{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_7736/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_7736","id":"gutenberg_7736","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7736","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English literature -- 19th century"],"text":"Produced by Bryan Sherman and David Widger\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTOMLINSONIANA\n\nBy Edward Bulwer-Lytton\n\nOR,\n\nTHE POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS\n\nOF THE CELEBRATED\n\nAUGUSTUS TOMLINSON,\n\nPROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF -------\n\nADDRESSED TO HIS PUPILS,\n\nAND COMPRISING\n\n\n                                   I\n MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CREATING, ILLUSTRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS,\nBEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE BY WHICH EVERY MAN MAY\nBECOME                             HIS OWN ROGUE.\n\n                                   II\n  BRACHYLOGIA; OR, ESSAYS CRITICAL, SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, AND ORIGINAL.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION.\n\nHaving lately been travelling in Germany, I spent some time at that\nUniversity in which Augustus Tomlinson presided as Professor of Moral\nPhilosophy. I found that that great man died, after a lingering illness,\nin the beginning of the year 1822, perfectly resigned to his fate, and\nconversing, even on his deathbed, on the divine mysteries of Ethical\nPhilosophy. Notwithstanding the little peccadilloes to which I have\nalluded in the latter pages of \u201cPaul Clifford,\u201d and which his pupils\ndeemed it advisable to hide from--\n\n               \u201cThe gaudy, babbling, and remorseless day,\u201d\n\nhis memory was still held in a tender veneration. Perhaps, as in the\ncase of the illustrious Burns, the faults of a great man endear to you\nhis genius. In his latter days the PROFESSOR was accustomed to wear a\nlight-green silk dressing-gown, and, as he was perfectly bald, a\nlittle black velvet cap; his small-clothes were pepper and salt. These\ninteresting facts I learned from one of his pupils. His old age was\nconsumed in lectures, in conversation, and in the composition of the\nlittle _morceaux_ of wisdom we present to the public. In these essays\nand maxims, short as they are, he seems to have concentrated the wisdom\nof his industrious and honourable life. With great difficulty I procured\nfrom his executors the manuscripts which were then preparing for the\nGerman press. A valuable consideration induced those gentlemen to become\nphilanthropic, and to consider the inestimable blessings they would\nconfer upon this country by suffering me to give the following essays\nto the light, in their native and English dress, on the same day whereon\nthey appear in Germany in the graces of foreign disguise.\n\nAt an age when, while Hypocrisy stalks, simpers, sidles, struts, and\nhobbles through the country, Truth also begins to watch her adversary in\nevery movement, I cannot but think these lessons of Augustus Tomlinson\npeculiarly well-timed. I add them as a fitting Appendix to a Novel that\nmay not inappropriately be termed a Treatise on Social Frauds; and if\nthey contain within them that evidence of diligent attention and that\nprinciple of good in which the satire of Vice is only the germ of its\ndetection, they may not, perchance, pass wholly unnoticed; nor be even\ncondemned to that hasty reading in which the Indifference of to-day is\nbut the prelude to the Forgetfulness of to-morrow.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS.\n\n\n     MAXIMS ON THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING, Illustrated by Ten\n     Characters, being an Introduction to that noble Science by which\n     every Man may become his own Rogue\n\n     BRACHYLOGIA:\n          On the Morality taught by the Rich to the Poor\n          Emulation\n          Caution against the Scoffers of \u201cHumbug\u201d\n           Popular Wrath at Individual Imprudence\n          Dum deflnat Amnis\n          Self-Glorifiers\n          Thought on Fortune\n          Wit, and Truth\n          Auto-theology\n          Glorious Constitution\n          Answer to the Popular Cant that Goodness in a Statesman is\n          better than        Ability\n          Common-sense\n          Love, and Writers on Love\n          The Great Entailed\n          The Regeneration of a Knave\n          Style\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                 MAXIMS\n\n                                   ON\n\n                      THE POPULAR ART OF CHEATING,\n\n                     ILLUSTRATED BY TEN CHARACTERS;\n\nBEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THAT NOBLE SCIENCE BY WHICH EVERY MAN MAY\nBECOME                             HIS OWN ROGUE.\n\n                Set a thief to catch a thief.---Proverb.\n\n\n                                    I.\n\nWhenever you are about to utter something astonishingly false, always\nbegin with, \u201cIt is an acknowledged fact,\u201d etc. Sir Robert Filmer was\na master of this method of writing. Thus, with what a solemn face that\ngreat man attempted to cheat! \u201cIt is a truth undeniable that there\ncannot be any multitude of men whatsoever, either great or small, etc.,\nbut that in the same multitude there is one man amongst them that in\nnature hath a right to be King of all the rest,--as being the next heir\nto Adam!\u201d\n\n\n\n                                   II.\n\nWhen you want something from the public, throw the blame of the asking\non the most sacred principle you can find. A common beggar can read you\nexquisite lessons on this the most important maxim in the art of popular\ncheating. \u201cFor the love of God, sir, a penny!\u201d\n\n\n\n                                   III.\n\nWhenever on any matter, moral, sentimental, or political, you find\nyourself utterly ignorant, talk immediately of \u201cThe Laws of Nature.\u201d\n As those laws are written nowhere,--[Locke]--they are known by nobody.\nShould any ask you how you happen to know such or such a doctrine as the\ndictate of Nature, clap your hand to your heart and say, \u201cHere!\u201d\n\n\n\n                                   IV.\n\nYield to a man\u2019s tastes, and he will yield to your interest.\n\n\n\n                                    V.\n\nWhen you talk to the half-wise, twaddle; when you talk to the ignorant,\nbrag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble, and ask their\nopinion.\n\n\n\n                                   VI.\n\nAlways bear in mind, my beloved pupils, that the means of livelihood\ndepend not on the virtues, but the vices of others. The lawyer, the\nstatesman, the hangman, the physician, are paid by our sins; nay, even\nthe commoner professions--the tailor, the coachmaker, the upholsterer,\nthe wine-merchant--draw their fortunes, if not their existence, from\nthose smaller vices, our foibles. Vanity is the figure prefixed to the\nciphers of Necessity. Wherefore, oh my beloved pupils! never mind what a\nman\u2019s virtues are; waste no time in learning them. Fasten at once on his\ninfirmities. Do to the One as, were you an honest man, you would do to\nthe Many. This is the way to be a rogue individually, as a lawyer is a\nrogue professionally. Knaves are like critics,--[Nullum simile est\nquod idem.--EDITOR.]--\u201cflies that feed on the sore part, and would have\nnothing to live on were the body in health.\u201d--[Tatler].\n\n\n\n                                   VII.\n\nEvery man finds it desirable to have tears in his eyes at times,--one\nhas a sympathy with humid lids. Providence hath beneficially provided\nfor this want, and given to every man, in its divine forethought,\nmisfortunes painful to recall. Hence, probably, those human calamities\nwhich the atheist rails against! Wherefore, when you are uttering\nsome affecting sentiment to your intended dupe, think of the greatest\nmisfortune you ever had in your life; habit will soon make the\nassociation of tears and that melancholy remembrance constantly\nfelicitous. I knew, my dear pupils, a most intelligent Frenchman, who\nobtained a charming legacy from an old poet by repeating the bard\u2019s\nverses with streaming eyes. \u201cHow were you able to weep at will?\u201d asked I\n(I was young then, my pupils). \u201cJe pensois,\u201d answered he, \u201ca mon\npauvre pere, qui est mort.\u201d The union of sentiment with the ability of\nswindling made that Frenchman a most fascinating creature!\n\n\n\n                                  VIII.\n\nNever commit the error of the over-shrewd, and deem human nature worse\nthan it is. Human nature is so damnably good that if it were not for\nhuman art, we knaves could not live. The primary elements of a man\u2019s\nmind do not sustain us; it is what he owes to \u201cthe pains taken with his\neducation,\u201d and \u201cthe blessings of civilized society!\u201d\n\n\n\n                                   IX.\n\nWhenever you doubt, my pupils, whether your man be a quack or not,\ndecide the point by seeing if your man be a positive asserter. Nothing\nindicates imposture like confidence. Volney saith well, \u201cthat the most\ncelebrated of charlatans--[Mahomet]--and the boldest of tyrants begins\nhis extraordinary tissue of lies by these words, \u2018There is no doubt in\nthis book!\u2019\u201d\n\n\n\n                                    X.\n\nThere is one way of cheating people peculiar to the British Isles, and\nwhich, my pupils, I earnestly recommend you to import hither,--cheating\nby subscription. People like to be plundered in company; dupery then\ngrows into the spirit of party. Thus one quack very gravely requested\npersons to fit up a ship for him and send him round the world as its\ncaptain to make discoveries; and another patriotically suggested that\nL10,000 should be subscribed--for what?--to place him in parliament!\nNeither of these fellows could have screwed an individual out of a\nshilling had he asked him for it in a corner; but a printed list, with\n\u201cHis Royal Highness\u201d at the top, plays the devil with English guineas.\nA subscription for individuals may be considered a society for the\nostentatious encouragement of idleness, impudence, beggary, imposture,\nand other public virtues!\n\n\n\n                                   XI.\n\nWhenever you read the life of a great man, I mean a man eminently\nsuccessful, you will perceive all the qualities given to him are the\nqualities necessary even to a mediocre rogue. \u201cHe possessed,\u201d saith the\nbiographer, \u201cthe greatest address [namely, the faculty of wheedling];\nthe most admirable courage [namely, the faculty of bullying]; the most\nnoble fortitude [namely, the faculty of bearing to be bullied]; the most\nsingular versatility [namely, the faculty of saying one thing to one\nman, and its reverse to another]; and the most wonderful command over\nthe mind of his contemporaries [namely, the faculty of victimizing\ntheir purses or seducing their actions].\u201d Wherefore, if luck cast you in\nhumble life, assiduously study the biographies of the great, in order to\naccomplish you as a rogue; if in the more elevated range of society, be\nthoroughly versed in the lives of the roguish: so shall you fit yourself\nto be eminent!\n\n\n\n                                   XII.\n\nThe hypocrisy of virtue, my beloved pupils, is a little out of fashion\nnowadays; it is sometimes better to affect the hypocrisy of vice. Appear\ngenerously profligate, and swear with a hearty face that you do not\npretend to be better than the generality of your neighbours. Sincerity\nis not less a covering than lying; a frieze great-coat wraps you as well\nas a Spanish cloak.\n\n\n\n                                  XIII.\n\nWhen you are about to execute some great plan, and to defraud a number\nof persons, let the first one or two of the allotted number be the\ncleverest, shrewdest fellows you can find. You have then a reference\nthat will alone dupe the rest of the world. \u201cThat Mr. Lynx is\nsatisfied,\u201d will amply suffice to satisfy Mr. Mole of the honesty of\nyour intentions! Nor are shrewd men the hardest to take in; they rely on\ntheir strength: invulnerable heroes are necessarily the bravest. Talk to\nthem in a business-like manner, and refer your design at once to their\nlawyer. My friend John Shamberry was a model in this grand stroke of\nart. He swindled twelve people to the tune of some thousands, with no\nother trouble than it first cost him to swindle--whom do you think?--the\nSecretary to the Society for the Suppression of Swindling!\n\n\n\n                                   XIV.\n\nDivide your arts into two classes,--those which cost you little labour,\nthose which cost much. The first,--flattery, attention, answering\nletters by return of post, walking across a street to oblige the man you\nintend to ruin; all these you must never neglect. The least man is worth\ngaining at a small cost. And besides, while you are serving yourself,\nyou are also obtaining the character of civility, diligence,\nand good-nature. But the arts which cost you much labour--a long\nsubservience to one testy individual; aping the semblance of a virtue,\na quality, or a branch of learning which you do not possess, to a person\ndifficult to blind,--all these never begin except for great ends, worth\nnot only the loss of time, but the chance of detection. Great pains\nfor small gains is the maxim of the miser. The rogue should have more\n_grandeur d\u2019ame!_--[Greatness of soul].\n\n\n\n                                   XV.\n\nAlways forgive.\n\n\n\n                                   XVI.\n\nIf a man owe you a sum of money--pupils though you be of mine, you may\nonce in your lives be so silly as to lend--and you find it difficult\nto get it back, appeal, not to his justice, but to his charity. The\ncomponents of justice flatter few men! Who likes to submit to an\ninconvenience because he ought to do it,--without praise, without\neven self--gratulation? But charity, my dear friends, tickles up human\nostentation deliciously. Charity implies superiority; and the feeling of\nsuperiority is most grateful to social nature. Hence the commonness of\ncharity, in proportion to other virtues, all over the world; and hence\nyou will especially note that in proportion as people are haughty\nand arrogant, will they laud almsgiving and encourage charitable\ninstitutions.\n\n\n\n                                  XVII.\n\nYour genteel rogues do not sufficiently observe the shrewdness of the\nvulgar ones. The actual beggar takes advantage of every sore; but the\nmoral swindler is unpardonably dull as to the happiness of a physical\ninfirmity. To obtain a favour, neglect no method that may allure\ncompassion. I knew a worthy curate who obtained two livings by the\nfelicity of a hectic cough, and a younger brother who subsisted for ten\nyears on his family by virtue of a slow consumption.\n\n\n\n                                  XVIII.\n\nWhen you want to possess yourself of a small sum, recollect that the\nsmall sum be put into juxtaposition with a great. I do not express\nmyself clearly--take an example. In London there are sharpers who\nadvertise L70,000 to be advanced at four per cent; principals only\nconferred with. The gentleman wishing for such a sum on mortgage goes to\nsee the advertiser; the advertiser says he must run down and look at the\nproperty on which the money is to be advanced; his journey and expenses\nwill cost him a mere trifle,--say, twenty guineas. Let him speak\nconfidently; let the gentleman very much want the money at the interest\nstated, and three to one but our sharper gets the twenty guineas,--so\npaltry a sum in comparison to L70,000 though so serious a sum had the\nmatter related to halfpence!\n\n\n\n                                   XIX.\n\nLord Coke has said: \u201cTo trace an error to its fountainhead is to refute\nit.\u201d Now, my young pupils, I take it for granted that you are interested\nin the preservation of error; you do not wish it, therefore, to be\ntraced to its fountain head. Whenever, then, you see a sharp fellow\ntracking it up, you have two ways of settling the matter. You may say,\nwith a smile, \u201cNay, now, sir, you grow speculative,--I admire your\ningenuity;\u201d or else look grave, colour up, and say, \u201cI fancy, sir, there\nis no warrant for this assertion in the most sacred of all authorities!\u201d\n The Devil can quote Scripture, you know; and a very sensible Devil it is\ntoo!\n\n\n\n                                   XX.\n\nRochefoucauld has said: \u201cThe hate of favourites is nothing else but the\nlove of favour.\u201d The idea is a little cramped; the hate we bear to any\nman is only the result of our love for some good which we imagine\nhe possesses, or which, being in our possession, we imagine he has\nattacked. Thus envy, the most ordinary species of hate, arises from our\nvalue for the glory, or the plate, or the content we behold; and revenge\nis born from our regard for our fame that has been wounded, or our acres\nmolested, or our rights invaded. But the most noisy of all hatreds is\nhatred for the rich, from love for the riches. Look well on the poor\ndevil who is always railing at coaches and four! Book him as a man to be\nbribed!\n\n\n\n                                   XXI.\n\nMy beloved pupils, few have yet sufficiently studied the art by which\nthe practice of jokes becomes subservient to the science of swindlers.\nThe heart of an inferior is always fascinated by a jest. Men know this\nin the knavery of elections. Know it now, my pupils, in the knavery of\nlife! When you slap yon cobbler so affectionately on the back, it is\nyour own fault if you do not slap your purpose into him at the same\ntime. Note how Shakspeare (whom study night and day,--no man hath\nbetter expounded the mysteries of roguery!) causes his grandest and most\naccomplished villain, Richard III., to address his good friends, the\nmurderers, with a jocular panegyric on that hardness of heart on which,\ndoubtless, those poor fellows most piqued themselves,--\n\n     \u201cYour eyes drop millstones, where fools\u2019 eyes drop tears--\n     I like you, lads!\u201d\n\nCan\u2019t you fancy the knowing grin with which the dogs received this\ncompliment, and the little sly punch in the stomach with which Richard\ndropped those loving words, \u201cI like you, lads!\u201d\n\n\n\n                                  XXII.\n\nAs good-nature is the characteristic of the dupe, so should good-temper\nbe that of the knave; the two fit into each other like joints. Happily,\ngood-nature is a Narcissus, and falls in love with its own likeness.\nAnd good-temper is to good-nature what the Florimel of snow was to the\nFlorimel of flesh,--an exact likeness made of the coldest materials.\n\n\n\n                                  XXIII.\n\n                       BEING THE PRAISE OF KNAVERY.\n\nA knave is a philosopher, though a philosopher is not necessarily a\nknave. What hath a knave to do with passions? Every irregular desire he\nmust suppress; every foible he must weed out; his whole life is spent in\nthe acquisition of knowledge: for what is knowledge?--the discovery of\nhuman errors! He is the only man always consistent yet ever examining;\nhe knows but one end, yet explores every means; danger, ill-repute, all\nthat terrify other men, daunt not him; he braves all, but is saved from\nall: for I hold that a knave ceaseth to be the knave--he hath passed\ninto the fool--the moment mischief befalls him. He professes the art\nof cheating; but the art of cheating is to cheat without peril. He is\n_teres et rotundas_; strokes fly from the lubricity of his polish, and\nthe shiftings of his circular formation. He who is insensible of the\nglory of his profession, who is open only to the profit, is no disciple\nof mine. I hold of knavery, as Plato hath said of virtue, \u201cCould it be\nseen incarnate, it would beget a personal adoration!\u201d None but those who\nare inspired by a generous enthusiasm will benefit by the above maxims,\nnor (and here I warn you solemnly from the sacred ground, till your head\nbe uncovered, and your feet be bared in the awe of veneration) enter\nwith profit upon the following descriptions of character,--that Temple\nof the Ten Statutes, wherein I have stored and consecrated the most\ntreasured relics of my travelled thoughts and my collected experience.\n\n\n\n\n\n                             TEN CHARACTERS.\n\n                                    I.\n\nThe mild, irresolute, good-natured, and indolent man. These qualities\nare accompanied with good feelings, but no principles. The want of\nfirmness evinces also the want of any peculiar or deeply rooted system\nof thought. A man conning a single and favourite subject of meditation\ngrows wedded to one or the other of the opinions on which he revolves. A\nman universally irresolute has generally led a desultory life, and never\ngiven his attention long together to one thing. This is a man most easy\nto cheat, my beloved friends; you cheat him even with his eyes open.\nIndolence is dearer to him than all things; and if you get him alone and\nput a question to him point blank, he cannot answer, No.\n\n\n\n                                   II.\n\nThe timid, suspicious, selfish, and cold man. Generally a character of\nthis description is an excellent man of business, and would at first\nsight seem to baffle the most ingenious swindler. But you have\none hope,--I have rarely found it deceive me,--this man is usually\nostentatious. A cold, a fearful, yet a worldly person has ever an eye\nupon others; he notes the effect certain things produce on them; he is\nanxious to learn their opinions, that he may not transgress; he likes to\nknow what the world say of him; nay, his timidity makes him anxious\nto repose his selfishness on their good report. Hence he grows\nostentatious, likes that effect which is favourably talked of, and that\nshow which wins consideration. At him on this point, my pupils!\n\n\n\n                                   III.\n\nThe melancholy, retired, sensitive, intellectual character. A very good\nsubject this for your knaveries, my young friends, though it requires\ngreat discrimination and delicacy. This character has a considerable\nportion of morbid suspicion and irritation belonging to it,--against\nthese you must guard; at the same time its prevailing feature is a\npowerful but unacknowledged vanity. It is generally a good opinion of\nhimself, and a feeling that he is not appreciated by others, that make\na man reserved; he deems himself unfit for the world because of\nthe delicacy of his temperament, and the want of a correspondent\ninsensibility in those he sees! This is your handle to work on. He is\npeculiarly flattered, too, on the score of devotion and affection; he\nexacts in love, as from the world, too much. He is a Lara, whose females\nmust be Medoras; and even his male friends should be extremely like\nKaleds! Poor man! you see how easily he can be duped. Mem.--Among\npersons of this character are usually found those oddities, humours,\nand peculiarities which are each a handle. No man lives out of the world\nwith impunity to the solidity of his own character. Every new outlet to\nthe humour is a new inlet to the heart.\n\n\n\n                                   IV.\n\nThe bold, generous, frank, and affectionate man,--usually a person of\nrobust health. His constitution keeps him in spirits, and his spirits\nin courage and in benevolence. He is obviously not a hard character, my\ngood young friends, for you to deceive; for he wants suspicion, and all\nhis good qualities lay him open to you. But beware his anger when he\nfinds you out! He is a terrible Othello when his nature is once stung.\nMem.--A good sort of character to seduce into illegal practices; makes\na tolerable traitor or a capital smuggler. You yourselves must never\ncommit any illegal offence,--aren\u2019t there cat\u2019s-paws for the\nchestnuts? As all laws are oppressions (only necessary and often sacred\noppressions, which you need not explain to him), and his character\nis especially hostile to oppression, you easily seduce the person we\ndescribe into braving the laws of his country. Yes! the bold, generous,\nfrank, and affectionate man has only to be born in humble life to be\nsure of a halter!\n\n\n\n                                    V.\n\nThe bold, selfish, close, grasping man will in all probability cheat\nyou, my dear friends. For such a character makes the master-rogue, the\nstuff from which Nature forms a Richard the Third. You had better leave\nsuch a man quite alone. He is bad even to serve. He breaks up his tools\nwhen he has done with them. No, you can do nothing with him, my good\nyoung men!\n\n\n\n                                   VI.\n\nThe eating, drinking, unthoughtful, sensual, mechanical man,--the\nordinary animal. Such a creature has cunning, and is either cowardly or\nferocious; seldom in these qualities he preserves a medium. He is not\nby any means easy to dupe. Nature defends her mental brutes by the\nthickness of their hide. Win his mistress if possible; she is the best\nperson to manage him. Such creatures are the natural prey of artful\nwomen; their very stolidity covers all but sensuality. To the Samson-the\nDelilah.\n\n\n\n                                   VII.\n\nThe gay, deceitful, shrewd, polished, able man,--the courtier, the\nman of the world. In public and stirring life this is the fit\nantagonist,--often the successful and conquering rival of Character V.\nYou perceive a man like this varies so greatly in intellect--from the\nmere butterfly talent to the rarest genius, from the person you see\nat cards to the person you see in Cabinets, from the ----- to the\nChesterfield, from the Chesterfield to the Pericles--that it is\ndifficult to give you an exact notion of the weak points of a character\nso various. But while he dupes his equals and his superiors, I consider\nhim, my attentive pupils, by no means a very difficult character for\nan inferior to dupe. And in this manner you must go about it. Do not\nattempt hypocrisy; he will see through it in an instant. Let him think\nyou at once, and at first sight, a rogue. Be candid on that matter\nyourself; but let him think you a useful rogue. Serve him well and\nzealously; but own that you do so, because you consider your interest\ninvolved in this. This reasoning satisfies him; and as men of this\ncharacter are usually generous, he will acknowledge its justice\nby throwing you plenty of sops, and stimulating you with bountiful\ncordials. Should he not content you herein, appear contented; and\nprofit in betraying him (that is the best way to cheat him), not by his\nfailings, but by opportunity. Watch not his character, but your time.\n\n\n\n                                  VIII.\n\nThe vain, arrogant, brave, amorous, flashy character. This sort of\ncharacter we formerly attributed to the French, and it is still more\ncommon to the Continent than that beloved island which I shall see no\nmore! A creature of this description is made up of many false virtues;\nabove others, it is always profuse where its selfishness is appealed to,\nnot otherwise. You must find, then, what pleases it, and pander to its\ntastes. So will ye cheat it,--or ye will cheat it also by affecting the\nfalse virtues which it admires itself,--rouge your sentiments highly,\nand let them strut with a buskined air; thirdly, my good young men, ye\nwill cheat it by profuse flattery, and by calling it in especial \u201cthe\nmirror of chivalry.\u201d\n\n\n\n                                   IX.\n\nThe plain, sensible, honest man,--a favourable, but not elevated\nspecimen of our race. This character, my beloved pupils, you may take in\nonce, but never twice. Nor can you take in such a man as a stranger; he\nmust be your friend or relation, or have known intimately some part\nof your family. A man of this character is always open, though in a\nmoderate and calm degree, to the duties and ties of life. He will always\ndo something to serve his friend, his brother, or the man whose father\npulled his father out of the Serpentine. Affect with him no varnish;\nexert no artifice in attempting to obtain his assistance. Candidly state\nyour wish for such or such a service, sensibly state your pretensions,\nmodestly hint at your gratitude. So may you deceive him once, then leave\nhim alone forever!\n\n\n\n                                    X.\n\nThe fond, silly, credulous man, all impulse and no reflection,--how my\nheart swells when I contemplate this excellent character! What a Canaan\nfor you does it present! I envy you launching into the world with\nthe sanguine hope of finding all men such! Delightful enthusiasm\nof youth,--would that the hope could be realized! Here is the very\nincarnation of gullibility. You have only to make him love you, and no\nhedgehog ever sucked egg as you can suck him. Never be afraid of his\nindignation; go to him again and again; only throw yourself on his\nneck and weep. To gull him once is to gull him always; get his first\nshilling, and then calculate what you will do with the rest of his\nfortune. Never desert so good a man for new friends; that would\nbe ungrateful in you! And take with you, by the way, my good young\ngentlemen, this concluding maxim: Men are like lands; you will get\nmore by lavishing all your labour again and again upon the easy than by\nploughing up new ground in the sterile! Legislators,--wise, good, pious\nmen,--the Tom Thumbs of moral science, who make giants first, and\nthen kill them,--you think the above lessons villanous. I honour your\npenetration. They are not proofs of my villiany, but of your folly! Look\nover them again, and you will see that they are designed to show that\nwhile ye are imprisoning, transporting, and hanging thousands every day,\na man with a decent modicum of cunning might practise every one of those\nlessons which seem to you so heinous, and not one of your laws could\ntouch him!\n\n\n\n\n\n                              BRACHYLOGIA;\n\n                                  OR,\n\n          ESSAYS, CRITICAL, SENTIMENTAL, MORAL, AND ORIGINAL.\n\n                        ADDRESSED TO HIS PUPILS\n\n                         BY AUGUSTUS TOMLINSON.\n\n     The irony in the preceding essays is often lost sight of in the\n     present.  The illness of this great man, which happened while\n     composing these little gems, made him perhaps more in earnest\n     than when in robust health.--Editor\u2019s Note.\n\n\n             ON THE MORALITY TAUGHT BY THE RICH TO THE POOR.\n\nAs soon as the urchin pauper can totter out of doors, it is taught to\npull off its hat, and pull its hair to the quality. \u201cA good little boy,\u201d\n says the squire; \u201cthere\u2019s a ha\u2019penny for you.\u201d The good little boy glows\nwith pride. That ha\u2019penny instils deep the lesson of humility. Now goes\nour urchin to school. Then comes the Sunday teaching,--before church,\nwhich enjoins the poor to be lowly, and to honour every man better off\nthan themselves. A pound of honour to the squire, and an ounce to the\nbeadle. Then the boy grows up; and the Lord of the Manor instructs him\nthus: \u201cBe a good boy, Tom, and I\u2019ll befriend you. Tread in the steps of\nyour father; he was an excellent man, and a great loss to the parish; he\nwas a very civil, hard-working, well-behaved creature; knew his station;\n--mind, and do like him!\u201d So perpetual hard labour and plenty of\ncringing make the ancestral virtues to be perpetuated to peasants till\nthe day of judgment! Another insidious distillation of morality is\nconveyed through a general praise of the poor. You hear false friends of\nthe people, who call themselves Liberals and Tories, who have an idea of\nmorals half chivalric, half pastoral, agree in lauding the unfortunate\ncreatures whom they keep at work for them. But mark the virtues the poor\nare always to be praised for,--industry, honesty, and content. The\nfirst virtue is extolled to the skies, because industry gives the rich\neverything they have; the second, because honesty prevents an iota\nof the said everything being taken away again; and the third, because\ncontent is to hinder these poor devils from ever objecting to a lot so\ncomfortable to the persons who profit by it. This, my pupils, is the\nmorality taught by the rich to the poor!\n\n\n\n                                EMULATION.\n\nThe great error of emulation is this: we emulate effects without\ninquiring into causes. When we read of the great actions of a man,\nwe are on fire to perform the same exploits, without endeavouring to\nascertain the precise qualities which enabled the man we imitate to\ncommit the actions we admire. Could we discover these, how often might\nwe discover that their origin was a certain temper of body, a certain\npeculiarity of constitution, and that, wish we for the same success, we\nshould be examining the nature of our bodies rather than sharpening\nthe faculties of our minds,--should use dumbbells, perhaps, instead of\nbooks; nay, on the other hand, contract some grievous complaint rather\nthan perfect our moral salubrity. Who should say whether Alexander would\nhave been a hero had his neck been straight; or Boileau a satirist, had\nhe never been pecked by a turkey? It would be pleasant to see you, my\nbeloved pupils, after reading \u201cQuintus Curtius,\u201d twisting each other\u2019s\nthroat; or, fresh from Boileau, hurrying to the poultry-yard in the hope\nof being mutilated into the performance of a second \u201cLutrin.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                CAUTION AGAINST THE SCOFFERS OF \u201cHUMBUG.\u201d\n\nMy beloved pupils, there is a set of persons in the world, daily\nincreasing, against whom you must be greatly on your guard; there is\na fascination about them. They are people who declare themselves\nvehemently opposed to humbug,--fine, liberal fellows, clear-sighted, yet\nfrank. When these sentiments arise from reflection, well and good,--they\nare the best sentiments in the world; but many take them up second hand.\nThey are very inviting to the indolence of the mob of gentlemen who see\nthe romance of a noble principle, not its utility. When a man looks\nat everything through this dwarfing philosophy, everything has a great\nmodicum of humbug. You laugh with him when he derides the humbug in\nreligion, the humbug in politics, the humbug in love, the humbug in the\nplausibilities of the world; but you may cry, my dear pupils, when he\nderides what is often the safest of all practically to deride,--the\nhumbug in common honesty! Men are honest from religion, wisdom,\nprejudice, habit, fear, and stupidity; but the few only are wise; and\nthe persons we speak of deride religion, are beyond prejudice, unawed by\nhabit, too indifferent for fear, and too experienced for stupidity.\n\n\n\n\n                 POPULAR WRATH AT INDIVIDUAL IMPRUDENCE.\n\nYou must know, my dear young friends, that while the appearance of\nmagnanimity is very becoming to you, and so forth, it will get you\na great deal of ill-will if you attempt to practise it to your own\ndetriment. Your neighbours are so invariably, though perhaps insensibly,\nactuated by self-interest--self-interest--[Mr. Tomlinson is wrong\nhere; but his ethics were too much narrowed to Utilitarian\nprinciples.--EDITOR.]--is so entirely, though every twaddler denies\nit, the axis of the moral world--that they fly into a rage with him who\nseems to disregard it. When a man ruins himself, just hear the abuse he\nreceives; his neighbours take it as a personal affront!\n\n\n\n\n                            DUM DEFLUAT AMNIS.\n\nOne main reason why men who have been great are disappointed, when\nthey retire to private life, is this: Memory makes a chief source of\nenjoyment to those who cease eagerly to hope; but the memory of the\ngreat recalls only that public life which has disgusted them. Their\nprivate life hath slipped insensibly away, leaving faint traces of the\nsorrow or the joy which found them too busy to heed the simple and quiet\nimpressions of mere domestic vicissitude.\n\n\n\n\n                             SELF-GLORIFIERS.\n\nProvidence seems to have done to a certain set of persons--who always\nview their own things through a magnifying medium, deem their house\nthe best in the world, their gun the truest, their very pointer a\nmiracle--as Colonel Hanger suggested to economists to do; namely,\nprovide their servants each with a pair of large spectacles, so that a\nlark might appear as big as a fowl, and a twopenny loaf as large as a\nquartern.\n\n\n\n\n                           THOUGHT ON FORTUNE.\n\nIt is often the easiest move that completes the game. Fortune is like\nthe lady whom a lover carried off from all his rivals by putting an\nadditional lace upon his liveries.\n\n\n\n\n                              WIT AND TRUTH.\n\nPeople may talk about fiction being the source of fancy, and wit being\nat variance with truth. Now, some of the wittiest things in the world\nare witty solely from their truth. Truth is the soul of a good saying.\n\u201cYou assert,\u201d observes the Socrates of modern times, \u201cthat we have a\nvirtual representation; very well, let us have a virtual taxation too!\u201d\n Here the wit is in the fidelity of the sequitur. When Columbus broke the\negg, where was the wit? In the completeness of conviction in the broken\negg.\n\n\n\n\n                              AUTO-THEOLOGY.\n\nNot only every sect but every individual modifies the general attributes\nof the Deity towards assimilation with his own character: the just man\ndwells on the justice, the stern upon the wrath; the attributes that do\nnot please the worshipper he insensibly forgets. Wherefore, O my pupils,\nyou will not smile when you read in Barnes that the pygmies declared\nJove himself was a pygmy. The pious vanity of man makes him adore his\nown qualities under the pretence of worshipping those of his God.\n\n\n\n\n                          GLORIOUS CONSTITUTION.\n\nA sentence is sometimes as good as a volume. If a man ask you to give\nhim some idea of the laws of England, the answer is short and easy: In\nthe laws of England there are somewhere about one hundred and fifty laws\nby which a poor man may be hanged, but not one by which he can obtain\njustice for nothing!\n\n\n\n\n                    ANSWER TO THE POPULAR CANT THAT\n                      GOODNESS IN A STATESMAN IS\n                          BETTER THAN ABILITY.\n\nAs in the world we must look to actions, not motives, so a knave is the\nman who injures you; and you do not inquire whether the injury be the\nfruit of malice or necessity. Place, then, a fool in power, and he\nbecomes unconsciously the knave. Mr. Addington stumbled on the two very\nworst and most villanous taxes human malice could have invented,--one on\nmedicines, the other on justice. What tyrant\u2019s fearful ingenuity could\nafflict us more than by impeding at once redress for our wrongs, and\ncure for our diseases? Mr. Addington was the fool _in se_, and therefore\nthe knave in office; but, bless you! he never meant it!\n\n\n\n\n                              COMMON-SENSE.\n\nCommon-sense,--common-sense,--of all phrases, all catchwords, this is\noften the most deceitful and the most dangerous. Look, in especial,\nsuspiciously upon common-sense whenever it is opposed to discovery.\nCommon-sense is the experience of every day. Discovery is something\nagainst the experience of every day. No wonder, then, that when Galileo\nproclaimed a great truth, the universal cry was, \u201cPshaw! common-sense\nwill tell you the reverse.\u201d Talk to a sensible man for the first time on\nthe theory of vision, and hear what his common-sense will say to it. In\na letter in the time of Bacon, the writer, of no mean intellect himself,\nsays: \u201cIt is a pity the chancellor should set his opinion against the\nexperience of so many centuries and the dictates of common-sense.\u201d\n Common-sense, then, so useful in household matters, is less useful in\nthe legislative and in the scientific world than it has been generally\ndeemed. Naturally, the advocate for what has been tried, and averse\nto what is speculative, it opposes the new philosophy that appeals to\nreason, and clings to the old which is propped by sanction.\n\n\n\n\n                        LOVE, AND WRITERS ON LOVE.\n\nMy warm, hot-headed, ardent young friends, ye are in the flower of your\nlife, and writing verses about love,--let us say a word on the\nsubject. There are two species of love common to all men and to most\nanimals,--[Most animals; for some appear insensible to the love of\ncustom]--one springs from the senses, the other grows out of custom.\nNow, neither of these, my dear young friends, is the love that you\npretend to feel,--the love of lovers. Your passion, having only its\nfoundation (and that unacknowledged) in the senses, owes everything else\nto the imagination. Now, the imagination of the majority is different\nin complexion and degree in every country and in every age; so also, and\nconsequently, is the love of the imagination. As a proof, observe that\nyou sympathize with the romantic love of other times or nations only\nin proportion as you sympathize with their poetry and imaginative\nliterature. The love which stalks through the \u201cArcadia\u201d or \u201cAmadis\nof Gaul\u201d is to the great bulk of readers coldly insipid or solemnly\nridiculous. Alas! when those works excited enthusiasm, so did the love\nwhich they describe. The long speeches, the icy compliments, expressed\nthe feeling of the day. The love madrigals of the time of Shenstone,\nor the brocade gallantries of the French poets in the last century, any\nwoman now would consider hollow or childish, imbecile or artificial.\nOnce the songs were natural, and the love seductive. And now, my young\nfriends, in the year 1822, in which I write, and shall probably die, the\nlove which glitters through Moore, and walks so ambitiously ambiguous\nthrough the verse of Byron; the love which you consider now so deep and\nso true; the love which tingles through the hearts of your young ladies,\nand sets you young gentlemen gazing on the evening star,--all that love\ntoo will become unfamiliar or ridiculous to an after age; and the young\naspirings and the moonlight dreams and the vague fiddle-de-dees which\nye now think so touching and so sublime will go, my dear boys, where\nCowley\u2019s Mistress and Waller\u2019s Sacharissa have gone before,--go with the\nSapphos and the Chloes, the elegant \u201ccharming fairs,\u201d and the chivalric\n\u201cmost beauteous princesses!\u201d The only love-poetry that stands through\nall time and appeals to all hearts is that which is founded on either\nor both the species of love natural to all men,--the love of the senses,\nand the love of custom. In the latter is included what middle-aged men\ncall the rational attachment, the charm of congenial minds, as well\nas the homely and warmer accumulation of little memories of simple\nkindness, or the mere brute habitude of seeing a face as one would see\na chair. These, sometimes singly, sometimes skilfully blended, make the\ntheme of those who have perhaps loved the most honestly and the most\nhumanly; these yet render Tibullus pathetic, and Ovid a master over\ntender affections; and these, above all, make that irresistible and\nall-touching inspiration which subdues the romantic, the calculating,\nthe old, the young, the courtier, the peasant, the poet, the man of\nbusiness, in the glorious love-poetry of Robert Burns.\n\n\n\n\n                           THE GREAT ENTAILED.\n\nThe great inheritance of man is a commonwealth of blunders. One race\nspend their lives in botching the errors transmitted to them by another;\nand the main cause of all political, that is, all the worst and most\ngeneral, blunders is this,--the same rule we apply to individual cases\nwe will not apply to public. All men consent that swindling for a horse\nis swindling,--they punish the culprit and condemn the fault. But in a\nState there is no such unanimity. Swindling, Lord help you! is called\nby some fine name; and cheating grows grandiloquent, and styles itself\n\u201cPolicy.\u201d In consequence of this there is always a battle between those\nwho call things by their right names and those who pertinaciously\ngive them the wrong ones. Hence all sorts of confusion. This confusion\nextends very soon to the laws made for individual cases; and thus in\nold States, though the world is still agreed that private swindling is\nprivate swindling, there is the Devil\u2019s own difficulty in punishing the\nswindling of the public. The art of swindling now is a different thing\nto the art of swindling a hundred years ago; but the laws remain the\nsame. Adaptation in private cases is innovation in public; so, without\nrepealing old laws, they make new. Sometimes these are effectual, but\nmore often not. Now, my beloved pupils, a law is a gun which if it\nmisses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty,\nit hits some one else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every\nlaw creates a crime; and hence we go on multiplying sins and evils, and\nfaults and blunders, till society becomes the organized disorder for\npicking pockets.\n\n\n\n\n                       THE REGENERATION OF A KNAVE.\n\nA man who begins the world by being a fool often ends it by becoming\na knave; but he who begins as a knave, if he be a rich man (and so not\nhanged), may end, my beloved pupils, in being a pious creature. And this\nis the wherefore: \u201ca knave early\u201d soon gets knowledge of the world. One\nvice worn out makes us wiser than fifty tutors. But wisdom causes us to\nlove quiet, and in quiet we do not sin. He who is wise and sins not can\nscarcely fail of doing good; for let him but utter a new truth, and even\nhis imagination cannot conceive the limit of the good he may have done\nto man!\n\n\n\n\n                                  STYLE.\n\nDo you well understand what a wonderful thing style is? I think not; for\nin the exercises you sent me, your styles betrayed that no very earnest\nconsideration had been lavished upon them. Know, then, that you must\npause well before you take up any model of style. On your style often\ndepends your own character,--almost always the character given you by\nthe world. If you adopt the lofty style,--if you string together noble\nphrases and swelling Sonora,--you have expressed, avowed, a frame of\nmind which you will insensibly desire to act up to; the desire gradually\nbegets the capacity. The life of Dr. Parr is Dr. Parr\u2019s style put in\naction; and Lord Byron makes himself through existence unhappy for\nhaving accidentally slipped into a melancholy current of words. But\nsuppose you escape this calamity by a peculiar hardihood of temperament,\nyou escape not the stamp of popular opinion. Addison must ever be held\nby the vulgar the most amiable of men, because of the social amenity of\nhis diction; and the admirers of language will always consider Burke a\nnobler spirit than Fox, because of the grandeur of his sentences. How\nmany wise sayings have been called jests because they were wittily\nuttered! How many nothings swelled their author into a sage, ay,\na saint, because they were strung together by the old hypocrite\nnun,--Gravity!\n\nTHE END.","title":"Tomlinsoniana","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7438}