows out of the very definition by which any and every literature\nproper is limited and guarded as a mode of power.\n\nSecondly, even in the exceptions and hesitations upon applying the\nrigour of this distinction, we may read the natural recognition (however\nlatent or unconscious) of the rule itself. No man would think, for\nexample, of placing a treatise on surveying, on mensuration, on\ngeological stratifications, in any collection of his national\nliterature. He would be lunatic to do so. A Birmingham or Glasgow\nDirectory has an equal title to take its station in the national\nliterature. But he will hesitate on the same question arising with\nregard to a history. Where upon examination the history turns out to be\na mere chronicle, or register of events chronologically arranged, with\nno principle of combination pervading it, nor colouring from peculiar\nviews of policy, nor sympathy with the noble and impassioned in human\naction, the decision will be universal and peremptory to cashier it from\nthe literature. Yet this case, being one of degree, ranges through a\nlarge and doubtful gamut. A history like that of Froissart, or of\nHerodotus, where the subjective from the writer blends so powerfully\nwith the gross objective, where the moral picturesque is so predominant,\ntogether with freshness of sensation which belongs to 'blissful\ninfancy' in human life, or to a stage of society in correspondence to\nit, cannot suffer a demur of jealousy as to its privilege of entering\nthe select fold of literature. But such advantages are of limited\ndistribution. And, to say the truth, in its own nature neither history\nnor biography, unless treated with peculiar grace, and architecturally\nmoulded, has any high pretension to rank as an organic limb of\nliterature. The very noblest history, in much of its substance, is but\nby a special indulgence within the privilege of that classification.\nBiography stands on the same footing. Of the many memorials dedicated to\nthe life of Milton, how few are entitled to take their station in the\nliterature! And why? Not merely that they are disqualified by their\ndefective execution, but often that they necessarily record what has\nbecome common property.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[29] Between the forms _modal_, _modish_, and _modern_, the difference\nis of that slight order which is constantly occurring between the\nElizabethan age and our own. _Ish_, _ous_, _ful_, _some_, are\ncontinually interchanging; thus, _pitiful_ for _piteous_, _quarrelous_\nfor _quarrelsome_.\n\n[30] I deny that there is or could have been one truant fluttering\nmurmur of the heart against the reality of glory. And partly for these\nreasons: 1st, That, _hoc abstracto_, defrauding man of this, you leave\nhim miserably bare--bare of everything. So that really and sincerely the\nvery wisest men may be seen clinging convulsively, and clutching with\ntheir dying hands the belief that glory, that posthumous fame (which for\nprofound ends of providence has been endowed with a subtle power of\nfraud such as no man can thoroughly look through; for those who, like\nmyself, despise it most completely, cannot by any art bring forward a\n_rationale_, a theory of its hollowness that will give plenary\nsatisfaction except to those who are already satisfied). Thus Cicero,\nfeeling that if this were nothing, then had all his life been a\nskirmish, one continued skirmish for shadows and nonentities; a feeling\nof blank desolation, too startling--too humiliating to be faced. But\n(2ndly), the unsearchable hypocrisy of man, that hypocrisy which even to\nhimself is but dimly descried, that latent hypocrisy which always does,\nand most profitably, possess every avenue of every man's thoughts, hence\na man who should openly have avowed a doctrine that glory was a bubble,\nbesides that, instead of being prompted to this on a principle which so\nfar raised him above other men, must have been prompted by a principle\nthat sank him to the level of the brutes, viz., acquiescing in total\nventrine improvidence, imprescience, and selfish ease (if ease, a Pagan\nmust have it _cum dignitate_), but above all he must have made\nproclamation that in his opinion all disinterested virtue was a chimera,\nsince all the quadrifarious virtue of the scholastic ethics was founded\neither on personal self-sufficiency, on justice, moderation, etc., etc.,\nor on direct personal and exclusive self-interest as regarded health and\nthe elements of pleasure.\n\n[31] The tower of Siloam.\n\n[32] Every definition is a syllogism. Now, because the minor proposition\nis constantly false, this does not affect the case; each man is right to\nfill up the minor with his own view, and essentially they do not\ndisagree with each other.\n\nA (the subject of def.)is _x_. The Truth is the sum of Christianity.\n\nBut C is _x_. But my Baptist view is the sum of Christianity.\n\n_Ergo_ C is A. _Ergo_ my Baptist view is the Truth.\n\n\n[33] It seems that Herod made changes so vast--certainly in the\nsurmounting works, and _also_ probably in one place as to the\nfoundations, that it could not be called the same Temple with that of\nthe Captivity, except under an abuse of ideas as to matter and form, of\nwhich all nations have furnished illustrations, from the ship _Argo_ to\nthat of old Drake, from Sir John Cutler's stockings to the Highlander's\n(or Irishman's) musket.\n\n[34] Just as if a man spending his life to show the folly of Methodism\nshould burst into maudlin tears at sight of John Wesley, and say, 'Oh,\nif all men, my dear brothers, were but Methodists!'\n\n[35] How so? If the Jews were naturally infidels, why did God select\nthem? But, first, they might have, and they certainly had, other\nbalancing qualities; secondly, in the sense here meant, all men are\ninfidels; and we ourselves, by the very nature of one object which I\nwill indicate, are pretty generally infidels in the same sense as they.\nLook at our evidences; look at the sort of means by which we often\nattempt to gain proselytes among the heathen and at home. Fouler\ninfidelities there are not. Special pleading, working for a verdict,\netc., etc.\n\n[36] [This idea is expanded and followed out in detail in the opening of\n'Homer and the Homeridae;' but this is evidently the note from which that\ngrew, and is here given alike on account of its compactness and\nfelicity.--ED.]\n\n[37] Satire ix., lines 60, 61.\n\n[38] Who can answer a sneer?\n\n[39] Butler--'unanswerable ridicule.'\n\n[40] Said of members of the Bristol family.\n\n\n\n\n_XXV. OMITTED PASSAGES AND VARIATIONS._\n\n\n1.--THE RHAPSODOI.\n\nThe following on the 'Rhapsodoi' is a variation on that which appeared\nin 'Homer and the Homeridae,' with some quite additional and new thoughts\non the subject.\n\n\nAbout these people, who they were, what relation they bore to Homer, and\nwhy they were called 'Rhapsodoi,' we have seen debated in Germany\nthrough the last half century with as much rabid ferocity as was ever\napplied to the books of a fraudulent bankrupt. Such is the natural\nimpertinence of man. If he suspects any secret, or any base attempt to\nhide and conceal things from himself, he is miserable until he finds out\nthe mystery, and especially where all the parties to it have been\ndefunct for 2,500 years. Great indignation seems reasonably to have been\nfelt by all German scholars that any man should presume to have called\nhimself a _rhapsodos_ at any period of Grecian history without sending\ndown a sealed letter to posterity stating all the reasons which induced\nhim to take so unaccountable a step. No possible solution, given to any\nconceivable question bearing upon the 'Rhapsodoi,' seems by any tendency\nto affect any question outstanding about Homer. And we do not therefore\nunderstand the propriety of intermingling this dispute with the general\nHomeric litigation. However, to comply with the practice of Germany, we\nshall throw away a few sentences upon this, as a pure _ad libitum_\ndigression.\n\nThe courteous reader, whom we beg also to suppose the most ignorant of\nreaders, by way of thus founding a necessity and a case of philosophic\nreasonableness for the circumstantiality of our own explanations, will\nbe pleased to understand that by ancient traditionary usage the word\n_rhapsodia_ is the designation technically applied to the several books\nor cantos of the 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey.' So the word _fytte_ has gained a\ntechnical appropriation to our narrative poetry when it takes the ballad\nform. Now, the Greek word _rhapsody_ is derived from a tense of the verb\n_rhapto_, to sew as with a needle, to connect, and _ode_, a song, chant,\nor course of singing. If, therefore, you conceive of a _rhapsodia_, not\nas the _opera_, but as the _opus_ of a singer, not as the form, but as\nthe result of his official ministration, viz., as that section of a\nnarrative poem which forms an intelligible whole in itself, whilst in a\nsubordinate relation it is one part of a larger whole--this idea\nrepresents accurately enough the use of the word _rhapsodia_ in the\nlatter periods of Greek literature. Suppose the word _canto_ to be taken\nin its literal etymological sense, it would indicate a metrical\ncomposition meant to be sung or chanted. But what constitutes the\ncomplexity of the idea in the word _rhapsodia_ is that both its separate\nelements, the poetry and the musical delivery, are equally essential;\nneither is a casual, neither a subordinate, element.\n\nNow, the 'Rhapsodoi,' as may be supposed, are the personal correlates of\nthe _rhapsodia._ This being the poem adapted to chanting, those were the\nchanters. And the only important question which we can imagine to arise\nis, How far in any given age we may presume the functions of the\npoetical composer and the musical deliverer to have been united. We\ncannot perceive that any possible relation between a rhapsody considered\nas a section of a poem and the whole of that poem, or any possible\nrelation which this same rhapsody considered as a thing to be sung or\naccompanied instrumentally could bear to the naked-speaking rehearsal of\nthe same poem or to the original text of that poem, ever can affect the\nmain question of Homer's integrity. The 'Rhapsodoi' come to be mentioned\nat all simply as being one link in the transmission of the Homeric\npoems. They are found existing before Pisistratus, they are found\nexisting after Pisistratus. And they declined exactly as the art of\nreading became general. We can approximate pretty closely to the time\nwhen the 'Rhapsodoi' ceased; but at what time they began we defy any man\nto say. Plato (Rep. x.) represents them as going back into the days of\nHomer; nay, according to Plato, Homer himself was a _rhapsodos_, and\nitinerated in that character. So was Hesiod. And two remarkable lines,\nascribed to Hesiod by one of the Scholiasts upon Pindar, if we could be\nsure that they were genuine, settle that question:\n\n    [Greek: En Delo tote proton ego xai Homeros aoidoi\n    Melpomen, en nearois umnois rapsantes aoide.]\n\n'Then, first of all,' says Hesiod, 'did I and Homer chant as bards in\nDelos, laying the nexus of our poetic composition in proaemial hymns.' We\nunderstand him to mean this: There were many singers and harpers who\nsang or accompanied the words of others; perhaps ancient words--at all\nevents, not their own. Naturally he was anxious to have it understood\nthat he and Homer had higher pretensions. They killed their own mutton.\nThey composed the words as well as sang them. Where both functions were\nso often united in one man's person, it became difficult to distinguish\nthem. Our own word _bard_ or _minstrel_ stood in the same ambiguity. You\ncould not tell in many cases whether the word pointed to the man's\npoetic or musical faculty. Anticipating that doubt, Hesiod says that\nthey sang as original poets. For it is a remark of Suidas, which he\ndeduces laboriously, that poetry, being uniformly sung in the elder\nGreece, acquired the name of [Greek: aoide]. This term became\ntechnically appropriated to the poetry, or substance of whatever was\nsung, in contradistinction to the musical accompaniment. And the poet\nwas called [Greek: aoidos] So far Hesiod twice over secures the dignity\nof their office from misinterpretation. And there, by the word [Greek:\nraphantes] he indicates the sort of poetry which they cultivated, viz.,\nthat which was expanded into long heroic narratives, and naturally\nconnected itself both internally amongst its own parts, and externally\nwith other poems of the same class. Thus, having separated Homer and\nhimself from the mere musicians, next he separates them even as poets\nfrom those who simply composed hymns to the Gods. These heroic legends\nwere known to require much more elaborate study and art. Yet, because a\ncritical reviewer might take occasion to tax his piety in thus composing\nhuman legends in neglect of the Gods, Hesiod, forestalling him, replies:\n'You're out there, my friend; we were both pious, and we put our piety\ninto hymns addressed to the Gods, which, with cabinetmakers' skill, we\nused also as interludes of transition from one legend to another.' For\nit is noticed frequently and especially by a Scholiast on Aristophanes\n(Pac. 826), that generally speaking the _proaemia_ to the different parts\nof narrative-poems were entirely detached, [Greek: kai ouden pros to\npragma delon], and explain nothing at all that concerns the business.\n\n\n2.--Mrs. Evans and the 'Gazette.'\n\nIn his autobiographic sketch, 'Introduction to the World of Strife,' he\ntells of his brother's enterprise in establishing the _Gazette_, which\nwas to record their doings, and also of Mrs. Evans's place on the\n_Gazette_. The following is evidently a passage which was prepared for\nthat part of the article, but was from some cause or other omitted:\n\n\nI suppose no creature ever led such a life as I led on the _Gazette_;\nsometimes running up, like Wallenstein, to the giddiest pinnacles of\nhonour, then down again without notice or warning to the dust;\ncashiered--rendered incapable of ever serving H. M. again; nay, actually\ndrummed out of the army, my uniform stripped off, and the 'rogue's\nmarch' played after me. And all for what? I protest, to this hour, I\nhave no guess. If any person knows, that person is not myself; and the\nreader is quite as well able to furnish guesses to me as I to him--to\nenlighten _me_ upon the subject as I _him_.\n\nMrs. Evans was a very important person in the play; I don't suppose that\nthings could have gone on without _her_. For, as there was no writer in\nthe _Gazette_ but my brother, so there was no reader of it except Mrs.\nEvans. And here came in a shocking annoyance to me that, as often as\nany necessity occurred (which was every third day) for restoring me to\nmy rank, since my brother would not have it supposed that he could be\nweak enough to initiate such an indulgence, the _Gazette_ threw the\n_onus_ of this amiable weakness, and consequently of my gratitude, upon\nMrs. Evans, affirming that the major-general had received a pardon and\nan amnesty for all his past atrocities at the request of 'a\ndistinguished lady,' who was obscurely indicated in a parenthesis as\n'the truly honourable Mrs. Evans.' To listen to the _Gazette_ one would\nhave supposed that this woman, who so cordially detested me, spent her\nwhole time in going down on her knees and making earnest supplications\nto the throne on my behalf. But what signified the representations of\nthe _Gazette_ if I knew them to be false? Aye, but I did not know that\nthey were false. It is true that my obligations to her were quite\naerial, and might, as the reader will think, have been supported without\nany preternatural effort. But exactly these aerial burdens, whether of\ngratitude or of honour, most oppressed me as being least tangible and\nincapable of pecuniary or other satisfaction. No sinking fund could meet\nthem. And even the dull unimaginative woman herself, eternally held up\nto admiration as my resolute benefactress, got the habit (I am sure) of\nlooking upon me as under nameless obligations to her. This raised my\nwrath. It was not that to my feelings the obligations were really a mere\nfigment of pretence. On the contrary, according to my pains endured,\nthey towered up to the clouds. But I felt that nobody had any right to\nload me with favours that I had never asked for, and without leave even\nasked from me; and the more real were the favours, the deeper the wrong\ndone to me. I sought, therefore, for some means of retaliation. And it\nis odd that it was not till thirty years after that I perceived one. It\nthen struck me that the eternal intercession might have been equally\nodious to her. To find herself prostrate for ever, weeping like Niobe,\nand, if the _Gazette_ was to be believed, refusing to raise herself from\nthe mud or the flinty pavement till I had been forgiven, and reinstated\nin my rank--ah, how loathsome that must have been to her! Ah, how\nloathsome the whole cycle of favours were to me, considering from whom\nthey came! Then we had effectually plagued each other. And it was not\nwithout loud laughter, as of malice unexpectedly triumphant, that I\nfound one night thirty years after, on regretting my powerlessness of\nvengeance, that, in fact, I had amply triumphed thirty years before. So,\nundaunted Mrs. Evans, if you live anywhere within call, listen to the\nassurance that all accounts are squared between us, and that we balanced\nour mutual debts by mutual disgust; and that, if you plagued me\nperversely, I plagued you unconsciously.\n\nAnd though shot and bullets were forbidden fruit, yet something might be\ndone with hard wadding. A good deal of classical literature disappeared\nin this way, which by one who valued no classics very highly might be\ncalled the way of all flesh. The best of authors, he contended, had\nbetter perish by this warlike consummation than by the inglorious enmity\nof bookworms and moths--honeycombed, as most of the books had been which\nhad gone out to India with our two uncles. Even wadding, however, was\ndeclared to be inadmissible as too dangerous, after wounds had been\ninflicted more than once.\n\n\n3.--A LAWSUIT LEGACY.\n\nDe Quincey, in his autobiographic sketch headed 'Laxton,' tells of the\nfortune of Miss Watson, who afterwards became Lady Carbery, and also of\nthe legacy left to her in the form of a lawsuit by her father against\nthe East India Company; and among his papers we find the following\npassage either overlooked or omitted, for some undiscoverable reason,\nfrom that paper, though it has a value in its own way as expressing some\nof De Quincey's views on law and equity; and it is sufficiently\ncharacteristic to be included here:\n\n\nIn consequence of her long minority, Miss Watson must have succeeded at\nonce to six thousand a year on completing her twenty-first year; and she\nalso inherited a Chancery-suit, which sort of property is _now_ (1853)\nrather at a discount in public estimation; but let the reader assure\nhimself that even the Court of Chancery is not quite so black as it is\npainted; that the true ground for the delays and ruinous expenses in\nninety-nine out of one hundred instances is not legal chicanery, still\nless the wilful circuitousness and wordiness of law processes, but the\ngreat eternal fact that, what through lapse of time, decays of memory,\nand loss of documents, and what through interested suppressions of\ntruth, and the dispersions of witnesses, and causes by the score\nbeside, the ultimate truth and equity of human disputes is a matter of\nprodigious perplexity; neither is there any possibility that the mass of\nlitigations as to property ever _can_ be made cheap except in proportion\nas it is made dismally imperfect.\n\nNo power that ever yet was lodged in senates or in councils _could_\navail, ever _has_ availed, ever _will_ avail, to intercept the\nimmeasurable expansion of that law which grows out of social expansion.\nFast as the relations of man multiply, and the modifications of property\nextend, must the corresponding adaptations of the law run alongside. The\npretended arrests applied to this heaving volcanic system of forces by\ncodifications, like those of Justinian or Napoleon, had not lasted for a\nyear before all had broke loose from its moorings, and was again going\nahead with redoubling impetus. Equally delusive are the prospects held\nout that the new system of cheap provincial justice will be a change\nunconditionally for the better. Already the complaints against it are\nsuch in bitterness and extent as to show that in very many cases it must\nbe regarded as a failure; and, where it is not, that it must be regarded\nas a compromise: once you had 8 degrees of the advantage X, 4 of Y; now\nyou have 7 of X, 5 of Y.\n\n\n4.--THE TRUE JUSTIFICATIONS OF WAR.\n\nThe following was evidently intended to appear in the article on _War_:\n\n\n'Most of what has been written on this subject (the cruelty of war), in\nconnection with the apparently fierce ethics of the Old Testament, is\n(with submission to sentimentalists) false and profoundly unphilosophic.\nIt is of the same feeble character as the flashy modern moralizations\nupon War. The true justifications of war lie far below the depths of any\nsoundings taken upon the charts of effeminate earth-born ethics. And\nethics of God, the Scriptural ethics, search into depths that are older\nand less measurable, contemplate interests that are more mysterious and\nentangled with perils more awful than merely human philosophy has\nresources for appreciating. It is not at all impossible that a crisis\nhas sometimes arisen for the human race, in which its capital interest\nmay be said to have ridden at single anchor. Upon the issue of a single\nstruggle between the powers of light and darkness--upon a motion, a\nbias, an impulse given this way or that--all may have been staked. Out\nof Judaism came Christianity, and the mere possibility of Christianity.\nFrom elder stages of the Hebrew race, hidden in thick darkness to us,\ndescended the only pure glimpse allowed to man of God's nature.\nTraditionally, but through many generations, and fighting at every\nstage with storms or with perils more than ever were revealed to _us_,\nthis idea of God, this holy seed of truth, like some secret jewel\npassing onwards through armies of robbers, made its way downward to an\nage in which it became the matrix of Christianity. The solitary acorn\nhad reached in safety the particular soil in which it was first capable\nof expanding into a forest. The narrow, but at the same time austere,\ntruth of Judaism, furnished the basis which by magic, as it were, burst\nsuddenly and expanded into a vast superstructure, no longer fitted for\nthe apprehension of one single unamiable race, but offering shelter and\nrepose to the whole family of man. These things are most remarkable\nabout this memorable trans-migration of one faith into another, of an\nimperfect into a perfect religion, viz., that the early stage had but a\nslight resemblance to the latter, nor could have prefigured it to a\nhuman sagacity more than a larva could prefigure a chrysalis; and,\nsecondly, that whereas the product, viz., Christianity, never has been\nnor will be in any danger of ruin, the germ, viz., the Judaic idea of\nGod, the great radiation through which the Deity kept open His\ncommunication with man, apparently must more than once have approached\nan awful struggle for life. This solitary taper of truth, struggling\nacross a howling wilderness of darkness, had it been ever totally\nextinguished, could probably never have been reillumined. It may seem an\neasy thing for a mere human philosophy to recover, and steadily to\nmaintain a pure Hebrew conception of God; but so far is this from being\ntrue, that we believe it possible to expose in the closest Pagan\napproximation to this Hebrew type some adulterous elements such as would\nhave ensured its relapse into idolatrous impurity.'\n\n\n5.--PHILOSOPHY DEFEATED.\n\nWe have come upon a passage which is omitted from the 'Confessions,' and\nas it is, in every way, characteristic, we shall give it:\n\n\nMy studies have now been long interrupted. I cannot read to myself with\nany pleasure, hardly with a moment's endurance. Yet I read aloud\nsometimes for the pleasure of others--because reading is an\naccomplishment of mine, and, in the slang use of the word\n'accomplishment' as a superficial and ornamental attainment, almost the\nonly one I possess--and, formerly, if I had any vanity at all connected\nwith any endowment or attainment of mine, it was with this; for I had\nobserved that no accomplishment was so rare. Players are the worst\nreaders of all; ---- reads vilely, and Mrs. ----, who is so celebrated,\ncan read nothing well but dramatic compositions--Milton she cannot read\nsufferably. People in general read poetry without any passion at all, or\nelse overstep the modesty of nature and read not like scholars. Of late,\nif I have felt moved by anything in books, it has been by the grand\nlamentations of 'Samson Agonistes,' or the great harmonies of the\nSatanic speaker in 'Paradise Regained,' when read aloud by myself. A\nyoung lady sometimes comes and drinks tea with us. At her request and\nM----'s I now and then read W----'s poems to them. (W----, by-the-bye,\nis the only poet I ever met who could read his own verses. Blank verse\nhe reads admirably.)\n\nThis, then, has been the extent of my reading for upwards of sixteen\nmonths. It frets me to enter those rooms of my cottage in which the\nbooks stand. In one of them, to which my little boy has access, he has\nfound out a use for some of them. Somebody has given him a bow and\narrows--God knows who, certainly not I, for I have not energy or\ningenuity to invent a walking-stick--thus equipped for action, he rears\nup the largest of the folios that he can lift, places them on a\ntottering base, and then shoots until he brings down the enemy. He often\npresses me to join him; and sometimes I consent, and we are both engaged\ntogether in these intellectual labours. We build up a pile, having for\nits base some slender modern metaphysician, ill able (poor man!) to\nsustain such a weight of philosophy. Upon this we place the Dutch\nquartos of Descartes and Spinoza; then a third story of Schoolmen in\nfolio--the Master of Sentences, Suarez, Picus Mirandula, and the\nTelemonian bulk of Thomas Aquinas; and when the whole architecture seems\nfirm and compact, we finish our system of metaphysics by roofing the\nwhole with Duval's enormous Aristotle. So far there is some\npleasure--building up is something, but what is that to destroying? Thus\nthinks, at least, my little companion, who now, with the wrath of the\nPythian Apollo, assumes his bow and arrows; plants himself in the\nremotest corner of the room, and prepares his fatal shafts. The\nbow-string twangs, flights of arrows are in the air, but the Dutch\nimpregnability of the Bergen-op-Zooms at the base receives the few which\nreach the mark, and they recoil without mischief done. Again the\nbaffled archer collects his arrows, and again he takes his station. An\narrow issues forth, and takes effect on a weak side of Thomas. Symptoms\nof dissolution appear--the cohesion of the system is loosened--the\nSchoolmen begin to totter; the Stagyrite trembles; Philosophy rocks to\nits centre; and, before it can be seen whether time will do anything to\nheal their wounds, another arrow is planted in the schism of their\nontology; the mighty structure heaves--reels--seems in suspense for one\nmoment, and then, with one choral crash--to the frantic joy of the young\nSagittary--lies subverted on the floor! Kant and Aristotle, Nominalists\nand Realists, Doctors Seraphic or Irrefragable, what cares he? All are\nat his feet--the Irrefragable has been confuted by his arrows, the\nSeraphic has been found mortal, and the greatest philosopher and the\nleast differ but according to the brief noise they have made.\n\nFor nearly two years I believe that I read no book but one, and I owe it\nto the author, Mr. Ricardo, to make grateful record of it.\n\nAnd then he proceeds:\n\nSuddenly, in 1818, a friend in Edinburgh sent me down Mr. Ricardo's\nbook, etc.\n\n\n6.--THE HIGHWAYMAN'S SKELETON.\n\nIn the account which De Quincey gives of the highwayman's skeleton,\nwhich figured in the museum of the distinguished surgeon, Mr. White, in\nhis chapter in the 'Autobiographic Sketches' headed 'The Manchester\nGrammar School,' he was evidently restrained from inserting one passage,\nwhich we have found among his papers, from considerations of delicacy\ntowards persons who might then still be living. But as he has there\nplainly given the names of the leading persons concerned--the famous\nSurgeon Cruikshank,[41] there can at this time of day be little risk of\noffending or hurting anyone by presenting the passage, which the curious\nstudent of the Autobiography can insert at the proper point, and may\nfeel that its presence adds to the completeness of the impression,\nhalf-humorous, half-_eerie_, which De Quincey was fain to produce by\nthat somewhat grim episode. Here is the passage:\n\n\nIt was a regular and respectable branch of public industry which was\ncarried on by the highwaymen of England, and all the parties to it moved\nupon decent motives and by considerate methods. In particular, the\nrobbers themselves, as the leading parties, could not be other than\nfirst-rate men, as regarded courage, animal vigour, and perfect\nhorsemanship. Starting from any lower standard than this, not only had\nthey no chance of continued success--their failure was certain as\nregarded the contest with the traveller, but also their failure was\nequally certain as regarded the competition within their own body. The\ncandidates for a lucrative section of the road were sure to become\ntroublesome in proportion as all administration of the business upon\nthat part of the line was feebly or indiscreetly worked. Hence it arose\nthat individually the chief highwaymen were sure to command a deep\nprofessional interest amongst the surgeons of the land. Sometimes it\nhappened that a first-rate robber was arrested and brought to trial, but\nfrom defective evidence escaped. Meanwhile his fine person had been\nlocally advertised and brought under the notice of the medical body.\nThis had occurred in a more eminent degree than was usual to the robber\nwho had owned when living the matchless skeleton possessed by Mr. White.\nHe had been most extensively surveyed with anatomical eyes by the whole\nbody of the medical profession in London: their deliberate judgment upon\nhim was that a more absolutely magnificent figure of a man did not exist\nin England than this highwayman, and naturally therefore very high sums\nwere offered to him as soon as his condemnation was certain. The robber,\nwhose name I entirely forget, finally closed with the offer of\nCruikshank, who was at that time the most eminent surgeon in London.\nThose days, as is well known, were days of great irregularity in all\nthat concerned the management of prisons and the administration of\ncriminal justice. Consequently there is no reason for surprise or for\ndoubt in the statement made by Mr. White, that Cruikshank, whose pupil\nMr. White then was, received some special indulgences from one of the\nunder-sheriffs beyond what the law would strictly have warranted. The\nrobber was cut down considerably within the appointed time, was\ninstantly placed in a chaise-and-four, and was thus brought so\nprematurely into the private rooms of Cruikshank, that life was not as\nyet entirely extinct. This I heard Mr. White repeatedly assert. He was\nhimself at that time amongst the pupils of Cruikshank, and three or four\nof the most favoured amongst these were present, and to one of them\nCruikshank observed quietly: 'I think the subject is not quite dead;\npray put your knife in (Mr. X. Y.) at this point.' That was done; a\nsolemn _finis_ was placed to the labours of the robber, and perhaps a\nsolemn inauguration to the labours of the student. A cast was taken from\nthe superb figure of the highwayman; he was then dissected, his skeleton\nbecame the property of Cruikshank, and subsequently of Mr. White. We\nwere all called upon to admire the fine proportions of the man, and of\ncourse in that hollow and unmeaning way which such unlearned expressors\nof judgment usually assume, we all obsequiously met the demand levied\nupon our admiration. But, for my part, though readily confiding in the\nprofessional judgment of anatomists, I could not but feel that through\nmy own unassisted judgment I never could have arrived at such a\nconclusion. The unlearned eye has gathered no rudimental points to begin\nwith. Not having what are the normal outlines to which the finest\nproportions tend, an eye so untutored cannot of course judge in what\ndegree the given subject approaches to these.\n\n\n7.--THE RANSOM FOR WATERLOO.\n\nThe following gives a variation on a famous passage in the 'Dream\nFugue,' and it may be interesting to the reader to compare it with that\nwhich the author printed. From these variations it will be seen that De\nQuincey often wrote and re-wrote his finest passages, and sometimes, no\ndoubt, found it hard to choose between the readings:\n\n\nThus as we ran like torrents; thus as with bridal rapture our flying\nequipage swept over the _campo santo_ of the graves; thus as our burning\nwheels carried warrior instincts, kindled earthly passions amongst the\ntrembling dust below us, suddenly we became aware of a vast necropolis\nto which from afar we were hurrying. In a moment our maddening wheels\nwere nearing it.\n\n'Of purple granite in massive piles was this city of the dead, and yet\nfor one moment it lay like a visionary purple stain on the horizon, so\nmighty was the distance. In the second moment this purple city trembled\nthrough many changes, and grew as by fiery pulsations, so mighty was the\npace. In the third moment already with our dreadful gallop we were\nentering its suburbs. Systems of sarcophagi rose with crests aerial of\nterraces and turrets into the upper glooms, strode forward with haughty\nencroachment upon the central aisle, ran back with mighty shadows into\nanswering recesses. When the sarcophagi wheeled, then did our horses\nwheel. Like rivers in horned floods wheeling in pomp of unfathomable\nwaters round headlands; like hurricanes that ride into the secrets of\nforests, faster than ever light travels through the wilderness of\ndarkness, we shot the angles, we fled round the curves of the\nlabyrinthine city. With the storm of our horses' feet, and of our\nburning wheels, did we carry earthly passions, kindle warrior instincts\namongst the silent dust around us, dust of our noble fathers that had\nslept in God since Creci. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs,\nbas-reliefs of battles, bas-reliefs of battlefields, battles from\nforgotten ages, battles from yesterday; battlefields that long since\nNature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of\nflowers; battlefields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage.\n\nAnd now had we reached the last sarcophagus, already we were abreast of\nthe last bas-relief; already we were recovering the arrow-like flight of\nthe central aisle, when coming up it in counterview to ourselves we\nbeheld the frailest of cars, built as might seem from floral wreaths,\nand from the shells of Indian seas. Half concealed were the fawns that\ndrew it by the floating mists that went before it in pomp. But the mists\nhid not the lovely countenance of the infant girl that sate wistful upon\nthe ear, and hid not the birds of tropic plumage with which she played.\nFace to face she rode forward to meet us, and baby laughter in her eyes\nsaluted the ruin that approached. 'Oh, baby,' I said in anguish, 'must\nwe that carry tidings of great joy to every people be God's messengers\nof ruin to thee?' In horror I rose at the thought. But then also, in\nhorror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured in the bas-relief--a\ndying trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of Waterloo he rose to his\nfeet, and, unslinging his stony trumpet, carried it in his dying anguish\nto his stony lips, sounding once, and yet once again, proclamation that\nto _thy_ ears, oh baby, must have spoken from the battlements of death.\nImmediately deep shadows fell between us, and shuddering silence. The\nchoir had ceased to sing; the uproar of our laurelled equipage alarmed\nthe graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked into\nlife. By horror we that were so full of life--we men, and our horses\nwith their fiery forelegs rising in mid-air to their everlasting\ngallop--were petrified to a bas-relief. Oh, glacial pageantry of death,\nthat from end to end of the gorgeous cathedral for a moment froze every\neye by contagion of panic. Then for the third time the trumpet sounded.\nBack with the shattering burst came the infinite rushing of life. The\nseals of frost were raised from our stifling hearts.\n\n\n8.--DESIDERIUM.\n\nHere is another variation on a famous passage in the 'Autobiographic\nSketches,' which will give the reader some further opportunity for\ncomparison:\n\n\nAt six years of age, or thereabouts (I write without any memorial\nnotes), the glory of this earth for me was extinguished. _It is\nfinished_--not those words but that sentiment--was the misgiving of my\nprophetic heart; thought it was that gnawed like a worm, that did not\nand that could not die. 'How, child,' a cynic would have said, if he had\ndeciphered the secret reading of my sighs--'at six years of age, will\nyou pretend that life has already exhausted its promises? Have you\ncommunicated with the grandeurs of earth? Have you read Milton? Have you\nseen Rome? Have you heard Mozart?' No, I had _not_, nor could in those\nyears have appreciated any one of them if I had; and, therefore,\nundoubtedly the crown jewels of our little planet were still waiting for\nme in the rear. Milton and Rome and 'Don Giovanni' were yet to come. But\nit mattered not what remained when set over against what had been taken\naway. _That_ it was which I sought for ever in my blindness. The love\nwhich had existed between myself and my departed sister, _that_, as\neven a child could feel, was not a light that could be rekindled. No\nvoice on earth could say, 'Come again!' to a flower of Paradise like\nthat. Love, such as that is given but once to any. Exquisite are the\nperceptions of childhood, not less so than those of maturest wisdom, in\nwhat touches the capital interests of the heart. And no arguments, nor\nany consolations, could have soothed me into a moment's belief, that a\nwound so ghastly as mine admitted of healing or palliation.\nConsequently, as I stood more alone in the very midst of a domestic\ncircle than ever Christian traveller in an African Bilidulgerid amidst\nthe tents of infidels, or the howls of lions, day and night--in the\ndarkness and at noon-day--I sate, I stood, I lay, moping like an idiot,\ncraving for what was impossible, and seeking, groping, snatching, at\nthat which was irretrievable for ever.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[41] [Born 1746, died 1800.--ED.]\n\nTHE END.","title":"The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey,  Vol. 1","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":89991}