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Title: Literary Remains (1)
Author: Coleridge
Posting Date: February 14, 2015 [EBook #8488]
Release Date: July, 2005
First Posted: July 15, 2003
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITERARY REMAINS (1) ***
Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Clytie Siddall, David Widger
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THE LITERARY REMAINS
OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ. M. A.
TO
JOSEPH HENRY GREEN, ESQ.
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS,
THE APPROVED FRIEND
OF
COLERIDGE
THESE VOLUMES
ARE
GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED.
PREFACE
Mr. Coleridge by his will, dated in September, 1829, authorized his
executor, if he should think it expedient, to publish any of the notes
or writing made by him (Mr. C.) in his books, or any other of his
manuscripts or writings, or any letters which should thereafter be
collected from, or supplied by, his friends or correspondents. Agreeably
to this authority, an arrangement was made, under the superintendence of
Mr. Green, for the collection of Coleridge's literary remains; and at
the same time the preparation for the press of such part of the
materials as should consist of criticism and general literature, was
entrusted to the care of the present Editor. The volumes now offered to
the public are the first results of that arrangement. They must in any
case stand in need of much indulgence from the ingenuous reader;--'multa
sunt condonanda in opere postumo'; but a short statement of the
difficulties attending the compilation may serve to explain some
apparent anomalies, and to preclude some unnecessary censure.
The materials were fragmentary in the extreme--Sibylline leaves;--notes
of the lecturer, memoranda of the investigator, out-pourings of the
solitary and self-communing student. The fear of the press was not in
them. Numerous as they were, too, they came to light, or were
communicated, at different times, before and after the printing was
commenced; and the dates, the occasions, and the references, in most
instances remained to be discovered or conjectured. To give to such
materials method and continuity, as far as might be,--to set them forth
in the least disadvantageous manner which the circumstances would
permit,--was a delicate and perplexing task; and the Editor is painfully
sensible that he could bring few qualifications for the undertaking, but
such as were involved in a many years' intercourse with the author
himself, a patient study of his writings, a reverential admiration of
his genius, and an affectionate desire to help in extending its
beneficial influence.
The contents of these volumes are drawn from a portion only of the
manuscripts entrusted to the Editor: the remainder of the collection,
which, under favourable circumstances, he hopes may hereafter see the
light, is at least of equal value with what is now presented to the
reader as a sample. In perusing the following pages, the reader will, in
a few instances, meet with disquisitions of a transcendental character,
which, as a general rule, have been avoided: the truth is, that they
were sometimes found so indissolubly intertwined with the more popular
matter which preceded and followed, as to make separation impracticable.
There are very many to whom no apology will be necessary in this
respect; and the Editor only adverts to it for the purpose of obviating,
as far as may be, the possible complaint of the more general reader. But
there is another point to which, taught by past experience, he attaches
more importance, and as to which, therefore, he ventures to put in a
more express and particular caution. In many of the books and papers,
which have been used in the compilation of these volumes, passages from
other writers, noted down by Mr. Coleridge as in some way remarkable,
were mixed up with his own comments on such passages, or with his
reflections on other subjects, in a manner very embarrassing to the eye
of a third person undertaking to select the original matter, after the
lapse of several years. The Editor need not say that he has not
knowingly admitted any thing that was not genuine without an express
declaration, as in Vol. I. p. 1; and in another instance, Vol. II. p.
379, he has intimated his own suspicion: but, besides these, it is
possible that some cases of mistake in this respect may have occurred.
There may be one or two passages--they cannot well be more--printed in
these volumes, which belong to other writers; and if such there be, the
Editor can only plead in excuse, that the work has been prepared by him
amidst many distractions, and hope that, in this instance at least, no
ungenerous use will be made of such a circumstance to the disadvantage
of the author, and that persons of greater reading or more retentive
memories than the Editor, who may discover any such passages, will do
him the favour to communicate the fact.
The Editor's motive in publishing the few poems and fragments included
in these volumes, was to make a supplement to the collected edition of
Coleridge's poetical works. In these fragments the reader will see the
germs of several passages in the already published poems of the author,
but which the Editor has not thought it necessary to notice more
particularly. 'The Fall of Robespierre', a joint composition, has been
so long in print in the French edition of Coleridge's poems, that,
independently of such merit as it may possess, it seemed natural to
adopt it upon the present occasion, and to declare the true state of the
authorship.
To those who have been kind enough to communicate books and manuscripts
for the purpose of the present publication, the Editor and, through him,
Mr. Coleridge's executor return their grateful thanks. In most cases a
specific acknowledgement has been made. But, above and independently of
all others, it is to Mr. and Mrs. Gillman, and to Mr. Green himself,
that the public are indebted for the preservation and use of the
principal part of the contents of these volumes. The claims of those
respected individuals on the gratitude of the friends and admirers of
Coleridge and his works are already well known, and in due season those
claims will receive additional confirmation.
With these remarks, sincerely conscious of his own inadequate execution
of the task assigned to him, yet confident withal of the general worth
of the contents of the following pages--the Editor commits the reliques
of a great man to the indulgent consideration of the Public.
Lincoln's Inn, August 11, 1836.
L'ENVOY.
He was one who with long and large arm still collected precious armfulls
in whatever direction he pressed forward, yet still took up so much more
than he could keep together, that those who followed him gleaned more
from his continual droppings than he himself brought home;--nay, made
stately corn-ricks therewith, while the reaper himself was still seen
only with a strutting armful of newly-cut sheaves. But I should
misinform you grossly if I left you to infer that his collections were a
heap of incoherent 'miscellanea'. No! the very contrary. Their variety,
conjoined with the too great coherency, the too great both desire and
power of referring them in systematic, nay, genetic subordination, was
that which rendered his schemes gigantic and impracticable, as an
author, and his conversation less instructive as a man.
'Auditorem inopem ipsa copia fecit'.--Too much was given, all so weighty
and brilliant as to preclude a chance of its being all received,--so
that it not seldom passed over the hearer's mind like a roar of many
waters.
CONTENTS
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
POEMS.
"Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace"
"------------I yet remain"
To the Rev. W. J. Hort
To Charles Lamb
To the Nightingale
To Sara
To Joseph Cottle
Casimir
Darwiniana
"The early year's fast-flying vapours stray"
Count Rumford's Essays
Epigrams.
On a late Marriage between an Old Maid and a French Petit Maître
On an Amorous Doctor
"There comes from old Avaro's grave"
"Last Monday all the papers said"
To a Primrose, (the first seen in the season)
On the Christening of a Friend's Child
Epigram, "Hoarse Maevius reads his hobbling verse"
Inscription by the Rev. W. L. Bowles, in Nether Stowey Church
Translation
Introduction to the Tale of the Dark Ladie
Epilogue to the Rash Conjuror
Psyche
Complaint
Reproof
An Ode to the Rain
Translation of a Passage in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the
Gospel
Israel's Lament on the Death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales
Sentimental
The Alternative
The Exchange
What is Life?
Inscription for a Time-piece
A COURSE OF LECTURES.
Prospectus
Lecture I. General character of the Gothic Mind in the Middle Ages
II. General Character of the Gothic Literature and Art
III. The Troubadours--Boccaccio--Petrarch--Pulci--Chaucer--Spenser
IV-VI. Shakspeare (not included in the original text)
VII. Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger
VIII. 'Don Quixote'. Cervantes
IX. On the Distinctions of the Witty, the Droll, the Odd, and the
Humorous; the Nature and Constituents of Humour; Rabelais, Swift,
Sterne
X. Donne, Dante, Milton, 'Paradise Lost'
XI. Asiatic and Greek Mythologies, Robinson Crusoe, Use of Works of
Imagination in Education
XII. Dreams, Apparitions, Alchemists, Personality of the Evil Being,
Bodily Identity
XIII. On Poesy or Art
XIV. On Style
Notes on Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici
Notes on Junius
Notes on Barclay's 'Argenis'
Note in Casaubon's 'Persius'
Notes on Chapman's Homer
Note in Baxter's 'Life of Himself'
Fragment of an Essay on Taste
Fragment of an Essay on Beauty
Poems and Poetical Fragments
OMNIANA.
The French Decade
Ride and Tie
Jeremy Taylor
Criticism
Public Instruction
Picturesque Words
Toleration
War
Parodies
M. Dupuis
Origin of the Worship of Hymen
Egotism
Cap of Liberty
Bulls
Wise Ignorance
Rouge
Hasty Words
Motives and Impulses
Inward Blindness
The Vices of Slaves no excuse for Slavery
Circulation of the Blood
'Peritura Parcere Chartae'
To have and to be
Party Passion
Goodness of Heart Indispensable to a Man of Genius
Milton and Ben Jonson
Statistics
Magnanimity
Negroes and Narcissuses
An Anecdote
The Pharos at Alexandria
Sense and Common Sense
Toleration
Hint for a New Species of History
Text Sparring
Pelagianism
The Soul and its Organs of Sense
Sir George Etherege, &c.
Evidence
Force of Habit
Phoenix
Memory and Recollection
'Aliquid ex Nihilo'
Brevity of the Greek and English compared
The Will and the Deed
The Will for the Deed
Sincerity
Truth and Falsehood
Religious Ceremonies
Association
Curiosity
New Truths
Vicious Pleasures
Meriting Heaven
Dust to Dust
Human Countenance
Lie useful to Truth
Science in Roman Catholic States
Voluntary Belief
Amanda
Hymen's Torch
Youth and Age
December Morning
Archbishop Leighton
Christian Honesty
Inscription on a Clock in Cheapside
Rationalism is not Reason
Inconsistency
Hope in Humanity
Self-love in Religion
Limitation of Love of Poetry
Humility of the Amiable
Temper in Argument
Patriarchal Government
Callous self-conceit
A Librarian
Trimming
Death
Love an Act of the Will
Wedded Union
Difference between Hobbes and Spinosa
The End may justify the Means
Negative Thought
Man's return to Heaven
Young Prodigies
Welch names
German Language
The Universe
Harberous
An Admonition
To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry
Definition of Miracle
Death, and grounds of belief in a Future State
Hatred of Injustice
Religion
The Apostles' Creed
A Good Heart
Evidences of Christianity
'Confessio Fidei
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE
AND OTHER POEMS.
TO H. MARTIN, ESQ.
OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE.
DEAR SIR,
Accept, as a small testimony of my grateful attachment, the following
Dramatic Poem, in which I have endeavoured to detail, in an interesting
form, the fall of a man, whose great bad actions have cast a disastrous
lustre on his name. In the execution of the work, as intricacy of plot
could not have been attempted without a gross violation of recent facts,
it has been my sole aim to imitate the impassioned and highly figurative
language of the French Orators, and to develope the characters of the
chief actors on a vast stage of horrors.
Yours fraternally,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
Jesus College, September 22, 1794.
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE.
AN HISTORIC DRAMA. 1794. [1]
[Footnote 1: The origin and authorship of "The Fall of Robespierre" will
be best explained by the following extract from a letter from Mr.
Southey to the Editor:
"This is the history of The Fall of Robespierre. It originated in
sportive conversation at poor Lovell's, and we agreed each to produce an
act by the next evening;--S. T. C. the first, I the second, and Lovell
the third. S. T. C. brought part of his, I and Lovell the whole of ours;
but L.'s was not in keeping, and therefore I undertook to supply the
third also by the following day. By that time, S. T. C. had filled up
his. A dedication to Mrs. Hannah More was concocted, and the notable
performance was offered for sale to a bookseller in Bristol, who was too
wise to buy it. Your Uncle took the MSS. with him to Cambridge, and
there rewrote the first act at leisure, and published it. My portion I
never saw from the time it was written till the whole was before the
world. It was written with newspapers before me, as fast as newspaper
could be put into blank verse. I have no desire to claim it now, or
hereafter; but neither am I ashamed of it; and if you think proper to
print the whole, so be it."--
"The Fall of Robespierre, a tragedy, of which the first act was written
by S. T. Coleridge." Mr. C.'s note in the Conciones ad Populum, 1795.
Ed.]
ACT I.
SCENE--'The Tuilleries'.
BARRERE.
The tempest gathers--be it mine to seek
A friendly shelter, ere it bursts upon him.
But where? and how? I fear the tyrant's soul--
Sudden in action, fertile in resource,
And rising awful 'mid impending ruins;
In splendour gloomy, as the midnight meteor,
That fearless thwarts the elemental war.
When last in secret conference we met,
He scowl'd upon me with suspicious rage,
Making his eye the inmate of my bosom.
I know he scorns me--and I feel, I hate him--
Yet there is in him that which makes me tremble!
[Exit.]
[Enter TALLIEN and LEGENDRE.]
TALLIEN.
It was Barrere, Legendre! didst thou mark him?
Abrupt he turn'd, yet linger'd as he went,
And tow'rds us cast a look of doubtful meaning.
LEGENDRE.
I mark'd him well. I met his eye's last glance;
It menac'd not so proudly as of yore.
Methought he would have spoke--but that he dar'd not--
Such agitation darken'd on his brow.
TALLIEN.
'Twas all-distrusting guilt that kept from bursting
Th'imprison'd secret struggling in the face:
E'en as the sudden breeze upstarting onwards
Hurries the thunder cloud, that pois'd awhile
Hung in mid air, red with its mutinous burthen.
LEGENDRE.
Perfidious traitor!--still afraid to bask
In the full blaze of power, the rustling serpent
Lurks in the thicket of the tyrant's greatness,
Ever prepar'd to sting who shelters him.
Each thought, each action in himself converges;
And love and friendship on his coward heart
Shine like the powerless sun on polar ice:
To all attach'd, by turns deserting all,
Cunning and dark--a necessary villain!
TALLIEN.
Yet much depends upon him--well you know
With plausible harangue 'tis his to paint
Defeat like victory--and blind the mob
With truth-mix'd falsehood. They, led on by him,
And wild of head to work their own destruction,
Support with uproar what he plans in darkness.
LEGENDRE.
O what a precious name is liberty
To scare or cheat the simple into slaves!
Yes--we must gain him over: by dark hints
We'll show enough to rouse his watchful fears,
Till the cold coward blaze a patriot.
O Danton! murder'd friend! assist my counsels--
Hover around me on sad memory's wings,
And pour thy daring vengeance in my heart.
Tallien! if but to-morrow's fateful sun
Beholds the tyrant living--we are dead!
TALLIEN.
Yet his keen eye that flashes mighty meanings--
LEGENDRE.
Fear not--or rather fear th'alternative,
And seek for courage e'en in cowardice--
But see--hither he comes--let us away!
His brother with him, and the bloody Couthon,
And, high of haughty spirit, young St. Just.
[Exeunt.]
[Enter ROBESPIERRE, COUTHON, ST. JUST, and ROBESPIERRE Junior.]
ROBESPIERRE.
What! did La Fayette fall before my power--
And did I conquer Roland's spotless virtues--
The fervent eloquence of Vergniaud's tongue,
And Brissot's thoughtful soul unbribed and bold!
Did zealot armies haste in vain to save them!
What! did th' assassin's dagger aim its point
Vain, as a dream of murder, at my bosom;
And shall I dread the soft luxurious Tallien?
Th' Adonis Tallien,--banquet-hunting Tallien,--
Him, whose heart flutters at the dice-box!
Him, Who ever on the harlots' downy pillow
Resigns his head impure to feverish slumbers!
ST. JUST.
I cannot fear him--yet we must not scorn him.
Was it not Antony that conquer'd Brutus,
Th' Adonis, banquet-hunting Antony?
The state is not yet purified: and though
The stream runs clear, yet at the bottom lies
The thick black sediment of all the factions--
It needs no magic hand to stir it up!
COUTHON.
O, we did wrong to spare them--fatal error!
Why lived Legendre, when that Danton died,
And Collot d'Herbois dangerous in crimes?
I've fear'd him, since his iron heart endured
To make of Lyons one vast human shambles,
Compar'd with which the sun-scorch'd wilderness
Of Zara were a smiling paradise.
ST. JUST.
Rightly thou judgest, Couthon! He is one,
Who flies from silent solitary anguish,
Seeking forgetful peace amid the jar
Of elements. The howl of maniac uproar
Lulls to sad sleep the memory of himself.
A calm is fatal to him--then he feels
The dire upboilings of the storm within him.
A tiger mad with inward wounds!--I dread
The fierce and restless turbulence of guilt.
ROBESPIERRE.
Is not the Commune ours? the stern Tribunal?
Dumas? and Vivier? Fleuriot? and Louvet?
And Henriot? We'll denounce a hundred, nor
Shall they behold to-morrow's sun roll westward.
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Nay--I am sick of blood! my aching heart
Reviews the long, long train of hideous horrors
That still have gloom'd the rise of the Republic.
I should have died before Toulon, when war Became the patriot!
ROBESPIERRE.
Most unworthy wish!
He, whose heart sickens at the blood of traitors
Would be himself a traitor, were he not
A coward! 'Tis congenial souls alone
Shed tears of sorrow for each other's fate.
O, thou art brave, my brother! and thine eye
Full firmly shines amid the groaning battle--
Yet in thine heart the woman-form of pity
Asserts too large a share, an ill-timed guest!
There is unsoundness in the state--to-morrow
Shall see it cleansed by wholesome massacre!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Beware! already do the Sections murmur--
"O the great glorious patriot, Robespierre--
The tyrant guardian of the country's freedom!"
COUTHON.
'Twere folly sure to work great deeds by halves!
Much I suspect the darksome fickle heart Of cold Barrere!
ROBESPIERRE.
I see the villain in him!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
If he--if all forsake thee--what remains?
ROBESPIERRE.
Myself! the steel-strong rectitude of soul
And poverty sublime 'mid circling virtues!
The giant victories, my counsels form'd,
Shall stalk around me with sun-glittering plumes,
Bidding the darts of calumny fall pointless.
[Exeunt. Manet Couthon.]
COUTHON.
So we deceive ourselves! What goodly virtues
Bloom on the poisonous branches of ambition!
Still, Robespierre! thou'l't guard thy country's freedom
To despotize in all the patriot's pomp.
While conscience, 'mid the mob's applauding clamours,
Sleeps in thine ear, nor whispers--blood-stain'd tyrant!
Yet what is conscience? superstition's dream
Making such deep impression on our sleep--
That long th' awaken'd breast retains its horrors!
But he returns--and with him comes Barrere.
[Exit Couthon.]
[Enter ROBESPIERRE and BARRERE.]
ROBESPIERRE.
There is no danger but in cowardice.--
Barrere! we make the danger, when we fear it.
We have such force without, as will suspend
The cold and trembling treachery of these members.
BARRERE.
Twill be a pause of terror.--
ROBESPIERRE.
But to whom?
Rather the short-lived slumber of the tempest,
Gathering its strength anew. The dastard traitors!
Moles, that would undermine the rooted oak!
A pause!--a moment's pause!--'Tis all their life.
BARRERE.
Yet much they talk--and plausible their speech.
Couthon's decree has given such powers, that--
ROBESPIERRE.
That what?
BARRERE.
The freedom of debate--
ROBESPIERRE.
Transparent mask!
They wish to clog the wheels of government,
Forcing the hand that guides the vast machine
To bribe them to their duty.--English patriots!
Are not the congregated clouds of war
Black all around us? In our very vitals
Works not the king-bred poison of rebellion?
Say, what shall counteract the selfish plottings
Of wretches, cold of heart, nor awed by fears
Of him, whose power directs th' eternal justice?
Terror? or secret-sapping gold? The first.
Heavy, but transient as the ills that cause it;
And to the virtuous patriot render'd light
By the necessities that gave it birth:
The other fouls the fount of the Republic,
Making it flow polluted to all ages;
Inoculates the state with a slow venom,
That once imbibed, must be continued ever.
Myself incorruptible I ne'er could bribe them--
Therefore they hate me.
BARRERE.
Are the Sections friendly?
ROBESPIERRE.
There are who wish my ruin--but I'll make them
Blush for the crime in blood!
BARRERE.
Nay--but I tell thee,
Thou art too fond of slaughter--and the right
(If right it be) workest by most foul means!
ROBESPIERRE.
Self-centering Fear! how well thou canst ape Mercy!
Too fond of slaughter!--matchless hypocrite!
Thought Barrere so, when Brissot, Danton died?
Thought Barrere so, when through the streaming streets
Of Paris red-eyed Massacre, o'er wearied,
Reel'd heavily, intoxicate with blood?
And when (O heavens!) in Lyons' death-red square
Sick fancy groan'd o'er putrid hills of slain,
Didst thou not fiercely laugh, and bless the day?
Why, thou hast been the mouth-piece of all horrors,
And, like a blood-hound, crouch'd for murder! Now
Aloof thou standest from the tottering pillar,
Or, like a frighted child behind its mother,
Hidest thy pale face in the skirts of--Mercy!
BARRERE.
O prodigality of eloquent anger!
Why now I see thou'rt weak--thy case is desperate!
The cool ferocious Robespierre turn'd scolder!
ROBESPIERRE.
Who from a bad man's bosom wards the blow,
Reserves the whetted dagger for his own.
Denounced twice--and twice I sav'd his life!
[Exit.]
BARRERE.
The Sections will support them--there's the point!
No! he can never weather out the storm--
Yet he is sudden in revenge--No more!
I must away to Tallien.
[Exit.]
[SCENE changes to the House of Adelaide. ADELAIDE enters, speaking to a
Servant.]
ADELAIDE.
Didst thou present the letter that I gave thee?
Did Tallien answer, he would soon return?
SERVANT.
He is in the Tuilleries--with him, Legendre--
In deep discourse they seem'd: as I approach'd
He waved his hand, as bidding me retire:
I did not interrupt him.
[Returns the letter.]
ADELAIDE.
Thou didst rightly.
[Exit Servant.]
O this new freedom! at how dear a price
We've bought the seeming good! The peaceful virtues
And every blandishment of private life,
The father's cares, the mother's fond endearment,
All sacrificed to liberty's wild riot.
The winged hours, that scatter'd roses round me,
Languid and sad drag their slow course along,
And shake big gall-drops from their heavy wings.
But I will steal away these anxious thoughts
By the soft languishment of warbled airs,
If haply melodies may lull the sense
Of sorrow for a while.
[Soft Music.]
[Enter TALLIEN.]
TALLIEN.
Music, my love? O breathe again that air!
Soft nurse of pain, it soothes the weary soul
Of care, sweet as the whisper'd breeze of evening
That plays around the sick man's throbbing temples.
SONG.
Tell me, on what holy ground
May domestic peace be found?
Halcyon daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wing she flies,
From the pomp of sceptred state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottag'd vale she dwells,
List'ning to the Sabbath bells!
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless honour's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,
And conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.
TALLIEN.
I thank thee, Adelaide! 'twas sweet, though mournful.
But why thy brow o'ercast, thy cheek so wan?
Thou look'st as a lorn maid beside some stream,
That sighs away the soul in fond despairing,
While sorrow sad, like the dank willow near her,
Hangs o'er the troubled fountain of her eye.
ADELAIDE.
Ah! rather let me ask what mystery lowers
On Tallien's darken'd brow. Thou dost me wrong--
Thy soul distemper'd, can my heart be tranquil?
TALLIEN.
Tell me, by whom thy brother's blood was spilt?
Asks he not vengeance on these patriot murderers?
It has been borne too tamely. Fears and curses
Groan on our midnight beds, and e'en our dreams
Threaten the assassin hand of Robespierre.
He dies!--nor has the plot escaped his fears.
ADELAIDE.
Yet--yet--be cautious! much I fear the Commune--
The tyrant's creatures, and their fate with his
Fast link'd in close indissoluble union.
The pale Convention--
TALLIEN.
Hate him as they fear him,
Impatient of the chain, resolved and ready.
ADELAIDE.
Th' enthusiast mob, confusion's lawless sons--
TALLIEN.
They are aweary of his stern morality,
The fair-mask'd offspring of ferocious pride.
The Sections too support the delegates:
All--all is ours! e'en now the vital air
Of Liberty, condens'd awhile, is bursting
(Force irresistible!) from its compressure--
To shatter the arch chemist in the explosion!
[Enter BILLAUD VARENNES and BOURDON L'OISE.]
[Adelaide retires.]
BOURDON L'OISE.
Tallien! was this a time for amorous conference?
Henriot, the tyrant's most devoted creature,
Marshals the force of Paris: The fierce club,
With Vivier at their head, in loud acclaim
Have sworn to make the guillotine in blood
Float on the scaffold.--But who comes here?
[Enter BARRERE abruptly.]
BARRERE.
Say, are ye friends to freedom? I am hers!
Let us, forgetful of all common feuds,
Rally around her shrine! E'en now the tyrant
Concerts a plan of instant massacre!
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Away to the Convention! with that voice
So oft the herald of glad victory,
Rouse their fallen spirits, thunder in their ears
The names of tyrant, plunderer, assassin!
The violent workings of my soul within
Anticipate the monster's blood!
[Cry from the street of
--No tyrant! Down with the tyrant!]
TALLIEN.
Hear ye that outcry?--If the trembling members
Even for a moment hold his fate suspended,
I swear by the holy poniard, that stabbed Caesar,
This dagger probes his heart!
[Exeunt omnes.]
ACT II.
SCENE--The Convention.
[ROBESPIERRE mounts the Tribune.]
ROBESPIERRE.
Once more befits it that the voice of truth,
Fearless in innocence, though leaguer'd round
By envy and her hateful brood of hell,
Be heard amid this hall; once more befits
The patriot, whose prophetic eye so oft
Has pierc'd thro' faction's veil, to flash on crimes
Of deadliest import. Mouldering in the grave
Sleeps Capet's caitiff corse; my daring hand
Levell'd to earth his blood-cemented throne,
My voice declared his guilt, and stirr'd up France
To call for vengeance. I too dug the grave
Where sleep the Girondists, detested band!
Long with the show of freedom they abused
Her ardent sons. Long time the well-turn'd phrase,
The high fraught sentence, and the lofty tone
Of declamation thunder'd in this hall,
Till reason, midst a labyrinth of words,
Perplex'd, in silence seem'd to yield assent.
I durst oppose. Soul of my honour'd friend,
Spirit of Marat, upon thee I call--
Thou know'st me faithful, know'st with what warm zeal
I urged the cause of justice, stripp'd the mask
From faction's deadly visage, and destroy'd
Her traitor brood. Whose patriot arm hurl'd down
Hebert and Rousin, and the villain friends
Of Danton, foul apostate! those, who long
Mask'd treason's form in liberty's fair garb,
Long deluged France with blood, and durst defy
Omnipotence! but I, it seems, am false!
I am a traitor too! I--Robespierre!
I--at whose name the dastard despot brood
Look pale with fear, and call on saints to help them
Who dares accuse me? who shall dare belie
My spotless name? Speak, ye accomplice band,
Of what am I accused? of what strange crime
Is Maximilian Robespierre accused,
That through this hall the buzz of discontent
Should murmur? who shall speak?
BILLAUD VARENNES.
O patriot tongue,
Belying the foul heart! Who was it urged
Friendly to tyrants that accurst decree,
Whose influence brooding o'er this hallow'd hall,
Has chill'd each tongue to silence. Who destroy'd
The freedom of debate, and carried through
The fatal law, that doom'd the delegates,
Unheard before their equals, to the bar
Where cruelty sat throned, and murder reign'd
With her Dumas coequal? Say--thou man
Of mighty eloquence, whose law was that?
COUTHON.
That law was mine. I urged it--I proposed--
The voice of France assembled in her sons
Assented, though the tame and timid voice
Of traitors murmur'd. I advised that law--
I justify it. It was wise and good.
BARRERE.
Oh, wondrous wise, and most convenient too!
I have long mark'd thee, Robespierre--and now
Proclaim thee traitor--tyrant!
[Loud applauses.]
ROBESPIERRE.
It is well;--I am a traitor! oh, that I had fallen
When Regnault lifted high the murderous knife;
Regnault, the instrument, belike of those
Who now themselves would fain assassinate,
And legalize their murders. I stand here
An isolated patriot--hemm'd around
By faction's noisy pack; beset and bay'd
By the foul hell-hounds who know no escape
From justice' outstretch'd arm, but by the force
That pierces through her breast.
[Murmurs, and shouts of
--Down with the tyrant!]
ROBESPIERRE.
Nay, but I will be heard. There was a time
When Robespierre began, the loud applauses
Of honest patriots drown'd the honest sound.
But times are changed, and villany prevails.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
No--villany shall fall. France could not brook
A monarch's sway;--sounds the dictator's name
More soothing to her ear?
BOURDON L'OISE.
Rattle her chains
More musically now than when the hand
Of Brissot forged her fetters; or the crew
Of Hebert thunder'd out their blasphemies,
And Danton talk'd of virtue?
ROBESPIERRE.
Oh, that Brissot
Were here again to thunder in this hall,--
That Hebert lived, and Danton's giant form
Scowl'd once again defiance! so my soul
Might cope with worthy foes.
People of France,
Hear me! Beneath the vengeance of the law
Traitors have perish'd countless; more survive:
The hydra-headed faction lifts anew
Her daring front, and fruitful from her wounds,
Cautious from past defects, contrives new wiles
Against the sons of Freedom.
TALLIEN.
Freedom lives!
Oppression falls--for France has felt her chains,
Has burst them too. Who, traitor-like, stept forth
Amid the hall of Jacobins to save
Camille Desmoulins, and the venal wretch
D'Eglantine?
ROBESPIERRE.
I did--for I thought them honest.
And Heaven forefend that vengeance e'er should strike,
Ere justice doom'd the blow.
BARRERE.
Traitor, thou didst.
Yes, the accomplice of their dark designs,
Awhile didst thou defend them, when the storm
Lour'd at safe distance. When the clouds frown'd darker,
Fear'd for yourself, and left them to their fate.
Oh, I have mark'd thee long, and through the veil
Seen thy foul projects. Yes, ambitious man,
Self-will'd dictator o'er the realm of France,
The vengeance thou hast plann'd for patriots,
Falls on thy head. Look how thy brother's deeds
Dishonour thine! He, the firm patriot;
Thou, the foul parricide of Liberty!
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
Barrere--attempt not meanly to divide
Me from my brother. I partake his guilt,
For I partake his virtue.
ROBESPIERRE.
Brother, by my soul,
More dear I hold thee to my heart, that thus
With me thou dar'st to tread the dangerous path
Of virtue, than that nature twined her cords
Of kindred round us.
BARRERE.
Yes, allied in guilt,
Even as in blood ye are. Oh, thou worst wretch,
Thou worse than Sylla! hast thou not proscrib'd,
Yea, in most foul anticipation slaughter'd
Each patriot representative of France?
BOURDON L'OISE.
Was not the younger Caesar too to reign
O'er all our valiant armies in the south,
And still continue there his merchant wiles?
ROBESPIERRE JUNIOR.
His merchant wiles! Oh, grant me patience, heaven!
Was it by merchant wiles I gain'd you back
Toulon, when proudly on her captive towers
Wav'd high the English flag? or fought I then
With merchant wiles, when sword in hand I led
Your troops to conquest? fought I merchant-like,
Or barter'd I for victory, when death
Strode o'er the reeking streets with giant stride,
And shook his ebon plumes, and sternly smil'd
Amid the bloody banquet? when appall'd
The hireling sons of England spread the sail
Of safety, fought I like a merchant then?
Oh, patience! patience!
BOURDON L'OISE.
How this younger tyrant
Mouths out defiance to us! even so
He had led on the armies of the south,
Till once again the plains of France were drench'd
With her best blood.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Till once again display'd
Lyons' sad tragedy had call'd me forth
The minister of wrath, whilst slaughter by
Had bathed in human blood.
DUBOIS CRANCE.
No wonder, friend,
That we are traitors--that our heads must fall
Beneath the axe of death! when Caesar-like
Reigns Robespierre, 'tis wisely done to doom
The fall of Brutus. Tell me, bloody man,
Hast thou not parcell'd out deluded France
As it had been some province won in fight
Between your curst triumvirate. You, Couthon,
Go with my brother to the southern plains;
St. Just, be yours the army of the north;
Meantime I rule at Paris.
ROBESPIERRE.
Matchless knave!
What--not one blush of conscience on thy cheek--
Not one poor blush of truth! most likely tale!
That I, who ruin'd Brissot's towering hopes,
I, who discover'd Hebert's impious wiles,
And sharp'd for Danton's recreant neck the axe,
Should now be traitor! had I been so minded,
Think ye I had destroy'd the very men
Whose plots resembled mine? bring forth your proofs
Of this deep treason. Tell me in whose breast
Found ye the fatal scroll? or tell me rather
Who forged the shameless falsehood?
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Ask you proofs?
Robespierre, what proofs were ask'd when Brissot died?
LEGENDRE.
What proofs adduced you when the Danton died?
When at the imminent peril of my life
I rose, and, fearless of thy frowning brow,
Proclaim'd him guiltless?
ROBESPIERRE.
I remember well
The fatal day. I do repent me much
That I kill'd Caesar and spared Antony.
But I have been too lenient. I have spared
The stream of blood, and now my own must flow
To fill the current.
[Loud Applauses.]
Triumph not too soon, Justice may yet be victor.
[Enter ST. JUST, and mounts the Tribune.]
ST. JUST.
I come from the committee--charged to speak
Of matters of high import. I omit
Their orders. Representatives of France,
Boldly in his own person speaks St. Just
What his own heart shall dictate.
TALLIEN.
Hear ye this,
Insulted delegates of France? St. Just
From your committee comes--comes charged to speak
Of matters of high import--yet omits
Their orders! Representatives of France,
That bold man I denounce, who disobeys
The nation's orders.--I denounce St. Just.
[Loud Applauses.]
ST. JUST.
Hear me!
[Violent Murmurs.]
ROBESPIERRE.
He shall be heard!
BURDON L'OISE.
Must we contaminate this sacred hall
With the foul breath of treason?
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Drag him away!
Hence with him to the bar.
COUTHON.
Oh, just proceedings!
Robespierre prevented liberty of speech--
And Robespierre is a tyrant! Tallien reigns,
He dreads to hear the voice of innocence--
And St. Just must be silent!
LEGENDRE.
Heed we well
That justice guide our actions. No light import
Attends this day. I move St. Just be heard.
FRERON.
Inviolate be the sacred right of man,
The freedom of debate.
[Violent Applauses.]
ST. JUST.
I may be heard then! much the times are changed,
When St. Just thanks this hall for hearing him.
Robespierre is call'd a tyrant. Men of France,
Judge not too soon. By popular discontent
Was Aristides driven into exile,
Was Phocion murder'd! Ere ye dare pronounce
Robespierre is guilty, it befits ye well,
Consider who accuse him. Tallien,
Bourdon of Oise--the very men denounced,
For that their dark intrigues disturb'd the plan
Of government. Legendre, the sworn friend
Of Danton fall'n apostate. Dubois Crance,
He who at Lyons spared the royalists--
Collot d'Herbois--
BOURDON L'OISE.
What--shall the traitor rear
His head amid our tribune, and blaspheme
Each patriot? shall the hireling slave of faction--
ST. JUST.
I am of no one faction. I contend
Against all factions.
TALLIEN.
I espouse the cause
Of truth. Robespierre on yester morn pronounced
Upon his own authority a report.
To-day St. Just comes down. St. Just neglects
What the committee orders, and harangues
From his own will. O citizens of France,
I weep for you--I weep for my poor country--
I tremble for the cause of Liberty,
When individuals shall assume the sway,
And with more insolence than kingly pride
Rule the Republic.
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Shudder, ye representatives of France,
Shudder with horror. Henriot commands
The marshall'd force of Paris. Henriot,
Foul parricide--the sworn ally of Hebert
Denounced by all--upheld by Robespierre.
Who spared La Valette? who promoted him,
Stain'd with the deep die of nobility?
Who to an ex-peer gave the high command?
Who screen'd from justice the rapacious thief?
Who cast in chains the friends of Liberty?
Robespierre, the self-styled patriot, Robespierre--
Robespierre, allied with villain Daubignè--
Robespierre, the foul arch tyrant, Robespierre.
BOURDON L'OISE.
He talks of virtue--of morality--
Consistent patriot! he Daubignè's friend!
Henriot's supporter virtuous! preach of virtue,
Yet league with villains, for with Robespierre
Villains alone ally. Thou art a tyrant!
I style thee tyrant, Robespierre!
[Loud Applauses.]
ROBESPIERRE.
Take back the name. Ye citizens of France--
[Violent Clamour. Cries of
--Down with the tyrant!]
TALLlEN.
Oppression falls. The traitor stands appall'd--
Guilt's iron fangs engrasp his shrinking soul--
He hears assembled France denounce his crimes!
He sees the mask torn from his secret sins--
He trembles on the precipice of fate.
Fall'n guilty tyrant! murder'd by thy rage,
How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd
Fair freedom's altar! Sylla-like thy hand
Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed,
Perpetual Dictator thou might'st reign,
And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom!
Long time in timid guilt the traitor plann'd
His fearful wiles--success embolden'd sin--
And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem
Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd,
Lest France awaked, should rouse her from her dream,
And call aloud for vengeance. He, like Caesar,
With rapid step urged on his bold career,
Even to the summit of ambitious power,
And deem'd the name of King alone was wanting.
Was it for this we hurl'd proud Capet down?
Is it for this we wage eternal war
Against the tyrant horde of murderers,
The crowned cockatrices whose foul venom
Infects all Europe? was it then for this
We swore to guard our liberty with life,
That Robespierre should reign? the spirit of freedom
Is not yet sunk so low. The glowing flame
That animates each honest Frenchman's heart
Not yet extinguish'd. I invoke thy shade,
Immortal Brutus! I too wear a dagger;
And if the representatives of France
Through fear or favour should delay the sword
Of justice, Tallien emulates thy virtues;
Tallien, like Brutus, lifts the avenging arm;
Tallien shall save his country.
[Violent Applauses.]
BILLAUD VARENNES.
I demand
The arrest of all the traitors. Memorable
Will be this day for France.
ROBESPIERRE.
Yes! Memorable
This day will be for France--for villains triumph.
LEBAS.
I will not share in this day's damning guilt.
Condemn me too.
[Great cry
--Down with the tyrants!
The two Robespierres, Couthon, St. Just, and Lebas are led off.]
ACT III.
SCENE continues.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Caesar is fallen! The baneful tree of Java,
Whose death-distilling boughs dropt poisonous dew,
Is rooted from its base. This worse than Cromwell,
The austere, the self-denying Robespierre,
Even in this hall, where once with terror mute
We listen'd to the hypocrite's harangues,
Has heard his doom.
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Yet must we not suppose
The tyrant will fall tamely. His sworn hireling
Henriot, the daring desperate Henriot
Commands the force of Paris. I denounce him.
FRERON.
I denounce Fleuriot too, the mayor of Paris.
[Enter DUBOIS CRANCE.]
DUBOIS CRANCE.
Robespierre is rescued. Henriot, at the head
Of the arm'd force, has rescued the fierce tyrant.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
Ring the tocsin--call all the citizens
To save their country--never yet has Paris
Forsook the representatives of France.
TALLIEN.
It is the hour of danger. I propose
This sitting be made permanent.
[Loud Applauses.]
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
The national Convention shall remain
Firm at its post.
[Enter a MESSENGER.]
MESSENGER.
Robespierre has reach'd the Commune. They espouse
The tyrant's cause. St. Just is up in arms!
St. Just--the young, ambitious, bold St. Just
Harangues the mob. The sanguinary Couthon
Thirsts for your blood.
[Tocsin rings.]
TALLIEN.
These tyrants are in arms against the law:
Outlaw the rebels.
[Enter MERLIN OF DOUAY.]
MERLIN.
Health to the representatives of France!
I pass'd this moment through the armed force--
They ask'd my name--and when they heard a delegate,
Swore I was not the friend of France.
COLLOT D'HERBOIS.
The tyrants threaten us as when they turn'd
The cannon's mouth on Brissot.
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
SECOND MESSENGER.
Vivier harangues the Jacobins--the club
Espouse the cause of Robespierre.
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
THIRD MESSENGER.
All's lost--the tyrant triumphs. Henriot leads
The soldiers to his aid.--Already I hear
The rattling cannon destin'd to surround
This sacred hall.
TALLIEN.
Why, we will die like men then.
The representatives of France dare death,
When duty steels their bosoms.
[Loud Applauses.]
TALLIEN [addressing the galleries.]
Citizens! France is insulted in her delegates--
The majesty of the Republic is insulted--
Tyrants are up in arms. An armed force
Threats the Convention. The Convention swears
To die, or save the country!
[Violent Applauses from the galleries.]
CITIZEN [from above.]
We too swear
To die, or save the country. Follow me.
[All the men quit the galleries.]
[Enter another MESSENGER.]
FOURTH MESSENGER.
Henriot is taken!--
[Loud Applauses.]
Henriot is taken. Three of your brave soldiers
Swore they would seize the rebel slave of tyrants,
Or perish in the attempt. As he patroll'd
The streets of Paris, stirring up the mob,
They seized him.
[Applauses.]
BILLAUD VARENNES.
Let the names of these brave men
Live to the future day.
[Enter BOURDON L'OISE, sword in hand.]
BOURDON L'OISE.
I have clear'd the Commune.
[Applauses.]
Through the throng I rush'd,
Brandishing my good sword to drench its blade
Deep in the tyrant's heart. The timid rebels
Gave way. I met the soldiery--I spake
Of the dictator's crimes--of patriots chain'd
In dark deep dungeons by his lawless rage--
Of knaves secure beneath his fostering power.
I spake of Liberty. Their honest hearts
Caught the warm flame. The general shout burst forth,
"Live the Convention--Down with Robespierre!"
[Applauses. Shouts from without
--Down with the tyrant!]
TALLIEN.
I hear, I hear the soul-inspiring sounds,
France shall be saved! her generous sons attach'd
To principles, not persons, spurn the idol
They worshipp'd once. Yes, Robespierre shall fall
As Capet fell! Oh! never let us deem
That France shall crouch beneath a tyrant's throne,
That the almighty people who have broke
On their oppressors' heads the oppressive chain,
Will court again their fetters! easier were it
To hurl the cloud-capt mountain from its base,
Than force the bonds of slavery upon men
Determined to be free!
[Applauses.]
[Enter LEGENDRE, a Pistol in one hand, Keys in the other.]
LEGENDRE, [flinging down the Keys.]
So--let the mutinous Jacobins meet now In the open air.
[Loud Applauses.]
A factious, turbulent party,
Lording it o'er the state since Danton died,
And with him the Cordeliers.--A hireling band
Of loud-tongued orators controll'd the club,
And bade them bow the knee to Robespierre.
Vivier has 'scap'd me. Curse his coward heart--
This fate-fraught tube of Justice in my hand,
I rush'd into the hall. He mark'd mine eye,
That beam'd its patriot anger, and flash'd full
With death-denouncing meaning. 'Mid the throng
He mingled. I pursued--but staid my hand,
Lest haply I might shed the innocent blood.
[Applauses.]
FRERON.
They took from me my ticket of admission--
Expell'd me from their sittings.--Now, forsooth,
Humbled and trembling re-insert my name.
But Freron enters not the club again
Till it be purged of guilt--till, purified
Of tyrants and of traitors, honest men
May breathe the air in safety.
[Shouts from without.]
BARRERE.
What means this uproar! if the tyrant band
Should gain the people once again to rise--
We are as dead!
TALLIEN.
And wherefore fear we death?
Did Brutus fear it? or the Grecian friends
Who buried in Hipparchus' breast the sword,
And died triumphant? Caesar should fear death,
Brutus must scorn the bugbear.
[Shouts from without:
Live the Convention--Down with the tyrants!]
TALLIEN.
Hark! again
The sounds of honest Freedom!
[Enter DEPUTIES from the SECTIONS.]
CITIZEN.
Citizens! representatives of France!
Hold on your steady course. The men of Paris
Espouse your cause. The men of Paris swear
They will defend the delegates of Freedom.
TALLIEN.
Hear ye this, colleagues? hear ye this, my brethren?
And does no thrill of joy pervade your breasts?
My bosom bounds to rapture. I have seen
The sons of France shake off the tyrant yoke;
I have, as much as lies in mine own arm,
Hurl'd down the usurper.--Come death when it will,
I have lived long enough.
[Shouts without.]
BARRERE.
Hark! how the noise increases! through the gloom
Of the still evening--harbinger of death
Rings the tocsin! the dreadful generale
Thunders through Paris--
[Cry without
--Down with the tyrant!]
[Enter LECOINTRE.]
LECOINTRE.
So may eternal justice blast the foes
Of France! so perish all the tyrant brood,
As Robespierre has perish'd! Citizens,
Caesar is taken.
[Loud and repeated Applauses.]
I marvel not, that, with such fearless front,
He braved our vengeance, and with angry eye
Scowl'd round the hall defiance. He relied
On Henriot's aid--the Commune's villain friendship,
And Henriot's boughten succours. Ye have heard
How Henriot rescued him--how with open arms
The Commune welcomed in the rebel tyrant--
How Fleuriot aided, and seditious Vivier
Stirr'd up the Jacobins. All had been lost--
The representatives of France had perish'd--
Freedom had sunk beneath the tyrant arm
Of this foul parricide, but that her spirit
Inspired the men of Paris. Henriot call'd
"To arms" in vain, whilst Bourdon's patriot voice
Breathed eloquence, and o'er the Jacobins
Legendre frown'd dismay. The tyrants fled--
They reach'd the Hotel. We gather'd round--we call'd
For vengeance! Long time, obstinate in despair,
With knives they hack'd around them. Till foreboding
The sentence of the law, the clamorous cry
Of joyful thousands hailing their destruction,
Each sought by suicide to escape the dread
Of death. Lebas succeeded. From the window
Leap'd the younger Robespierre; but his fractur'd limb
Forbade to escape. The self-will'd dictator
Plung'd often the keen knife in his dark breast,
Yet impotent to die. He lives, all mangled
By his own tremulous hand! All gash'd and gored,
He lives to taste the bitterness of death.
Even now they meet their doom. The bloody Couthon,
The fierce St. Just, even now attend their tyrant
To fall beneath the axe. I saw the torches
Flash on their visages a dreadful light--
I saw them whilst the black blood roll'd adown
Each stern face, even then with dauntless eye
Scowl round contemptuous, dying as they lived,
Fearless of fate!
[Loud and repeated Applauses.]
BARRERE [mounts the Tribune.]
For ever hallow'd be this glorious day,
When Freedom, bursting her oppressive chain,
Tramples on the oppressor. When the tyrant,
Hurl'd from his blood-cemented throne by the arm
Of the almighty people, meets the death
He plann'd for thousands. Oh! my sickening heart
Has sunk within me, when the various woes
Of my brave country crowded o'er my brain
In ghastly numbers--when assembled hordes,
Dragg'd from their hovels by despotic power,
Rush'd o'er her frontiers, plunder'd her fair hamlets,
And sack'd her populous towns, and drench'd with blood
The reeking fields of Flanders.--When within,
Upon her vitals prey'd the rankling tooth
Of treason; and oppression, giant form,
Trampling on freedom, left the alternative
Of slavery, or of death. Even from that day,
When, on the guilty Capet, I pronounced
The doom of injured France, has faction rear'd
Her hated head amongst us. Roland preach'd
Of mercy--the uxorious, dotard Roland,
The woman-govern'd Roland durst aspire
To govern France; and Petion talk'd of virtue,
And Vergniaud's eloquence, like the honey'd tongue
Of some soft Syren wooed us to destruction.
We triumph'd over these. On the same scaffold
Where the last Louis pour'd his guilty blood,
Fell Brissot's head, the womb of darksome treasons,
And Orleans, villain kinsman of the Capet,
And Hebert's atheist crew, whose maddening hand
Hurl'd down the altars of the living God,
With all the infidel's intolerance.
The last worst traitor triumph'd--triumph'd long,
Secured by matchless villany. By turns
Defending and deserting each accomplice
As interest prompted. In the goodly soil
Of Freedom, the foul tree of treason struck
Its deep-fix'd roots, and dropt the dews of death
On all who slumber'd in its specious shade.
He wove the web of treachery. He caught
The listening crowd by his wild eloquence,
His cool ferocity that persuaded murder,
Even whilst it spake of mercy!--never, never
Shall this regenerated country wear
The despot yoke. Though myriads round assail,
And with worse fury urge this new crusade
Than savages have known; though the leagued despots
Depopulate all Europe, so to pour
The accumulated mass upon our coasts,
Sublime amid the storm shall France arise,
And like the rock amid surrounding waves
Repel the rushing ocean.--She shall wield
The thunder-bolt of vengeance--she shall blast
The despot's pride, and liberate the world!
POEMS
--medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid.--- LUCRET.
"JULIA WAS BLEST WITH BEAUTY, WIT AND GRACE..."
Julia was blest with beauty, wit, and grace:
Small poets loved to sing her blooming face.
Before her altars, lo! a numerous train
Preferr'd their vows; yet all preferr'd in vain:
Till charming Florio, born to conquer, came,
And touch'd the fair one with an equal flame.
The flame she felt, and ill could she conceal
What every look and action would reveal.
With boldness then, which seldom fails to move,
He pleads the cause of marriage and of love;
The course of hymeneal joys he rounds,
The fair one's eyes dance pleasure at the sounds.
Nought now remain'd but "Noes"--how little meant--
And the sweet coyness that endears consent.
The youth upon his knees enraptur'd fell:--
The strange misfortune, oh! what words can tell?
Tell! ye neglected sylphs! who lap-dogs guard,
Why snatch'd ye not away your precious ward?
Why suffer'd ye the lover's weight to fall
On the ill-fated neck of much-loved Ball?
The favourite on his mistress cast his eyes,
Gives a short melancholy howl, and--dies!
Sacred his ashes lie, and long his rest!
Anger and grief divide poor Julia's breast.
Her eyes she fix'd on guilty Florio first,
On him the storm of angry grief must burst.
That storm he fled:--he wooes a kinder fair,
Whose fond affections no dear puppies share.
'Twere vain to tell how Julia pined away;--
Unhappy fair, that in one luckless day
(From future almanacks the day be crost!)
At once her lover and her lap-dog lost!
1789. [1]
[Footnote 1: This copy of verses was written at Christ's Hospital, and
transcribed, 'honoris causa', into the book kept by the head-master, Mr.
Bowyer, for that purpose. They are printed by Mr. Trollope in p. 192 of
his 'History of the Hospital', published in 1834. Ed.]
"I YET REMAIN..."
--I yet remain
To mourn the hours of youth (yet mourn in vain)
That fled neglected: wisely thou hast trod
The better path--and that high meed which God
Assign'd to virtue, tow'ring from the dust,
Shall wait thy rising, Spirit pure and just.
O God! how sweet it were to think, that all
Who silent mourn around this gloomy ball
Might hear the voice of joy;--but 'tis the will
Of man's great Author, that through good and ill
Calm he should hold his course, and so sustain
His varied lot of pleasure, toil, and pain!
1793. [1]
[Footnote 1: These lines were found in Mr. Coleridge's hand-writing in
one of the Prayer Books in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge. Ed.]
TO THE REV. W. J. HORT. [1]
Hush! ye clamorous cares, be mute!
Again, dear harmonist! again
Through the hollow of thy flute
Breathe that passion-warbled strain;
Till memory back each form shall bring
The loveliest of her shadowy throng,
And hope, that soars on sky-lark wing,
Shall carol forth her gladdest song!
O skill'd with magic spell to roll
The thrilling tones that concentrate the soul!
Breathe through thy flute those tender notes again,
While near thee sits the chaste-eyed maiden mild;
And bid her raise the poet's kindred strain
In soft impassion'd voice, correctly wild.
In freedom's undivided dell,
Where toil and health with mellow'd love shall dwell--
Far from folly, far from men,
In the rude romantic glen,
Up the cliff, and through the glade,
Wand'ring with the dear-loved maid,
I shall listen to the lay,
And ponder on thee far away;--
Still as she bids those thrilling notes aspire
(Making my fond attuned heart her lyre),
Thy honour'd form, my friend! shall reappear,
And I will thank thee with a raptured tear!
1794.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Hort was a Unitarian clergyman, and in 1794 second
master in Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Estlin's school on St. Michael's Hill,
Bristol. Ed.]
TO CHARLES LAMB,
WITH AN UNFINISHED POEM.
Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling;--yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I, too, a sister had, an only sister--[1]
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,)
And of the heart those hidden maladies--
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed.
O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept
Because she was not!--Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year;
Such warm presages feel I of high hope!
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've view'd--her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind!) [2]
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,--
Prepared, when He his healing ray vouchsafes,
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart,
And praise him gracious with a brother's joy!
1794.
[Footnote 1: This line and the six and a half which follow are printed,
by mistake, as a fragment in the first volume of the 'Poetical Works',
1834, p. 35. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: "I utterly recant the sentiment contained in the line
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to 'implore' were impotence of mind,--
it being written in Scripture, 'Ask,' and it shall be given you! and my
human reason being, moreover, convinced of the propriety of offering
'petitions' as well as thanksgivings to Deity." S. T. C. 1797. "I will
add, at the risk of appearing to dwell too long on religious topics,
that on this my first introduction to Coleridge, he reverted with strong
compunction to a sentiment which he had expressed in earlier days upon
prayer. In one of his youthful poems, speaking of God, he had said,--
--'Of whose all-seeing eye
Aught to demand were impotence of mind.'
This sentiment he now so utterly condemned, that, on the contrary, he
told me, as his own peculiar opinion, that the act of praying was the
highest energy of which the human heart was capable--praying, that is,
with the total concentration of the faculties; and the great mass of
worldly men and of learned men he pronounced absolutely incapable of
praying." 'Mr. De Quincey in Tait's Magazine, September, 1834, p.515.'
"Mr. Coleridge, within two years of his death, very solemnly declared to
me his conviction upon the same subject. I was sitting by his bed-side
one afternoon, and he fell--an unusual thing for him--into a long
account of many passages of his past life, lamenting some things,
condemning others, but complaining withal, though very gently, of the
way in which many of his most innocent acts had been cruelly
misrepresented. 'But I have no difficulty,' said he, 'in forgiveness;
indeed, I know not how to say with sincerity the clause in the Lord's
Prayer, which asks forgiveness 'as we forgive'. I feel nothing answering
to it in my heart. Neither do I find, or reckon, the most solemn faith
in God as a real object, the most arduous act of the reason and will;--O
no! my dear, it is 'to pray', to pray as God would have us; this is what
at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe me, to pray with all
your heart and strength, with the reason and the will, to believe
vividly that God will listen to your voice through Christ, and verily do
the thing he pleaseth thereupon--this is the last, the greatest
achievement of the Christian's warfare on earth. 'Teach' us to pray, O
Lord!' And then he burst into a flood of tears, and begged me to pray
for him. O what a sight was there!" 'Table Talk,' vol. i. p. 162. Ed.]
TO THE NIGHTINGALE.
Sister of lovelorn poets, Philomel!
How many bards in city garret spent,
While at their window they with downward eye
Mark the faint lamp-beam on the kennell'd mud,
And listen to the drowsy cry of watchmen,
(Those hoarse, unfeather'd nightingales of time!)
How many wretched bards address thy name,
And hers, the full-orb'd queen, that shines above.
But I do hear thee, and the high bough mark,
Within whose mild moou-mellow'd foliage hid,
Thou warblest sad thy pity-pleading strains.
O I have listen'd, till my working soul,
Waked by those strains to thousand phantasies,
Absorb'd, hath ceas'd to listen! Therefore oft
I hymn thy name; and with a proud delight
Oft will I tell thee, minstrel of the moon,
Most musical, most melancholy bird!
That all thy soft diversities of tone,
Though sweeter far than the delicious airs
That vibrate from a white-arm'd lady's harp,
What time the languishment of lonely love
Melts in her eye, and heaves her breast of snow,
Are not so sweet, as is the voice of her,
My Sara--best beloved of human kind!
When breathing the pure soul of tenderness,
She thrills me with the husband's promised name!
1794.
TO SARA.
The stream with languid murmur creeps
In Lumin's flowery vale;
Beneath the dew the lily weeps,
Slow waving to the gale.
"Cease, restless gale," it seems to say,
"Nor wake me with thy sighing:
The honours of my vernal day
On rapid wings are flying.
"To-morrow shall the traveller come,
That erst beheld me blooming,
His searching eye shall vainly roam
The dreary vale of Lumin."
With eager gaze and wetted cheek
My wonted haunts along,
Thus, lovely maiden, thou shalt seek
The youth of simplest song.
But I along the breeze will roll
The voice of feeble power,
And dwell, the moon-beam of thy soul,
In slumber's nightly hour.
1794
TO JOSEPH COTTLE,
Unboastful Bard! whose verse concise, yet clear,
Tunes to smooth melody unconquer'd sense,
May your fame fadeless live, as never-sere
The ivy wreathes yon oak, whose broad defence
Embowers me from noon's sultry influence!
For, like that nameless rivulet stealing by,
Your modest verse to musing quiet dear,
Is rich with tints heaven-borrow'd;--the charm'd eye
Shall gaze undazzled there, and love the soften'd sky.
Circling the base of the poetic mount,
A stream there is, which rolls in lazy flow
Its coal-black waters from oblivion's fount:
The vapour-poison'd birds, that fly too low,
Fall with dead swoop, and to the bottom go.
Escaped that heavy stream on pinion fleet
Beneath the mountain's lofty-frowning brow,
Ere aught of perilous ascent you meet,
A mead of mildest charm delays th' unlabouring feet.
Not there the cloud-climb'd rock, sublime and vast,
That, like some giant king, o'er-glooms the hill;
Nor there the pine-grove to the midnight blast
Makes solemn music! but th' unceasing rill
To the soft wren or lark's descending trill,
Murmurs sweet undersong mid jasmine bowers.
In this same pleasant meadow, at your will,
I ween, you wander'd--there collecting flowers
Of sober tint, and herbs of med'cinable powers!
There for the monarch-murder'd soldier's tomb
You wove th' unfinish'd wreath of saddest hues;
And to that holier chaplet added bloom,
Besprinkling it with Jordan's cleansing dews.
But lo! your Henderson awakes the Muse--
His spirit beckon'd from the mountain's height!
You left the plain, and soar'd mid richer views.
So Nature mourn'd, when sank the first day's light,
With stars, unseen before, spangling her robe of night!
Still soar, my friend! those richer views among,
Strong, rapid, fervent, flashing fancy's beam!
Virtue and truth shall love your gentler song;
But poesy demands th' impassion'd theme.
Wak'd by heaven's silent dews at eve's mild gleam,
What balmy sweets Pomona breathes around!
But if the vext air rush a stormy stream,
Or autumn's shrill gust moan in plaintive sound,
With fruits and flowers she loads the tempest-honour'd ground!
1795.
CASIMIR.
If we except Lucretius and Statius, I know no Latin poet, ancient or
modern, who has equalled Casimir in boldness of conception, opulence of
fancy, or beauty of versification. The Odes of this illustrious Jesuit
were translated into English about 150 years ago, by a G. Hils, I think.
[1] I never saw the translation. A few of the Odes have been translated
in a very animated manner by Watts. I have subjoined the third Ode of
the second Book, which, with the exception of the first line, is an
effusion of exquisite elegance. In the imitation attempted, I am
sensible that I have destroyed the effect of suddenness, by translating
into two stanzas what is one in the original. 1796.
AD LYRAM.
Sonora buxi filia sutilis,
Pendebis alta, barbite, populo,
Dum ridet aer, et supinas
Solicitat levis aura frondes.
Te sibilantis lenior halitus
Perflabit Euri: me juvet interim
Collum reclinasse, et virenti
Sic temere [2] jacuisse ripa.
Eheu! serenum quæ nebulæ tegunt
Repente cælum! quis sonus imbrium!
Surgamus--heu semper fugaci
Gaudia præteritura passu!
IMITATION.
The solemn-breathing air is ended--
Cease, O Lyre! thy kindred lay!
From the poplar branch suspended,
Glitter to the eye of day!
On thy wires, hov'ring, dying,
Softly sighs the summer wind:
I will slumber, careless lying,
By yon waterfall reclin'd.
In the forest hollow-roaring,
Hark! I hear a deep'ning sound--
Clouds rise thick with heavy low'ring!
See! th' horizon blackens round!
Parent of the soothing measure,
Let me seize thy wetted string!
Swiftly flies the flatterer, pleasure,
Headlong, ever on the wing!
[Footnote 1: The Odes of Casimire translated by G.H. [G. Hils.] London,
1646. 12mo. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Had Casimir any better authority for this quantity than
Tertullian's line,--
Immemor ille Dei temere committere tale--?
In the classic poets the last syllable is, I believe, uniformly cut off.
Ed.]
DARWINIANA.
THE HOUR WHEN WE SHALL MEET AGAIN. (COMPOSED DURING ILLNESS AND IN
ABSENCE.)
Dim Hour! that sleep'st on pillowing clouds afar,
O rise, and yoke the turtles to thy car!
Bend o'er the traces, blame each lingering dove,
And give me to the bosom of my love!
My gentle love! caressing and carest,
With heaving heart shall cradle me to rest;
Shed the warm tear-drop from her smiling eyes,
Lull with fond woe, and med'cine me with sighs;
While finely-flushing float her kisses meek,
Like melted rubies, o'er my pallid cheek.
Chill'd by the night, the drooping rose of May
Mourns the long absence of the lovely day:
Young Day returning at her promised hour,
Weeps o'er the sorrows of the fav'rite flower,--
Weeps the soft dew, the balmy gale she sighs,
And darts a trembling lustre from her eyes.
New life and joy th' expanding flow'ret feels:
His pitying mistress mourns, and mourning heals!
1796.
In my calmer moments I have the firmest faith that all things work
together for good. But, alas! it seems a long and a dark process:--
"THE EARLY YEAR'S FAST-FLYING VAPOURS STRAY..."
The early year's fast-flying vapours stray
In shadowing trains across the orb of day;
And we, poor insects of a few short hours,
Deem it a world of gloom.
Were it not better hope, a nobler doom,
Proud to believe, that with more active powers
On rapid many-colour'd wing,
We thro' one bright perpetual spring
Shall hover round the fruits and flowers,
Screen'd by those clouds, and cherish'd by those showers!
1796.
COUNT RUMFORB'S ESSAYS.
These, Virtue, are thy triumphs, that adorn
Fitliest our nature, and bespeak us born
For loftiest action;--not to gaze and run
From clime to clime; or batten in the sun,
Dragging a drony flight from flower to flower,
Like summer insects in a gaudy hour;
Nor yet o'er lovesick tales with fancy range,
And cry, ''Tis pitiful,'tis passing strange!'
But on life's varied views to look around,
And raise expiring sorrow from the ground:--
And he--who thus hath borne his part assign'd
In the sad fellowship of human kind,
Or for a moment soothed the bitter pain
Of a poor brother--has not lived in vain.
1796
EPIGRAMS.
ON A LATE MARRIAGE BETWEEN AN OLD MAID AND A FRENCH PETIT MAîTRE.
Tho' Miss----'s match is a subject of mirth
She consider'd the matter full well,
And wisely preferr'd leading one ape on earth
To perhaps a whole dozen in hell.
1796.
ON AN AMOROUS DOCTOR.
From Rufa's eye sly Cupid shot his dart,
And left it sticking in Sangrado's heart.
No quiet from that moment has he known,
And peaceful sleep has from his eyelids flown;
And opium's force, and what is more, alack!
His own orations cannot bring it back.
In short, unless she pities his afflictions,
Despair will make him take his own prescriptions.
1796.
"THERE COMES FROM OLD AVARO'S GRAVE..."
There comes from old Avaro's grave
A deadly stench;--why, sure, they have
Immured his soul within his grave!
1796.
"LAST MONDAY ALL THE PAPERS SAID..."
Last Monday all the papers said
That Mr.---- was dead;
Why, then, what said the city?
The tenth part sadly shook their head,
And shaking sigh'd, and sighing said,
"Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"
But when the said report was found
A rumour wholly without ground,
Why, then, what said the city?
The other nine parts shook their head,
Repeating what the tenth had said,
"Pity, indeed, 'tis pity!"
1796.
TO A PRIMROSE,
(THE FIRST SEEN IN THE SEASON.)
--nitens, et roboris expers Turget et insolida est: at spe delectat.
(Ovid).
Thy smiles I note, sweet early flower,
That peeping from thy rustic bower,
The festive news to earth dost bring,
A fragrant messenger of spring!
But tender blossom, why so pale?
Dost hear stern winter in the gale?
And didst them tempt th' ungentle sky
To catch one vernal glance and die?
Such the wan lustre sickness wears,
When health's first feeble beam appears;
So languid are the smiles that seek
To settle on the care-worn cheek,
When timorous hope the head uprears,
Still drooping and still moist with tears,
If, through dispersing grief, be seen
Of bliss the heavenly spark serene.
1796.
ON THE CHRISTENING OF A FRIEND'S CHILD.
This day among the faithful placed,
And fed with fontal manna,
O with maternal title graced
Dear Anna's dearest Anna!--
While others wish thee wise and fair,
A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer--
May'st thou deserve thy name!
Thy mother's name--a potent spell,
That bids the virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell
Confess'd to fancy's eye;--
Meek quietness without offence;
Content in homespun kirtle;
True love; and true love's innocence,
White blossom of the myrtle!
Associates of thy name, sweet child!
These virtues may'st thou win;
With face as eloquently mild
To say, they lodge within.
So, when her tale of days all flown,
Thy mother shall be mist here;
When Heaven at length shall claim its own,
And angels snatch their sister;
Some hoary-headed friend, perchance,
May gaze with stifled breath;
And oft, in momentary trance,
Forget the waste of death.
Ev'n thus a lovely rose I view'd,
In summer-swelling pride;
Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude
Peep'd at the rose's side.
It chanced, I pass'd again that way
In autumn's latest hour,
And wond'ring saw the selfsame spray
Rich with the selfsame flower.
Ah, fond deceit! the rude green bud
Alike in shape, place, name,
Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud,
Another and the same!
1796.
EPIGRAM.
Hoarse Maevius reads his hobbling verse
To all, and at all times;
And finds them both divinely smooth,
His voice, as well as rhymes.
Yet folks say--"Maevius is no ass:"--
But Maevius makes it clear,
That he's a monster of an ass,
An ass without an ear.
1797.
INSCRIPTION BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES
IN NETHER STOWEY CHURCH.
Lætus abi! mundi strepitu curisque remotus;
Lætus abi! cæli qua vocat alma quies.
Ipsa Fides loquitur, lacrymamque incusat inanem,
Quae cadit in vestros, care pater, cineres.
Heu! tantum liceat meritos hos solvere ritus,
Et longum tremula dicere voce, Vale!
TRANSLATION.
Depart in joy from this world's noise and strife
To the deep quiet of celestial life!
Depart!--Affection's self reproves the tear
Which falls, O honour'd Parent! on thy bier;--
Yet Nature will be heard, the heart will swell,
And the voice tremble with a last Farewell!
INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE DARK LADIE.
The following poem is intended as the introduction to a somewhat longer
one. The use of the old ballad word 'Ladie' for Lady, is the only piece
of obsoleteness in it; and as it is professedly a tale of ancient times,
I trust that the affectionate lovers of venerable antiquity, as Camden
says, will grant me their pardon, and perhaps may be induced to admit a
force and propriety in it. A heavier objection may be adduced against
the author, that in these times of fear and expectation, when novelties
explode around us in all directions, he should presume to offer to the
public a silly tale of old-fashioned love: and five years ago, I own I
should have allowed and felt the force of this objection. But alas!
explosion has succeeded explosion so rapidly, that novelty itself ceases
to appear new; and it is possible that now, even a simple story, wholly
uninspired with politics or personality, may find some attention amid
the hubbub of revolutions, as to those who have remained a long time by
the falls of Niagara, the lowest whispering becomes distinctly audible.
1799.
O leave the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.
A cypress and a myrtle-bough
This morn around my harp you twin'd,
Because it fashion'd mournfully
Its murmurs in the wind.
And now a tale of love and woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs
And trembles on the string.
But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come and hear the cruel wrongs
Befell the Dark Ladie! [1]
...
And now once more a tale of woe,
A woful tale of love I sing;
For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,
And trembles on the string.
When last I sang the cruel scorn
That craz'd this bold and lovely knight,
And how he roam'd the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day or night;
I promised thee a sister tale
Of man's perfidious cruelty;
Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong
Befell the Dark Ladie.
[Footnote 1: Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published separately
under the title "Love." (Poet. Works, vol. i. p. 145. Pickering, 1834.)
and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole
forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that
exists is to be found ibid. p. 150. Ed.]
EPILOGUE TO THE RASH CONJUROR.
AN UNCOMPOSED POEM.
We ask and urge--(here ends the story!)
All Christian Papishes to pray
That this unhappy Conjuror may,
Instead of Hell, be but in Purgatory,--
For then there's hope;--Long live the Pope!
1805.
PSYCHE
The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul's fair emblem, and its only name--
But of the soul, escap'd the slavish trade
Of mortal life!--For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.
1808.
COMPLAINT
How seldom, Friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth, with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
REPROOF.
For shame, dear Friend! renounce this canting strain!
What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place--titles--salary--a gilded chain--
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?--
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man?--three treasures, love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infants' breath;--
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night--
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.
1809.
AN ODE TO THE RAIN
Composed Before Day-Light on the Morning Appointed for the Departure of
a Very Worthy, But Not Very Pleasant Visitor, Whom It Was Feared The
Rain Might Detain.
I know it is dark; and though I have lain
Awake, as I guess, an hour or twain,
I have not once open'd the lids of my eyes,
But I lie in the dark, as a blind man lies.
O Rain! that I lie listening to,
You're but a doleful sound at best:
I owe you little thanks, 'tis true,
For breaking thus my needful rest!
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain! you will but take your flight,
I'll neither rail, nor malice keep,
Though sick and sore for want of sleep.
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
O Rain! with your dull two-fold sound,
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round!
You know, if you know aught, that we,
Both night and day, but ill agree:
For days, and months, and almost years,
Have limped on through this vale of tears,
Since body of mine, and rainy weather,
Have lived on easy terms together.
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow;
Though stomach should sicken, and knees should swell--
I'll nothing speak of you but well.
But only now for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
Dear Rain! I ne'er refused to say
You're a good creature in your way.
Nay, I could write a book myself,
Would fit a parson's lower shelf,
Showing, how very good you are.--
What then? sometimes it must be fair!
And if sometimes, why not to-day?
Do go, dear Rain! do go away!
Dear Rain! if I've been cold and shy,
Take no offence! I'll tell you why.
A dear old Friend e'en now is here,
And with him came my sister dear;
After long absence now first met,
Long months by pain and grief beset--
With three dear friends! in truth, we groan
Impatiently to be alone.
We three, you mark! and not one more!
The strong wish makes my spirit sore.
We have so much to talk about,
So many sad things to let out;
So many tears in our eye-corners,
Sitting like little Jacky Horners--
In short, as soon as it is day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away.
And this I'll swear to you, dear Rain!
Whenever you shall come again,
Be you as dull as e'er you could;
(And by the bye 'tis understood,
You're not so pleasant, as you're good;)
Yet, knowing well your worth and place,
I'll welcome you with cheerful face;
And though you stay'd a week or more,
Were ten times duller than before;
Yet with kind heart, and right good will,
I'll sit and listen to you still;
Nor should you go away, dear Rain!
Uninvited to remain.
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain! do go away.
1809.
TRANSLATION
Of a Passage in Ottfried's Metrical Paraphrase of the Gospels.
"This Paraphrase, written about the time of Charlemagne, is by no means
deficient in occasional passages of considerable poetic merit. There is
a flow, and a tender enthusiasm in the following lines (at the
conclusion of Chapter V.), which even in the translation will not, I
flatter myself, fail to interest the reader. Ottfried is describing the
circumstances immediately following the birth of our Lord."--'Biog.
Lit.' vol. i. p. 203.
She gave with joy her virgin breast;
She hid it not, she bared the breast,
Which suckled that divinest babe!
Blessed, blessed were the breasts
Which the Saviour infant kiss'd;
And blessed, blessed was the mother
Who wrapp'd his limbs in swaddling clothes,
Singing placed him on her lap,
Hung o'er him with her looks of love,
And soothed him with a lulling motion.
Blessed! for she shelter'd him
From the damp and chilling air;--
Blessed, blessed! for she lay
With such a babe in one blest bed,
Close as babes and mothers lie!
Blessed, blessed evermore,
With her virgin lips she kiss'd,
With her arms, and to her breast,
She embraced the babe divine,
Her babe divine the virgin mother!
There lives not on this ring of earth
A mortal that can sing her praise.
Mighty mother, virgin pure,
In the darkness and the night
For us she bore the heavenly Lord.
1810
"Most interesting is it to consider the effect, when the feelings are
wrought above the natural pitch by the belief of something mysterious,
while all the images are purely natural: then it is that religion and
poetry strike deepest."--'Biog. Lit.' vol. i. p. 204.
ISRAEL'S LAMENT
ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES. FROM THE HEBREW OF
HYMAN HURWITZ.
Mourn, Israel! Sons of Israel, mourn!
Give utterance to the inward throe,
As wails of her first love forlorn
The virgin clad in robes of woe!
Mourn the young mother snatch'd away
From light and life's ascending sun!
Mourn for the babe, death's voiceless prey,
Earn'd by long pangs, and lost ere won!
Mourn the bright rose that bloom'd and went,
Ere half disclosed its vernal hue!
Mourn the green bud, so rudely rent,
It brake the stem on which it grew!
Mourn for the universal woe,
With solemn dirge and falt'ring tongue;
For England's Lady is laid low,
So dear, so lovely, and so young!
The blossoms on her tree of life
Shone with the dews of recent bliss;--
Translated in that deadly strife
She plucks its fruit in Paradise.
Mourn for the prince, who rose at morn
To seek and bless the firstling bud
Of his own rose, and found the thorn,
Its point bedew'd with tears of blood.
Mourn for Britannia's hopes decay'd;--
Her daughters wail their dear defence,
Their fair example, prostrate laid,
Chaste love, and fervid innocence!
O Thou! who mark'st the monarch's path,
To sad Jeshurun's sons attend!
Amid the lightnings of thy wrath
The showers of consolation send!
Jehovah frowns!--The Islands bow,
And prince and people kiss the rod!
Their dread chastising judge wert Thou--
Be Thou their comforter, O God!
1817.
SENTIMENTAL.
The rose that blushes like the morn
Bedecks the valleys low;
And so dost thou, sweet infant corn,
My Angelina's toe.
But on the rose there grows a thorn
That breeds disastrous woe;
And so dost thou, remorseless corn,
On Angelina's toe.
1825.
THE ALTERNATIVE.
This way or that, ye Powers above me!
I of my grief were rid--
Did Enna either really love me,
Or cease to think she did.
1826.
THE EXCHANGE.
We pledged our hearts, my love and I,--
I in my arms the maiden clasping;
I could not tell the reason why,
But, oh! I trembled like an aspen.
Her father's love she bade me gain;
I went, and shook like any reed!
I strove to act the man--in vain!
We had exchanged our hearts indeed.
1826
WHAT IS LIFE?
Resembles life what once was deem'd of light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute self--an element ungrounded--
All that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made?--
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?
1829.
INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE.
Now! It is gone.--Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How:--
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee--an eternal Now!
1830.
EPITAPHION AUTOGRAPHTON
Quae linquam, aut nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt mea;--
Do Morti;--reddo caetera, Christe! tibi. [sordes.]
A COURSE OF LECTURES
PROSPECTUS.
There are few families, at present, in the higher and middle classes of
English society, in which literary topics and the productions of the
Fine Arts, in some one or other of their various forms, do not
occasionally take their turn in contributing to the entertainment of the
social board, and the amusement of the circle at the fire side. The
acquisitions and attainments of the intellect ought, indeed, to hold a
very inferior rank in our estimation, opposed to moral worth, or even to
professional and specific skill, prudence, and industry. But why should
they be opposed, when they may be made subservient merely by being
subordinated? It can rarely happen, that a man of social disposition,
altogether a stranger to subjects of taste, (almost the only ones on
which persons of both sexes can converse with a common interest) should
pass through the world without at times feeling dissatisfied with
himself. The best proof of this is to be found in the marked anxiety
which men, who have succeeded in life without the aid of these
accomplishments, shew in securing them to their children. A young man of
ingenuous mind will not wilfully deprive himself of any species of
respect. He will wish to feel himself on a level with the average of the
society in which he lives, though he may be ambitious of distinguishing
himself only in his own immediate pursuit or occupation.
Under this conviction, the following Course of Lectures was planned. The
several titles will best explain the particular subjects and purposes of
each: but the main objects proposed, as the result of all, are the two
following.
1. To convey, in a form best fitted to render them impressive at the
time, and remembered afterwards, rules and principles of sound judgment,
with a kind and degree of connected information, such as the hearers
cannot generally be supposed likely to form, collect, and arrange for
themselves, by their own unassisted studies. It might be presumption to
say, that any important part of these Lectures could not be derived from
books; but none, I trust, in supposing, that the same information could
not be so surely or conveniently acquired from such books as are of
commonest occurrence, or with that quantity of time and attention which
can be reasonably expected, or even wisely desired, of men engaged in
business and the active duties of the world.
2. Under a strong persuasion that little of real value is derived by
persons in general from a wide and various reading; but still more
deeply convinced as to the actual mischief of unconnected and
promiscuous reading, and that it is sure, in a greater or less degree,
to enervate even where it does not likewise inflate; I hope to satisfy
many an ingenuous mind, seriously interested in its own development and
cultivation, how moderate a number of volumes, if only they be
judiciously chosen, will suffice for the attainment of every wise and
desirable purpose; that is, in addition to those which he studies for
specific and professional purposes. It is saying less than the truth to
affirm, that an excellent book (and the remark holds almost equally good
of a Raphael as of a Milton) is like a well chosen and well tended fruit
tree. Its fruits are not of one season only. With the due and natural
intervals, we may recur to it year after year, and it will supply the
same nourishment and the same gratification, if only we ourselves return
to it with the same healthful appetite.
The subjects of the Lectures are indeed very different, but not (in the
strict sense of the term) diverse; they are various, rather than
miscellaneous. There is this bond of connexion common to them all,--that
the mental pleasure which they are calculated to excite is not dependent
on accidents of fashion, place, or age, or the events or the customs of
the day; but commensurate with the good sense, taste, and feeling, to
the cultivation of which they themselves so largely contribute, as being
all in kind, though not all in the same degree, productions of genius.
What it would be arrogant to promise, I may yet be permitted to
hope,--that the execution will prove correspondent and adequate to the
plan. Assuredly, my best efforts have not been wanting so to select and
prepare the materials, that, at the conclusion of the Lectures, an
attentive auditor, who should consent to aid his future recollection by
a few notes taken either during each Lecture or soon after, would rarely
feel himself, for the time to come, excluded, from taking an intelligent
interest in any general conversation likely to occur in mixed society.
'Syllabus of the Course'.
I. January 27, 1818.--On the manners, morals, literature, philosophy,
religion, and the state of society in general, in European Christendom,
from the eighth to the fifteenth century, (that is from A.D. 700, to
A.D. 1400), more particularly in reference to England, France, Italy and
Germany; in other words, a portrait of the so called dark ages of
Europe.
II. January 30.--On the tales and metrical romances common, for the most
part, to England, Germany, and the north of France, and on the English
songs and ballads, continued to the reign of Charles I. A few selections
will be made from the Swedish, Danish, and German languages, translated
for the purpose by the Lecturer.
III. February 3.--Chaucer and Spenser; of Petrarch; of Ariosto, Pulci,
and Boiardo.
IV. V. VI. February 6, 10, l3.--On the dramatic works of Shakspeare. In
these Lectures will be comprised the substance of Mr. Coleridge's former
courses on the same subject, enlarged and varied by subsequent study and
reflection.
VII. February l7.--On Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger;
with the probable causes of the cessation of dramatic poetry in England
with Shirley and Otway, soon after the restoration of Charles II.
VIII. February 20.--Of the life and all the works of Cervantes, but
chiefly of his Don Quixote. The ridicule of knight errantry shewn to
have been but a secondary object in the mind of the author, and not the
principal cause of the delight which the work continues to give to all
nations, and under all the revolutions of manners and opinions.
IX. February 24.--On Rabelais, Swift, and Sterne: on the nature and
constituents of genuine Humour, and on the distinctions of the Humorous
from the Witty, the Fanciful, the Droll, and the Odd.
X. February 27.--Of Donne, Dante, and Milton.
XI. March 3.--On the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and on the romantic
use of the supernatural in poetry, and in works of fiction not poetical.
On the conditions and regulations under which such books may be employed
advantageously in the earlier periods of education.
XII. March 6.--On tales of witches, apparitions, &c. as distinguished
from the magic and magicians of Asiatic origin. The probable sources of
the former, and of the belief in them in certain ages and classes of
men. Criteria by which mistaken and exaggerated facts may be
distinguished from absolute falsehood and imposture. Lastly, the causes
of the terror and interest which stories of ghosts and witches inspire,
in early life at least, whether believed or not.
XIII. March 10.--On colour, sound, and form in Nature, as connected with
poesy: the word "Poesy" used as the generic or class term, including
poetry, music, painting, statuary, and ideal architecture, as its
species. The reciprocal relations of poetry and philosophy to each
other; and of both to religion, and the moral sense.
XIV. March 13.--On the corruptions of the English language since the
reign of Queen Ann, in our style of writing prose. A few easy rules for
the attainment of a manly, unaffected and pure language, in our genuine
mother tongue, whether for the purpose of writing, oratory, or
conversation.
LECTURE I. [1]
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE GOTHIC MIND IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
Mr. Coleridge began by treating of the races of mankind as descended
from Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and therein of the early condition of man in
his antique form. He then dwelt on the pre-eminence of the Greeks in Art
and Philosophy, and noticed the suitableness of polytheism to small
insulated states, in which patriotism acted as a substitute for
religion, in destroying or suspending self. Afterwards, in consequence
of the extension of the Roman empire, some universal or common spirit
became necessary for the conservation of the vast body, and this common
spirit was, in fact, produced in Christianity. The causes of the decline
of the Roman empire were in operation long before the time of the actual
overthrow; that overthrow had been foreseen by many eminent Romans,
especially by Seneca. In fact, there was under the empire an Italian and
a German party in Rome, and in the end the latter prevailed.
He then proceeded to describe the generic character of the Northern
nations, and defined it as an independence of the whole in the freedom
of the individual, noticing their respect for women, and their
consequent chivalrous spirit in war; and how evidently the participation
in the general council laid the foundation of the representative form of
government, the only rational mode of preserving individual liberty in
opposition to the licentious democracy of the ancient republics.
He called our attention to the peculiarity of their art, and showed how
it entirely depended on a symbolical expression of the infinite,--which
is not vastness, nor immensity, nor perfection, but whatever cannot be
circumscribed within the limits of actual sensuous being. In the ancient
art, on the contrary, every thing was finite and material. Accordingly,
sculpture was not attempted by the Gothic races till the ancient
specimens were discovered, whilst painting and architecture were of
native growth amongst them. In the earliest specimens of the paintings
of modern ages, as in those of Giotto and his associates in the cemetery
at Pisa, this complexity, variety, and symbolical character are evident,
and are more fully developed in the mightier works of Michel Angelo and
Raffael. The contemplation of the works of antique art excites a feeling
of elevated beauty, and exalted notions of the human self; but the
Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a sense of
self-annihilation; he becomes, as it were, a part of the work
contemplated. An endless complexity and variety are united into one
whole, the plan of which is not distinct from the execution. A Gothic
cathedral is the petrefaction of our religion. The only work of truly
modern sculpture is the Moses of Michel Angelo.
The Northern nations were prepared by their own previous religion for
Christianity; they, for the most part, received it gladly, and it took
root as in a native soil. The deference to woman, characteristic of the
Gothic races, combined itself with devotion in the idea of the Virgin
Mother, and gave rise to many beautiful associations.
Mr. C. remarked how Gothic an instrument in origin and character the
organ was.
He also enlarged on the influence of female character on our education,
the first impressions of our childhood being derived from women. Amongst
oriental nations, he said, the only distinction was between lord and
slave. With the antique Greeks, the will of every one conflicting with
the will of all, produced licentiousness; with the modern descendants
from the northern stocks, both these extremes were shut out, to reappear
mixed and condensed into this principle or temper;--submission, but with
free choice,--illustrated in chivalrous devotion to women as such, in
attachment to the sovereign, &c.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note taken at the delivery. Ed.]
LECTURE II. [1]
GENERAL CHARACTER OP THE GOTHIC LITERATURE AND ART.
In my last lecture I stated that the descendants of Japhet and Shem
peopled Europe and Asia, fulfilling in their distribution the prophecies
of Scripture, while the descendants of Ham passed into Africa, there
also actually verifying the interdiction pronounced against them. The
Keltic and Teutonic nations occupied that part of Europe, which is now
France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, &c. They were in general a
hardy race, possessing great fortitude, and capable of great endurance.
The Romans slowly conquered the more southerly portion of their tribes,
and succeeded only by their superior arts, their policy, and better
discipline. After a time, when the Goths,--to use the name of the
noblest and most historical of the Teutonic tribes,--had acquired some
knowledge of these arts from mixing with their conquerors, they invaded
the Roman territories. The hardy habits, the steady perseverance, the
better faith of the enduring Goth rendered him too formidable an enemy
for the corrupt Roman, who was more inclined to purchase the subjection
of his enemy, than to go through the suffering necessary to secure it.
The conquest of the Romans gave to the Goths the Christian religion as
it was then existing in Italy; and the light and graceful building of
Grecian, or Roman-Greek order, became singularly combined with the massy
architecture of the Goths, as wild and varied as the forest vegetation
which it resembled. The Greek art is beautiful. When I enter a Greek
church, my eye is charmed, and my mind elated; I feel exalted, and proud
that I am a man. But the Gothic art is sublime. On entering a cathedral,
I am filled with devotion and with awe; I am lost to the actualities
that surround me, and my whole being expands into the infinite; earth
and air, nature and art, all swell up into eternity, and the only
sensible impression left, is, 'that I am nothing!' This religion, while
it tended to soften the manners of the Northern tribes, was at the same
time highly congenial to their nature. The Goths are free from the stain
of hero worship. Gazing on their rugged mountains, surrounded by
impassable forests, accustomed to gloomy seasons, they lived in the
bosom of nature, and worshipped an invisible and unknown deity. Firm in
his faith, domestic in his habits, the life of the Goth was simple and
dignified, yet tender and affectionate.
The Greeks were remarkable for complacency and completion; they
delighted in whatever pleased the eye; to them it was not enough to have
merely the idea of a divinity, they must have it placed before them,
shaped in the most perfect symmetry, and presented with the nicest
judgment; and if we look upon any Greek production of art, the beauty of
its parts, and the harmony of their union, the complete and complacent
effect of the whole, are the striking characteristics. It is the same in
their poetry. In Homer you have a poem perfect in its form, whether
originally so, or from the labour of after critics, I know not; his
descriptions are pictures brought vividly before you, and as far as the
eye and understanding are concerned, I am indeed gratified. But if I
wish my feelings to be affected, if I wish my heart to be touched, if I
wish to melt into sentiment and tenderness, I must turn to the heroic
songs of the Goths, to the poetry of the middle ages. The worship of
statues in Greece had, in a civil sense, its advantage, and
disadvantage; advantage, in promoting statuary and the arts;
disadvantage, in bringing their gods too much on a level with human
beings, and thence depriving them of their dignity, and gradually giving
rise to scepticism and ridicule. But no statue, no artificial emblem,
could satisfy the Northman's mind; the dark wild imagery of nature,
which surrounded him, and the freedom of his life, gave his mind a
tendency to the infinite, so that he found rest in that which presented
no end, and derived satisfaction from that which was indistinct.
We have few and uncertain vestiges of Gothic literature till the time of
Theodoric, who encouraged his subjects to write, and who made a
collection of their poems. These consisted chiefly of heroic songs, sung
at the Court; for at that time this was the custom. Charlemagne, in the
beginning of the ninth century, greatly encouraged letters, and made a
further collection of the poems of his time, among which were several
epic poems of great merit; or rather in strictness there was a vast
cycle of heroic poems, or minstrelsies, from and out of which separate
poems were composed. The form of poetry was, however, for the most part,
the metrical romance and heroic tale. Charlemagne's army, or a large
division of it, was utterly destroyed in the Pyrenees, when returning
from a successful attack on the Arabs of Navarre and Arragon; yet the
name of Roncesvalles became famous in the songs of the Gothic poets. The
Greeks and Romans would not have done this; they would not have recorded
in heroic verse the death and defeat of their fellow-countrymen. But the
Goths, firm in their faith, with a constancy not to be shaken,
celebrated those brave men who died for their religion and their
country! What, though they had been defeated, they died without fear, as
they had lived without reproach; they left no stain on their names, for
they fell fighting for their God, their liberty, and their rights; and
the song that sang that day's reverse animated them to future victory
and certain vengeance.
I must now turn to our great monarch, Alfred, one of the most august
characters that any age has ever produced; and when I picture him after
the toils of government and the dangers of battle, seated by a solitary
lamp, translating the holy scriptures into the Saxon tongue,--when I
reflect on his moderation in success, on his fortitude and perseverance
in difficulty and defeat, and on the wisdom and extensive nature of his
legislation, I am really at a loss which part of this great man's
character most to admire. Yet above all, I see the grandeur, the
freedom, the mildness, the domestic unity, the universal character of
the middle ages condensed into Alfred's glorious institution of the
trial by jury. I gaze upon it as the immortal symbol of that age;--an
age called indeed dark;--but how could that age be considered dark,
which solved the difficult problem of universal liberty, freed man from
the shackles of tyranny, and subjected his actions to the decision of
twelve of his fellow countrymen? The liberty of the Greeks was a
phenomenon, a meteor, which blazed for a short time, and then sank into
eternal darkness. It was a combination of most opposite materials,
slavery and liberty. Such can neither be happy nor lasting. The Goths on
the other hand said, You shall be our Emperor; but we must be Princes on
our own estates, and over them you shall have no power! The Vassals said
to their Prince, We will serve you in your wars, and defend your castle;
but we must have liberty in our own circle, our cottage, our cattle, our
proportion of land. The Cities said, We acknowledge you for our Emperor;
but we must have our walls and our strong holds, and be governed by our
own laws. Thus all combined, yet all were separate; all served, yet all
were free. Such a government could not exist in a dark age. Our
ancestors may not indeed have been deep in the metaphysics of the
schools; they may not have shone in the fine arts; but much knowledge of
human nature, much practical wisdom must have existed amongst them, when
this admirable constitution was formed; and I believe it is a decided
truth, though certainly an awful lesson, that nations are not the most
happy at the time when literature and the arts flourish the most among
them.
The translations I had promised in my syllabus I shall defer to the end
of the course, when I shall give a single lecture of recitations
illustrative of the different ages of poetry. There is one Northern tale
I will relate, as it is one from which Shakspeare derived that strongly
marked and extraordinary scene between Richard III. and the Lady Anne.
It may not be equal to that in strength and genius, but it is,
undoubtedly, superior in decorum and delicacy.
A Knight had slain a Prince, the lord of a strong castle, in combat. He
afterwards contrived to get into the castle, where he obtained an
interview with the Princess's attendant, whose life he had saved in some
encounter; he told her of his love for her mistress, and won her to his
interest. She then slowly and gradually worked on her mistress's mind,
spoke of the beauty of his person, the fire of his eyes, the sweetness
of his voice, his valour in the field, his gentleness in the court; in
short, by watching her opportunities, she at last filled the Princess's
soul with this one image; she became restless; sleep forsook her; her
curiosity to see this Knight became strong; but her maid still deferred
the interview, till at length she confessed she was in love with
him;--the Knight is then introduced, and the nuptials are quickly
celebrated.
In this age there was a tendency in writers to the droll and the
grotesque, and in the little dramas which at that time existed, there
were singular instances of these. It was the disease of the age. It is a
remarkable fact that Luther and Melancthon, the great religious
reformers of that day, should have strongly recommended for the
education of children, dramas, which at present would be considered
highly indecorous, if not bordering on a deeper sin. From one which they
particularly recommended, I will give a few extracts; more I should not
think it right to do. The play opens with:
Adam and Eve washing and dressing their children to appear before the
Lord, who is coming from heaven to hear them repeat the Lord's Prayer,
Belief, &c. In the next scene the Lord appears seated like a
schoolmaster, with the children standing round, when Cain, who is behind
hand, and a sad pickle, comes running in with a bloody nose and his hat
on. Adam says, "What, with your hat on!" Cain then goes up to shake
hands with the Almighty, when Adam says (giving him a cuff), "Ah, would
you give your left hand to the Lord?" At length Cain takes his place in
the class, and it becomes his turn to say the Lord's Prayer. At this
time the Devil (a constant attendant at that time) makes his appearance,
and getting behind Cain, whispers in his ear; instead of the Lord's
Prayer, Cain gives it so changed by the transposition of the words, that
the meaning is reversed; yet this is so artfully done by the author,
that it is exactly as an obstinate child would answer, who knows his
lesson, yet does not choose to say it. In the last scene, horses in rich
trappings and carriages covered with gold are introduced, and the good
children are to ride in them and be Lord Mayors, Lords, &c.; Cain and
the bad ones are to be made cobblers and tinkers, and only to associate
with such.
This, with numberless others, was written by Hans Sachs. Our simple
ancestors, firm in their faith, and pure in their morals, were only
amused by these pleasantries, as they seemed to them, and neither they
nor the reformers feared their having any influence hostile to religion.
When I was many years back in the north of Germany, there were several
innocent superstitions in practice. Among others at Christmas, presents
used to be given to the children by the parents, and they were delivered
on Christmas day by a person who personated, and was supposed by the
children to be, Christ: early on Christmas morning he called, knocking
loudly at the door, and (having received his instructions) left presents
for the good and a rod for the bad. Those who have since been in Germany
have found this custom relinquished; it was considered profane and
irrational. Yet they have not found the children better, nor the mothers
more careful of their offspring; they have not found their devotion more
fervent, their faith more strong, nor their morality more pure. [2]
[Footnote 1: From Mr. William Hammond's note taken at the delivery. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: See this custom of Knecht Rupert more minutely described in
Mr. Coleridge's own letter from Germany, published in the 2nd vol. of
the 'Friend', p. 320. Ed.; also in the 1st vol. of the 'Bibliographia
Epistolaris', currently also available in .txt and .html form, free for
download from Project Gutenberg
http://promo.net/pg,
(text Ed.)]
LECTURE III.
THE TROUBADOURS--BOCCACCIO--PETRARCH--PULC--CHAUCER--SPENSER.
The last Lecture was allotted to an investigation into the origin and
character of a species of poetry, the least influenced of any by the
literature of Greece and Rome,--that in which the portion contributed by
the Gothic conquerors, the predilections and general tone or habit of
thought and feeling, brought by our remote ancestors with them from the
forests of Germany, or the deep dells and rocky mountains of Norway, are
the most prominent. In the present Lecture I must introduce you to a
species of poetry, which had its birth-place near the centre of Roman
glory, and in which, as might be anticipated, the influences of the
Greek and Roman muse are far more conspicuous,--as great, indeed, as the
efforts of intentional imitation on the part of the poets themselves
could render them. But happily for us and for their own fame, the
intention of the writers as men is often at complete variance with the
genius of the same men as poets. To the force of their intention we owe
their mythological ornaments, and the greater definiteness of their
imagery; and their passion for the beautiful, the voluptuous, and the
artificial, we must in part attribute to the same intention, but in part
likewise to their natural dispositions and tastes. For the same climate
and many of the same circumstances were acting on them, which had acted
on the great classics, whom they were endeavouring to imitate. But the
love of the marvellous, the deeper sensibility, the higher reverence for
womanhood, the characteristic spirit of sentiment and courtesy,--these
were the heir-looms of nature, which still regained the ascendant,
whenever the use of the living mother-language enabled the inspired poet
to appear instead of the toilsome scholar.
From this same union, in which the soul (if I may dare so express
myself) was Gothic, while the outward forms and a majority of the words
themselves, were the reliques of the Roman, arose the Romance, or
romantic language, in which the Troubadours or Love-singers of Provence
sang and wrote, and the different dialects of which have been modified
into the modern Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese; while the language of
the Trouveurs, Trouveres, or Norman-French poets, forms the intermediate
link between the Romance or modified Roman, and the Teutonic, including
the Dutch, Danish, Swedish, and the upper and lower German, as being the
modified Gothic. And as the northernmost extreme of the Norman-French,
or that part of the link in which it formed on the Teutonic, we must
take the Norman-English minstrels and metrical romances, from the
greater predominance of the Anglo-Saxon Gothic in the derivation of the
words. I mean, that the language of the English metrical romance is less
romanized, and has fewer words, not originally of a northern origin,
than the same romances in the Norman-French; which is the more
striking, because the former were for the most part translated from the
latter; the authors of which seem to have eminently merited their name
of Trouveres, or inventors. Thus then we have a chain with two rings or
staples:--at the southern end there is the Roman, or Latin; at the
northern end the Keltic, Teutonic, or Gothic; and the links beginning
with the southern end, are the Romance, including the Provençal, the
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, with their different dialects, then
the Norman-French, and lastly the English.
My object in adverting to the Italian poets, is not so much for their
own sakes, in which point of view Dante and Ariosto alone would have
required separate Lectures, but for the elucidation of the merits of our
countrymen, as to what extent we must consider them as fortunate
imitators of their Italian predecessors, and in what points they have
the higher claims of original genius. Of Dante, I am to speak elsewhere.
Of Boccaccio, who has little interest as a metrical poet in any respect,
and none for my present purpose, except, perhaps, as the reputed
inventor or introducer of the octave stanza in his 'Teseide', it will be
sufficient to say, that we owe to him the subjects of numerous poems
taken from his famous tales, the happy art of narration, and the still
greater merit of a depth and fineness in the workings of the passions,
in which last excellence, as likewise in the wild and imaginative
character of the situations, his almost neglected romances appear to me
greatly to excel his far famed 'Decameron'. To him, too, we owe the more
doubtful merit of having introduced into the Italian prose, and by the
authority of his name and the influence of his example, more or less
throughout Europe, the long interwoven periods, and architectural
structure which arose from the very nature of their language in the
Greek writers, but which already in the Latin orators and historians,
had betrayed a species of effort, a foreign something, which had been
superinduced on the language, instead of growing out of it; and which
was far too alien from that individualizing and confederating, yet not
blending, character of the North, to become permanent, although its
magnificence and stateliness were objects of admiration and occasional
imitation. This style diminished the control of the writer over the
inner feelings of men, and created too great a charm between the body
and the life; and hence especially it was abandoned by Luther.
But lastly, to Boccaccio's sanction we must trace a large portion of the
mythological pedantry and incongruous paganisms, which for so long a
period deformed the poetry, even of the truest poets. To such an
extravagance did Boccaccio himself carry this folly, that in a romance
of chivalry, he has uniformly styled God the Father Jupiter, our Saviour
Apollo, and the Evil Being Pluto. But for this there might be some
excuse pleaded. I dare make none for the gross and disgusting
licentiousness, the daring profaneness, which rendered the 'Decameron'
of Boccaccio the parent of a hundred worse children, fit to be classed
among the enemies of the human race; which poisons 'Ariosto'--(for that
I may not speak oftener than necessary of so odious a subject, I mention
it here once for all)--which interposes a painful mixture in the humour
of Chaucer, and which has once or twice seduced even our pure-minded
Spenser into a grossness, as heterogeneous from the spirit of his great
poem, as it was alien to the delicacy of his morals.
PETRARCH.
Born at Arezzo, 1304.--Died 1374.
Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours. See
Biog. Lit. vol. ii. p.27, &c.
NOTES ON PETRARCH'S [1] SONNETS,
CANZONES, &c.
VOL. I.
Good:
SONNET. 1. Voi, ch' ascoltate, &c.
7. La gola, e 'l sonno, &c.
11. Se la mia vita, &c.
12. Quando fra l'altre, &c.
18. Vergognando talor, &c.
25. Quanto più m' avvicino, &c.
28. Solo e pensoso, &c.
29. S' io credessi, &c.
CANZ. 14. Sì è debile il filo, &c.
Pleasing:
BALL. 1. Lassare il velo, &c.
CANZ. 1. Nel dolce tempo, &c.
This poem was imitated by our old Herbert; [2] it is ridiculous in the
thoughts, but simple and sweet in diction.
Dignified:
CANZ. 2. O aspettata in ciel, &c.
9. Gentil mia Donna, &c.
The first half of this ninth canzone is exquisite; and in Canzone 8, the
nine lines beginning:
O poggi, o valli, &c.
to 'cura', are expressed with vigour and chastity.
CANZ. 9.
Daquel dì innanzi a me medesmo piacqui,
Empiendo d'un pensier' alto, e soave
Quel core, "ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave."
Note. O that the Pope would take these eternal keys, which so for ever
turn the bolts on the finest passages of true passion!
VOL. II.
CANZ. 1. Che debb' io far? &c.
Very good; but not equal, I think, to Canzone 2,
Amor, se vuoi ch' i' torni, &c.
though less faulty. With the omission of half-a-dozen conceits and
Petrarchisms of 'hooks, baits, flames,' and 'torches', this second
canzone is a bold and impassioned lyric, and leaves no doubt in my mind
of Petrarch's having possessed a true poetic genius.
'Utinam deleri possint sequentia':--
L. 17-19.
--e la soave fiamma
Ch' ancor, lasso! m' infiamma
Essendo spenta, or che fea dunque ardendo?
L. 54-56.
--ov' erano a tutt' ore
Disposti gli ami ov' io fui preso, e l'esca
Ch' i' bramo sempre.
L. 76-79.
--onde l' accese
Saette uscivan d' invisibil foco,
E ragion temean poco;
Chè contra 'l ciel non val difesa umana.
And the lines 86, 87.
Poser' in dubbio, a cui
Devesse il pregio di più laude darsi
--are rather flatly worded.
[Footnote 1: These notes, by Mr. C., are written in a Petrarch in my
possession, and are of some date before 1812. It is hoped that they will
not seem ill placed here. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: If George Herbert is meant, I can find nothing like an
imitation of this canzone in his poems. Ed.]
LUIGI PULCI.
Born at Florence, 1431.--Died about 1487.
Pulci was of one of the noblest families in Florence, reported to be one
of the Frankish stocks which remained in that city after the departure
of Charlemagne:--
Pulcia Gallorum soboles descendit in urbem,
Clara quidem bello, sacris nec inhospita Musis.
Verino 'De illustrat. Cort. Flor.' III. v. 118.
Members of this family were five times elected to the Priorate, one of
the highest honours of the republic. Pulci had two brothers, and one of
their wives, Antonia, who were all poets:--
Carminibus patriis notissima Pulcia proles;
Quis non hanc urbem Musarum dicat arnicam,
Si tres producat fratres domus una poetas?
'Ib.' II. v. 241.
Luigi married Lucrezia di Uberto, of the Albizzi family, and was
intimate with the great men of his time, but more especially with Angelo
Politian, and Lorenzo the Magnificent. His Morgante has been attributed,
in part at least,[1] to the assistance of Marsilius Ficinus, and by
others the whole has been attributed to Politian. The first conjecture
is utterly improbable; the last is possible, indeed, on account of the
licentiousness of the poem; but there are no direct grounds for
believing it. The 'Morgante Maggiore' [2] is the first proper romance;
although, perhaps, Pulci had the 'Teseide' before him. The story is
taken from the fabulous history of Turpin; and if the author had any
distinct object, it seems to have been that of making himself merry with
the absurdities of the old romancers. The 'Morgante' sometimes makes you
think of Rabelais. It contains the most remarkable guess or allusion
upon the subject of America that can be found in any book published
before the discovery. [3] The well known passage in the tragic Seneca is
not to be compared with it. The 'copia verborum' of the mother
Florentine tongue, and the easiness of his style, afterwards brought to
perfection by Berni, are the chief merits of Pulci; his chief demerit is
his heartless spirit of jest and buffoonery, by which sovereigns and
their courtiers were flattered by the degradation of nature, and the
'impossibilification' of a pretended virtue.
[Footnote: 1 Meaning the 25th canto. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: The 'Morgante' was printed in 1488. Ed.]
[Footnote 3: The reference is, of course, to the following stanzas:--
Disse Astarotte: un error lungo e fioco
Per molti secol non ben conosciuto,
Fa che si dice d' Ercol le colonne,
E che più là molti periti sonne.
Sappi che questa opinione è vana;
Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,
Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana,
Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote:
Era più grossa allor la gente humana;
Falche potrebbe arrosirne le gote
Ercule ancor d' aver posti que' segni,
Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.
E puossi andar giù ne l' altro emisperio,
Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime;
Sì che la terra per divin misterio
Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,
E là giù son città, castella, e imperio;
Ma nol cognobbon quelle genti prime:
Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,
Dove io ti dico che là giù s' aspetta.
E come un segno surge in Oriente,
Un altro cade con mirabil arte,
Come si vede qua ne l' Occidente,
Però che il ciel giustamente comparte;
Antipodi appellata è quella gente;
Adora il sole e Jupiterre e Marte,
E piante e animal come voi hanno,
E spesso insieme gran battaglie fanno.
C. XXV. st. 228, &c.]
CHAUCER.
Born in London, 1328.--Died 1400. [1]
Chaucer must be read with an eye to the Norman-French Trouveres, of whom
he is the best representative in English. He had great powers of
invention. As in Shakspeare, his characters represent classes, but in a
different manner; Shakspeare's characters are the representatives of the
interior nature of humanity, in which some element has become so
predominant as to destroy the health of the mind; whereas Chaucer's are
rather representatives of classes of manners. He is therefore more led
to individualize in a mere personal sense. Observe Chaucer's love of
nature; and how happily the subject of his main work is chosen. When you
reflect that the company in the Decameron have retired to a place of
safety from the raging of a pestilence, their mirth provokes a sense of
their unfeelingness; whereas in Chaucer nothing of this sort occurs, and
the scheme of a party on a pilgrimage, with different ends and
occupations, aptly allows of the greatest variety of expression in the
tales.
...
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]
SPENSER.
Born in London, 1553.--Died 1599.
There is this difference, among many others, between Shakspeare and
Spenser:--Shakspeare is never coloured by the customs of his age; what
appears of contemporary character in him is merely negative; it is just
not something else. He has none of the fictitious realities of the
classics, none of the grotesquenesses of chivalry, none of the allegory
of the middle ages; there is no sectarianism either of politics or
religion, no miser, no witch,--no common witch,--no astrology--nothing
impermanent of however long duration; but he stands like the yew tree in
Lorton vale, which has known so many ages that it belongs to none in
particular; a living image of endless self-reproduction, like the
immortal tree of Malabar. In Spenser the spirit of chivalry is entirely
predominant, although with a much greater infusion of the poet's own
individual self into it than is found in any other writer. He has the
wit of the southern with the deeper inwardness of the northern genius.
No one can appreciate Spenser without some reflection on the nature of
allegorical writing. The mere etymological meaning of the word,
allegory,--to talk of one thing and thereby convey another,--is too
wide. The true sense is this,--the employment of one set of agents and
images to convey in disguise a moral meaning, with a likeness to the
imagination, but with a difference to the understanding,--those agents
and images being so combined as to form a homogeneous whole. This
distinguishes it from metaphor, which is part of an allegory. But
allegory is not properly distinguishable from fable, otherwise than as
the first includes the second, as a genus its species; for in a fable
there must be nothing but what is universally known and acknowledged,
but in an allegory there may be that which is new and not previously
admitted. The pictures of the great masters, especially of the Italian
schools, are genuine allegories. Amongst the classics, the multitude of
their gods either precluded allegory altogether, or else made every
thing allegory, as in the Hesiodic Theogonia; for you can scarcely
distinguish between power and the personification of power. The 'Cupid
and Psyche' of, or found in, Apuleius, is a phenomenon. It is the
Platonic mode of accounting for the fall of man. The 'Battle of the
Soul' [1] by Prudentius is an early instance of Christian allegory.
Narrative allegory is distinguished from mythology as reality from
symbol; it is, in short, the proper intermedium between person and
personification. Where it is too strongly individualized, it ceases to
be allegory; this is often felt in the 'Pilgrim's Progress', where the
characters are real persons with nick names. Perhaps one of the most
curious warnings against another attempt at narrative allegory on a
great scale, may be found in Tasso's account of what he himself intended
in and by his 'Jerusalem Delivered'.
As characteristic of Spenser, I would call your particular attention in
the first place to the indescribable sweetness and fluent projection of
his verse, very clearly distinguishable from the deeper and more inwoven
harmonies of Shakspeare and Milton. This stanza is a good instance of
what I mean:--
Yet she, most faithfull ladie, all this while
Forsaken, wofull, solitarie mayd,
Far from all peoples preace, as in exile,
In wildernesse and wastfull deserts strayd
To seeke her knight; who, subtily betrayd
Through that late vision which th' enchaunter wrought,
Had her abandond; she, of nought affrayd,
Through woods and wastnes wide him daily sought,
Yet wished tydinges none of him unto her brought.
F. Qu. B. I. c. 3. st. 3.
2. Combined with this sweetness and fluency, the scientific construction
of the metre of the 'Faery Queene' is very noticeable. One of Spenser's
arts is that of alliteration, and he uses it with great effect in
doubling the impression of an image:--
In _w_ildernesse and _w_astful deserts,--
Through _w_oods and _w_astnes _w_ilde,--
They passe the bitter _w_aves of Acheron,
Where many soules sit _w_ailing _w_oefully,
And come to _fi_ery _fl_ood of _Ph_legeton,
Whereas the damned ghosts in torments _f_ry,
And with _sh_arp _sh_rilling _sh_rieks doth bootlesse cry,--&c.
He is particularly given to an alternate alliteration, which is,
perhaps, when well used, a great secret in melody:--
A _r_amping lyon _r_ushed suddenly,--
And _s_ad to _s_ee her _s_orrowful constraint,--
And on the grasse her _d_aintie _l_imbes _d_id _l_ay,--&c.
You cannot read a page of the Faery Queene, if you read for that
purpose, without perceiving the intentional alliterativeness of the
words; and yet so skilfully is this managed, that it never strikes any
unwarned ear as artificial, or other than the result of the necessary
movement of the verse.
3. Spenser displays great skill in harmonizing his descriptions of
external nature and actual incidents with the allegorical character and
epic activity of the poem. Take these two beautiful passages as
illustrations of what I mean:--
By this the northerne wagoner had set
His sevenfol teme behind the stedfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deepe wandring arre;
And chearefull chaunticlere with his note shrill
Had warned once, that Phoebus' fiery carre
In hast was climbing up the easterne hill,
Full envious that Night so long his roome did fill;
_When_ those accursed messengers of hell,
That feigning dreame, and that faire-forged spright
Came, &c.
B. I. c. 2. st. 1.
...
At last, the golden orientall gate
Of greatest Heaven gan to open fayre;
And Phoebus, fresh as brydegrome to his mate,
Came dauncing forth, shaking his deawie hayre;
And hurld his glistring beams through gloomy ayre.
Which when the wakeful Elfe perceiv'd, streightway
He started up, and did him selfe prepayre
In sunbright armes and battailons array;
For with that Pagan proud he combat will that day.
Ib. c. 5. st. 2.
Observe also the exceeding vividness of Spenser's descriptions. They are
not, in the true sense of the word, picturesque; but are composed of a
wondrous series of images, as in our dreams. Compare the following
passage with any thing you may remember 'in pari materia' in Milton or
Shakspeare:--
His haughtie helmet, horrid all with gold,
Both glorious brightnesse and great terrour bredd
For all the crest a dragon did enfold
With greedie pawes, and over all did spredd
His golden winges; his dreadfull hideous hedd,
Close couched on the bever, seemd to throw
From flaming mouth bright sparkles fiery redd,
That suddeine horrour to faint hartes did show;
And scaly tayle was stretcht adowne his back full low.
Upon the top of all his loftie crest
A bounch of haires discolourd diversly,
With sprinkled pearle and gold full richly drest,
Did shake, and seemd to daunce for jollitie;
Like to an almond tree ymounted hye
On top of greene Selinis all alone,
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily,
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
At everie little breath that under heaven is blowne.
Ib. c. 7. st. 31-2.
4. You will take especial note of the marvellous independence and true
imaginative absence of all particular space or time in the Faery Queene.
It is in the domains neither of history or geography; it is ignorant of
all artificial boundary, all material obstacles; it is truly in land of
Faery, that is, of mental space. The poet has placed you in a dream, a
charmed sleep, and you neither wish, nor have the power, to inquire
where you are, or how you got there. It reminds me of some lines of my
own:--
Oh! would to Alla!
The raven or the sea-mew were appointed
To bring me food!--or rather that my soul
Might draw in life from the universal air!
It were a lot divine in some small skiff
Along some ocean's boundless solitude
To float for ever with a careless course
And think myself the only being alive!
Remorse, Act iv. sc. 3.
Indeed Spenser himself, in the conduct of his great poem, may be
represented under the same image, his symbolizing purpose being his
mariner's compass:--
As pilot well expert in perilous wave,
That to a stedfast starre his course hath bent,
When foggy mistes or cloudy tempests have
The faithfull light of that faire lampe yblent,
And coverd Heaven with hideous dreriment;
Upon his card and compas firmes his eye,
The maysters of his long experiment,
And to them does the steddy helme apply,
Bidding his winged vessell fairely forward fly.
B. II. c. 7. st. 1.
So the poet through the realms of allegory.
5. You should note the quintessential character of Christian chivalry in
all his characters, but more especially in his women. The Greeks,
except, perhaps, in Homer, seem to have had no way of making their women
interesting, but by unsexing them, as in the instances of the tragic
Medea, Electra, &c. Contrast such characters with Spenser's Una, who
exhibits no prominent feature, has no particularization, but produces
the same feeling that a statue does, when contemplated at a distance:--
From her fayre head her fillet she undight,
And layd her stole aside: her angels face,
As the great eye of Heaven, shyned bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place;
Did never mortal eye behold such heavenly grace.
B. I. c. 3. st. 4.
6. In Spenser we see the brightest and purest form of that nationality
which was so common a characteristic of our elder poets. There is
nothing unamiable, nothing contemptuous of others, in it. To glorify
their country--to elevate England into a queen, an empress of the
heart--this was their passion and object; and how dear and important an
object it was or may be, let Spain, in the recollection of her Cid,
declare! There is a great magic in national names. What a damper to all
interest is a list of native East Indian merchants! Unknown names are
non-conductors; they stop all sympathy. No one of our poets has touched
this string more exquisitely than Spenser; especially in his chronicle
of the British Kings (B. II. c. 10.), and the marriage of the Thames
with the Medway (B. IV. c. 11.), in both which passages the mere names
constitute half the pleasure we receive. To the same feeling we must in
particular attribute Spenser's sweet reference to Ireland:--
Ne thence the Irishe rivers absent were;
Sith no lesse famous than the rest they be, &c.
Ib.
...
And Mulla mine, whose waves I whilom taught to weep.
Ib.
And there is a beautiful passage of the same sort in the Colin Clout's
'Come Home Again':--
"One day," quoth he, "I sat, as was my trade, Under the foot of Mole,"
&c.
Lastly, the great and prevailing character of Spenser's mind is fancy
under the conditions of imagination, as an ever present but not always
active power. He has an imaginative fancy, but he has not imagination,
in kind or degree, as Shakspeare and Milton have; the boldest effort of
his powers in this way is the character of Talus.[2] Add to this a
feminine tenderness and almost maidenly purity of feeling, and above
all, a deep moral earnestness which produces a believing sympathy and
acquiescence in the reader, and you have a tolerably adequate view of
Spenser's intellectual being.
[Footnote 1: 'Psychomachia'. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: B. 5. 'Legend of Artegall'. Ed.]
LECTURE VII.
BEN JONSON, BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, AND MASSINGER.
A contemporary is rather an ambiguous term, when applied to authors. It
may simply mean that one man lived and wrote while another was yet
alive, however deeply the former may have been indebted to the latter as
his model. There have been instances in the literary world that might
remind a botanist of a singular sort of parasite plant, which rises
above ground, independent and unsupported, an apparent original; but
trace its roots, and you will find the fibres all terminating in the
root of another plant at an unsuspected distance, which, perhaps, from
want of sun and genial soil, and the loss of sap, has scarcely been able
to peep above the ground.--Or the word may mean those whose compositions
were contemporaneous in such a sense as to preclude all likelihood of
the one having borrowed from the other. In the latter sense I should
call Ben Jonson a contemporary of Shakspeare, though he long survived
him; while I should prefer the phrase of immediate successors for
Beaumont and Fletcher, and Massinger, though they too were Shakspeare's
contemporaries in the former sense.
BEN JONSON. [1] Born, 1574.--Died, 1637.
Ben Jonson is original; he is, indeed, the only one of the great
dramatists of that day who was not either directly produced, or very
greatly modified, by Shakspeare. In truth, he differs from our great
master in every thing--in form and in substance--and betrays no tokens
of his proximity. He is not original in the same way as Shakspeare is
original; but after a fashion of his own, Ben Jonson is most truly
original.
The characters in his plays are, in the strictest sense of the term,
abstractions. Some very prominent feature is taken from the whole man,
and that single feature or humour is made the basis upon which the
entire character is built up. Ben Jonson's 'dramatis personae' are
almost as fixed as the masks of the ancient actors; you know from the
first scene--sometimes from the list of names--exactly what every one of
them is to be. He was a very accurately observing man; but he cared only
to observe what was external or open to, and likely to impress, the
senses. He individualizes, not so much, if at all, by the exhibition of
moral or intellectual differences, as by the varieties and contrasts of
manners, modes of speech and tricks of temper; as in such characters as
Puntarvolo, Bobadill, &c.
I believe there is not one whim or affectation in common life noted in
any memoir of that age which may not be found drawn and framed in some
corner or other of Ben Jonson's dramas; and they have this merit, in
common with Hogarth's prints, that not a single circumstance is
introduced in them which does not play upon, and help to bring out, the
dominant humour or humours of the piece. Indeed I ought very
particularly to call your attention to the extraordinary skill shown by
Ben Jonson in contriving situations for the display of his characters.
In fact, his care and anxiety in this matter led him to do what scarcely
any of the dramatists of that age did--that is, invent his plots. It is
not a first perusal that suffices for the full perception of the
elaborate artifice of the plots of the Alchemist and the Silent
Woman;--that of the former is absolute perfection for a necessary
entanglement, and an unexpected, yet natural, evolution.
Ben Jonson exhibits a sterling English diction, and he has with great
skill contrived varieties of construction; but his style is rarely sweet
or harmonious, in consequence of his labour at point and strength being
so evident. In all his works, in verse or prose, there is an
extraordinary opulence of thought; but it is the produce of an amassing
power in the author, and not of a growth from within. Indeed a large
proportion of Ben Jonson's thoughts may be traced to classic or obscure
modern writers, by those who are learned and curious enough to follow
the steps of this robust, surly, and observing dramatist.
[Footnote: 1: From Mr. Green's note. 'Ed.']
Beaumont. Born, 1586.--Died, 1616.
Fletcher. Born, 1576.--Died, 1625.
Mr. Weber, to whose taste, industry, and appropriate erudition we owe, I
will not say the best, (for that would be saying little,) but a good,
edition of Beaumont and Fletcher, has complimented the Philaster, which
he himself describes as inferior to the Maid's Tragedy by the same
writers, as but little below the noblest of Shakspeare's plays, Lear,
Macbeth, Othello, &c. and consequently implying the equality, at least,
of the Maid's Tragedy;--and an eminent living critic,--who in the manly
wit, strong sterling sense, and robust style of his original works, had
presented the best possible credentials of office as 'chargé d'affaires'
of literature in general,--and who by his edition of Massinger--a work
in which there was more for an editor to do, and in which more was
actually well done, than in any similar work within my knowledge--has
proved an especial right of authority in the appreciation of dramatic
poetry, and hath potentially a double voice with the public in his own
right and in that of the critical synod, where, as 'princeps senatus',
he possesses it by his prerogative,--has affirmed that Shakspeare's
superiority to his contemporaries rests on his superior wit alone, while
in all the other, and, as I should deem, higher excellencies of the
drama, character, pathos, depth of thought, &c. he is equalled by
Beaumont and Fletcher, Ben Jonson, and Massinger! [1]
Of wit I am engaged to treat in another Lecture. It is a genus of many
species; and at present I shall only say, that the species which is
predominant in Shakspeare, is so completely Shakspearian, and in its
essence so interwoven with all his other characteristic excellencies,
that I am equally incapable of comprehending, both how it can be
detached from his other powers, and how, being disparate in kind from
the wit of contemporary dramatists, it can be compared with theirs in
degree. And again--the detachment and the practicability of the
comparison being granted--I should, I confess, be rather inclined to
concede the contrary;--and in the most common species of wit, and in the
ordinary application of the term, to yield this particular palm to
Beaumont and Fletcher, whom here and hereafter I take as one poet with
two names,--leaving undivided what a rare love and still rarer
congeniality have united. At least, I have never been able to
distinguish the presence of Fletcher during the life of Beaumont, nor
the absence of Beaumont during the survival of Fletcher.
But waiving, or rather deferring, this question, I protest against the
remainder of the position in 'toto'. And indeed, whilst I can never, I
trust, show myself blind to the various merits of Jonson, Beaumont and
Fletcher, and Massinger, or insensible to the greatness of the merits
which they possess in common, or to the specific excellencies which give
to each of the three a worth of his own,--I confess, that one main
object of this Lecture was to prove that Shakspeare's eminence is his
own, and not that of his age;--even as the pine-apple, the melon, and
the gourd may grow on the same bed;--yea, the same circumstances of
warmth and soil may be necessary to their full development, yet do not
account for the golden hue, the ambrosial flavour, the perfect shape of
the pine-apple, or the tufted crown on its head. Would that those, who
seek to twist it off, could but promise us in this instance to make it
the germ of an equal successor!
What had a grammatical and logical consistency for the ear,--what could
be put together and represented to the eye--these poets took from the
ear and eye, unchecked by any intuition of an inward impossibility;--
just as a man might put together a quarter of an orange, a quarter of an
apple, and the like of a lemon and a pomegranate, and make it look like
one round diverse-coloured fruit. But nature, which works from within by
evolution and assimilation according to a law, cannot do so, nor could
Shakspeare; for he too worked in the spirit of nature, by evolving the
germ from within by the imaginative power according to an idea. For as
the power of seeing is to light, so is an idea in mind to a law in
nature. They are correlatives, which suppose each other.
The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are mere aggregations without unity;
in the Shakspearian drama there is a vitality which grows and evolves
itself from within,--a key note which guides and controls the harmonies
throughout. What is Lear?--It is storm and tempest--the thunder at first
grumbling in the far horizon, then gathering around us, and at length
bursting in fury over our heads,--succeeded by a breaking of the clouds
for a while, a last flash of lightning, the closing in of night, and the
single hope of darkness! And Romeo and Juliet?--It is a spring day,
gusty and beautiful in the morn, and closing like an April evening with
the song of the nightingale;--whilst Macbeth is deep and
earthy,--composed to the subterranean music of a troubled conscience,
which converts every thing into the wild and fearful!
Doubtless from mere observation, or from the occasional similarity of
the writer's own character, more or less in Beaumont and Fletcher, and
other such writers will happen to be in correspondence with nature, and
still more in apparent compatibility with it. But yet the false source
is always discoverable, first by the gross contradictions to nature in
so many other parts, and secondly, by the want of the impression which
Shakspeare makes, that the thing said not only might have been said, but
that nothing else could be substituted, so as to excite the same sense
of its exquisite propriety. I have always thought the conduct and
expressions of Othello and Iago in the last scene, when Iago is brought
in prisoner, a wonderful instance of Shakspeare's consummate judgment:--
'Oth.' I look down towards his feet;--but that's a fable. If that thou
be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.
'Iago.' I bleed, Sir; but not kill'd.
'Oth.' I am not sorry neither.
Think what a volley of execrations and defiances Beaumont and Fletcher
would have poured forth here!
Indeed Massinger and Ben Jonson are both more perfect in their kind than
Beaumont and Fletcher; the former in the story and affecting incidents;
the latter in the exhibition of manners and peculiarities, whims in
language, and vanities of appearance.
There is, however, a diversity of the most dangerous kind here.
Shakspeare shaped his characters out of the nature within; but we cannot
so safely say, out of his own nature as an individual person. No! this
latter is itself but a 'natura naturata',--an effect, a product, not a
power. It was Shakspeare's prerogative to have the universal, which is
potentially in each particular, opened out to him, the 'homo generalis',
not as an abstraction from observation of a variety of men, but as the
substance capable of endless modifications, of which his own personal
existence was but one, and to use this one as the eye that beheld the
other, and as the tongue that could convey the discovery. There is no
greater or more common vice in dramatic writers than to draw out of
themselves. How I--alone and in the self-sufficiency of my study, as all
men are apt to be proud in their dreams--should like to be talking
'king'! Shakspeare, in composing, had no 'I', but the 'I'
representative. In Beaumont and Fletcher you have descriptions of
characters by the poet rather than the characters themselves; we are
told, and impressively told, of their being; but we rarely or never feel
that they actually are.
Beaumont and Fletcher are the most lyrical of our dramatists. I think
their comedies the best part of their works, although there are scenes
of very deep tragic interest in some of their plays. I particularly
recommend Monsieur Thomas for good pure comic humor.
There is, occasionally, considerable license in their dramas; and this
opens a subject much needing vindication and sound exposition, but which
is beset with such difficulties for a Lecturer, that I must pass it by.
Only as far as Shakspeare is concerned, I own, I can with less pain
admit a fault in him than beg an excuse for it. I will not, therefore,
attempt to palliate the grossness that actually exists in his plays by
the customs of his age, or by the far greater coarseness of all his
contemporaries, excepting Spenser, who is himself not wholly blameless,
though nearly so;--for I place Shakspeare's merit on being of no age.
But I would clear away what is, in my judgment, not his, as that scene
of the Porter [2] in Macbeth, and many other such passages, and abstract
what is coarse in manners only, and all that which from the frequency of
our own vices, we associate with his words. If this were truly done,
little that could be justly reprehensible would remain. Compare the vile
comments, offensive and defensive, on Pope's
Lust thro' some gentle strainers, &c.
with the worst thing in Shakspeare, or even in Beaumont and Fletcher;
and then consider how unfair the attack is on our old dramatists;
especially because it is an attack that cannot be properly answered in
that presence in which an answer would be most desirable, from the
painful nature of one part of the position; but this very pain is almost
a demonstration of its falsehood!
[Footnote 1: See Mr. Gifford's introduction to his edition of Massinger.
Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Act ii. sc. 3.]
MASSINGER.
Born at Salisbury, 1584.--Died, 1640.
With regard to Massinger, observe,
1. The vein of satire on the times; but this is not as in Shakspeare,
where the natures evolve themselves according to their incidental
disproportions, from excess, deficiency, or mislocation, of one or more
of the component elements; but is merely satire on what is attributed to
them by others.
2. His excellent metre--a better model for dramatists in general to
imitate than Shakspeare's,--even if a dramatic taste existed in the
frequenters of the stage, and could be gratified in the present size and
management, or rather mismanagement, of the two patent theatres. I do
not mean that Massinger's verse is superior to Shakspeare's or equal to
it. Far from it; but it is much more easily constructed and may be more
successfully adopted by writers in the present day. It is the nearest
approach to the language of real life at all compatible with a fixed
metre. In Massinger, as in all our poets before Dryden, in order to make
harmonious verse in the reading, it is absolutely necessary that the
meaning should be understood;--when the meaning is once seen, then the
harmony is perfect. Whereas in Pope and in most of the writers who
followed in his school, it is the mechanical metre which determines the
sense.
3. The impropriety, and indecorum of demeanour in his favourite
characters, as in Bertoldo in the Maid of Honour, who is a swaggerer,
talking to his sovereign what no sovereign could endure, and to
gentlemen what no gentleman would answer without pulling his nose.
4. Shakspeare's Ague-cheek, Osric, &c. are displayed through others, in
the course of social intercourse, by the mode of their performing some
office in which they are employed; but Massinger's 'Sylli' come forward
to declare themselves fools 'ad arbitrium auctoris,' and so the diction
always needs the 'subintelligitur' ('the man looks as if he thought so
and so,') expressed in the language of the satirist, and not in that of
the man himself:--
'Sylli.' You may, madam,
Perhaps, believe that I in this use art
To make you dote upon me, by exposing
My more than most rare features to your view;
But I, as I have ever done, deal simply,
A mark of sweet simplicity, ever noted
In the family of the Syllis. Therefore, lady,
Look not with too much contemplation on me;
If you do, you are in the suds.
'Maid of Honour', act i. sc. 2.
The author mixes his own feelings and judgments concerning the presumed
fool; but the man himself, till mad, fights up against them, and
betrays, by his attempts to modify them, that he is no fool at all, but
one gifted with activity and copiousness of thought, image and
expression, which belong not to a fool, but to a man of wit making
himself merry with his own character.
5. There is an utter want of preparation in the decisive acts of
Massinger's characters, as in Camiola and Aurelia in the Maid of Honour.
Why? Because the 'dramatis personae' were all planned each by itself.
Whereas in Shakspeare, the play is 'syngenesia;' each character has,
indeed, a life of its own, and is an 'individuum' of itself, but yet an
organ of the whole, as the heart in the human body. Shakspeare was a
great comparative anatomist.
Hence Massinger and all, indeed, but Shakspeare, take a dislike to their
own characters, and spite themselves upon them by making them talk like
fools or monsters; as Fulgentio in his visit to Camiola, (Act ii. sc.
2.) Hence too, in Massinger, the continued flings at kings, courtiers,
and all the favourites of fortune, like one who had enough of intellect
to see injustice in his own inferiority in the share of the good things
of life, but not genius enough to rise above it, and forget himself.
Beaumont and Fletcher have the same vice in the opposite pole, a
servility of sentiment and a spirit of partizanship with the monarchical
faction.
6. From the want of a guiding point in Massinger's characters, you never
know what they are about. In fact they have no character.
7. Note the faultiness of his soliloquies, with connectives and
arrangements, that have no other motive but the fear lest the audience
should not understand him.
8. A play of Massinger's produces no one single effect, whether arising
from the spirit of the whole, as in the As You Like It; or from any one
indisputably prominent character as Hamlet. It is just "which you like
best, gentlemen!"
9. The unnaturally irrational passions and strange whims of feeling
which Massinger delights to draw, deprive the reader of all sound
interest in the characters;--as in Mathias in the Picture, and in other
instances.
10. The comic scenes in Massinger not only do not harmonize with the
tragic, not only interrupt the feeling, but degrade the characters that
are to form any part in the action of the piece, so as to render them
unfit for any tragic interest. At least, they do not concern, or act
upon, or modify, the principal characters. As when a gentleman is
insulted by a mere blackguard,--it is the same as if any other accident
of nature had occurred, a pig run under his legs, or his horse thrown
him. There is no dramatic interest in it.
I like Massinger's comedies better than his tragedies, although where
the situation requires it, he often rises into the truly tragic and
pathetic. He excells in narration, and for the most part displays his
mere story with skill. But he is not a poet of high imagination; he is
like a Flemish painter, in whose delineations objects appear as they do
in nature, have the same force and truth, and produce the same effect
upon the spectator. But Shakspeare is beyond this;--he always by
metaphors and figures involves in the thing considered a universe of
past and possible experiences; he mingles earth, sea and air, gives a
soul to every thing, and at the same time that he inspires human
feelings, adds a dignity in his images to human nature itself:--
Full many a glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye;
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchymy, &c.
(33rd Sonnet.)
'Note.'--Have I not over-rated Gifford's edition of Massinger?--Not,--if
I have, as but just is, main reference to the restitution of the text;
but yes, perhaps, if I were talking of the notes. These are more often
wrong than right. In the Maid of Honour, Act i. sc. 5. Astutio describes
Fulgentio as "A gentleman, yet no lord." Gifford supposes a
transposition of the press for "No gentleman, yet a lord." But this
would have no connection with what follows; and we have only to
recollect that "lord" means a lord of lands, to see that the after lines
are explanatory. He is a man of high birth, but no landed property;--as
to the former, he is a distant branch of the blood royal;--as to the
latter, his whole rent lies in a narrow compass, the king's ear! In the
same scene the text stands:
'Bert'. No! they are useful
For your 'imitation;'--I remember you, &c.;--
and Gifford condemns Mason's conjecture of 'initiation' as void of
meaning and harmony. Now my ear deceives me if 'initiation' be not the
right word. In fact,'imitation' is utterly impertinent to all that
follows. Bertoldo tells Antonio that he had been initiated in the
manners suited to the court by two or three sacred beauties, and that a
similar experience would be equally useful for his initiation into the
camp. Not a word of his imitation. Besides, I say the rhythm requires
'initiation,' and is lame as the verse now stands.
LECTURE VIII.
'DON QUIXOTE'.
CERVANTES.
Born at Madrid, 1547;-Shakspeare, 1564; both put off mortality on the
same day, the 23rd of April, 1616,--the one in the sixty-ninth, the
other in the fifty-second, year of his life. The resemblance in their
physiognomies is striking, but with a predominance of acuteness in
Cervantes, and of reflection in Shakspeare, which is the specific
difference between the Spanish and English characters of mind.
I. The nature and eminence of Symbolical writing;--
II. Madness, and its different sorts, (considered without pretension to
medical science);--
To each of these, or at least to my own notions respecting them, I must
devote a few words of explanation, in order to render the after critique
on Don Quixote, the master work of Cervantes' and his country's genius
easily and throughout intelligible. This is not the least valuable,
though it may most often be felt by us both as the heaviest and least
entertaining portion of these critical disquisitions: for without it, I
must have foregone one at least of the two appropriate objects of a
Lecture, that of interesting you during its delivery, and of leaving
behind in your minds the germs of after-thought, and the materials for
future enjoyment. To have been assured by several of my intelligent
auditors that they have reperused Hamlet or Othello with increased
satisfaction in consequence of the new points of view in which I had
placed those characters--is the highest compliment I could receive or
desire; and should the address of this evening open out a new source of
pleasure, or enlarge the former in your perusal of Don Quixote, it will
compensate for the failure of any personal or temporary object.
I. The Symbolical cannot, perhaps, be better defined in distinction from
the Allegorical, than that it is always itself a part of that, of the
whole of which it is the representative.--"Here comes a sail,"--(that
is, a ship) is a symbolical expression. "Behold our lion!" when we speak
of some gallant soldier, is allegorical. Of most importance to our
present subject is this point, that the latter (the allegory) cannot be
other than spoken consciously;--whereas in the former (the symbol) it
is very possible that the general truth represented may be working
unconsciously in the writer's mind during the construction of the
symbol;--and it proves itself by being produced out of his own mind,--as
the Don Quixote out of the perfectly sane mind of Cervantes, and not by
outward observation, or historically. The advantage of symbolical
writing over allegory is, that it presumes no disjunction of faculties,
but simple predominance.
II. Madness may be divided as--
1. hypochondriasis; or, the man is out of his senses.
2. derangement of the understanding; or, the man is out of his wits.
3. loss of reason.
4. frenzy, or derangement of the sensations.
Cervantes's own preface to Don Quixote is a perfect model of the gentle,
every where intelligible, irony in the best essays of the Tatler and the
Spectator. Equally natural and easy, Cervantes is more spirited than
Addison; whilst he blends with the terseness of Swift, an exquisite flow
and music of style, and above all, contrasts with the latter by the
sweet temper of a superior mind, which saw the follies of mankind, and
was even at the moment suffering severely under hard mistreatment;[1]
and yet seems every where to have but one thought as the undersong--
"Brethren! with all your faults I love you still!"--or as a mother that
chides the child she loves, with one hand holds up the rod, and with the
other wipes off each tear as it drops!
Don Quixote was neither fettered to the earth by want, nor holden in its
embraces by wealth;--of which, with the temperance natural to his
country, as a Spaniard, he had both far too little, and somewhat too
much, to be under any necessity of thinking about it. His age too,
fifty, may be well supposed to prevent his mind from being tempted out
of itself by any of the lower passions;--while his habits, as a very
early riser and a keen sportsman, were such as kept his spare body in
serviceable subjection to his will, and yet by the play of hope that
accompanies pursuit, not only permitted, but assisted, his fancy in
shaping what it would. Nor must we omit his meagerness and entire
featureliness, face and frame, which Cervantes gives us at once: "It is
said that his surname was 'Quixada' or 'Quesada,'" &c.--even in this
trifle showing an exquisite judgment;--just once insinuating the
association of 'lantern-jaws' into the reader's mind, yet not retaining
it obtrusively like the names in old farces and in the Pilgrim's
Progress,--but taking for the regular appellative one which had the no
meaning of a proper name in real life, and which yet was capable of
recalling a number of very different, but all pertinent, recollections,
as old armour, the precious metals hidden in the ore, &c. Don Quixote's
leanness and featureliness are happy exponents of the excess of the
formative or imaginative in him, contrasted with Sancho's plump
rotundity, and recipiency of external impression.
He has no knowledge of the sciences or scientific arts which give to the
meanest portions of matter an intellectual interest, and which enable
the mind to decypher in the world of the senses the invisible
agency--that alone, of which the world's phenomena are the effects and
manifestations,--and thus, as in a mirror, to contemplate its own
reflex, its life in the powers, its imagination in the symbolic forms,
its moral instincts in the final causes, and its reason in the laws of
material nature: but--estranged from all the motives to observation from
self-interest--the persons that surround him too few and too familiar to
enter into any connection with his thoughts, or to require any
adaptation of his conduct to their particular characters or relations to
himself--his judgment lies fallow, with nothing to excite, nothing to
employ it. Yet,--and here is the point, where genius even of the most
perfect kind, allotted but to few in the course of many ages, does not
preclude the necessity in part, and in part counterbalance the craving
by sanity of judgment, without which genius either cannot be, or cannot
at least manifest itself,--the dependency of our nature asks for some
confirmation from without, though it be only from the shadows of other
men's fictions.
Too uninformed, and with too narrow a sphere of power and opportunity to
rise into the scientific artist, or to be himself a patron of art, and
with too deep a principle and too much innocence to become a mere
projector, Don Quixote has recourse to romances:--
His curiosity and extravagant fondness herein arrived at that pitch,
that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase books of
knight-errantry, and carried home all he could lay hands on of that
kind! (C.I.)
The more remote these romances were from the language of common life,
the more akin on that very account were they to the shapeless dreams and
strivings of his own mind;--a mind, which possessed not the highest
order of genius which lives in an atmosphere of power over mankind, but
that minor kind which, in its restlessness, seeks for a vivid
representative of its own wishes, and substitutes the movements of that
objective puppet for an exercise of actual power in and by itself. The
more wild and improbable these romances were, the more were they akin to
his will, which had been in the habit of acting as an unlimited monarch
over the creations of his fancy! Hence observe how the startling of the
remaining common sense, like a glimmering before its death, in the
notice of the impossible-improbable of Don Belianis, is dismissed by Don
Quixote as impertinent:--
'He had some doubt' [2] as to the dreadful wounds which Don Belianis
gave and received: for he imagined, that notwithstanding the most
expert surgeons had cured him, his face and whole body must still be
full of seams and scars. 'Nevertheless' [3] he commended in his author
the concluding his book with a promise of that unfinishable adventure!
C. 1.
Hence also his first intention to turn author; but who, with such a
restless struggle within him, could content himself with writing in a
remote village among apathists and ignorants? During his colloquies with
the village priest and the barber surgeon, in which the fervour of
critical controversy feeds the passion and gives reality to its
object--what more natural than that the mental striving should become an
eddy?--madness may perhaps be denned as the circling in a stream which
should be progressive and adaptive: Don Quixote grows at length to be a
man out of his wits; his understanding is deranged; and hence without
the least deviation from the truth of nature, without losing the least
trait of personal individuality, he becomes a substantial living
allegory, or personification of the reason and the moral sense, divested
of the judgment and the understanding. Sancho is the converse. He is the
common sense without reason or imagination; and Cervantes not only shows
the excellence and power of reason in, Don Quixote, but in both him and
Sancho the mischiefs resulting from a severance of the two main
constituents of sound intellectual and moral action. Put him and his
master together, and they form a perfect intellect; but they are
separated and without cement; and hence each having a need of the other
for its own completeness, each has at times a mastery over the other.
For the common sense, although it may see the practical inapplicability
of the dictates of the imagination or abstract reason, yet cannot help
submitting to them. These two characters possess the world, alternately
and interchangeably the cheater and the cheated. To impersonate them,
and to combine the permanent with the individual, is one of the highest
creations of genius, and has been achieved by Cervantes and Shakspeare,
almost alone.
Observations on particular passages,
(B. I. c. 1.)
But not altogether approving of his having broken it to pieces with so
much ease, to secure himself from the like danger for the future, he
made it over again, fencing it with small bars of iron within, in such
a manner, 'that he rested satisfied of its strength; and without
caring to make a fresh experiment on it, he approved and looked upon
it as a most excellent helmet.'
His not trying his improved scull-cap is an exquisite trait of human
character, founded on the oppugnancy of the soul in such a state to any
disturbance by doubt of its own broodings. Even the long deliberation
about his horse's name is full of meaning;--for in these day-dreams the
greater part of the history passes and is carried on in words, which
look forward to other words as what will be said of them.
(Ib.)
Near the place where he lived, there dwelt a very comely country lass,
with whom he had formerly been in love; though, as it is supposed, she
never knew it, nor troubled herself about it.
The nascent love for the country lass, but without any attempt at
utterance, or an opportunity of knowing her, except as the hint--the
[Greek (transliterated): oti esti]--of the inward imagination, is
happily conceived in both parts;--first, as confirmative of the
shrinking back of the mind on itself, and its dread of having a
cherished image destroyed by its own judgment; and secondly, as showing
how necessarily love is the passion of novels. Novels are to love as
fairy tales to dreams. I never knew but two men of taste and feeling who
could not understand why I was delighted with the Arabian Nights' Tales,
and they were likewise the only persons in my knowledge who scarcely
remembered having ever dreamed. Magic and war--itself a magic--are the
day-dreams of childhood; love is the day-dream of youth and early
manhood.
(C. 2.)
"Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus spread the golden tresses of his beauteous
hair over the face of the wide and spacious earth; and scarcely had
the little painted birds, with the sweet and mellifluous harmony of
their forked tongues, saluted the approach of rosy Aurora, who,
quitting the soft couch of her jealous husband, disclosed herself to
mortals through the gates of the Mauchegan horizon; when the renowned
Don Quixote," &c.
How happily already is the abstraction from the senses, from
observation, and the consequent confusion of the judgment, marked in
this description! The knight is describing objects immediate to his
senses and sensations without borrowing a single trait from either.
Would it be difficult to find parallel descriptions in Dryden's plays
and in those of his successors?
(C. 3.)
The host is here happily conceived as one who from his past life as a
sharper, was capable of entering into and humouring the knight, and so
perfectly in character, that he precludes a considerable source of
improbability in the future narrative, by enforcing upon Don Quixote the
necessity of taking money with him.
(C. 3.)
"Ho, there, whoever thou art, rash knight, that approachest to touch
the arms of the most valorous adventurer that ever girded sword," &c.
Don Quixote's high eulogiums on himself--"the most valorous
adventurer!"--but it is not himself that he has before him, but the idol
of his imagination, the imaginary being whom he is acting. And this,
that it is entirely a third person, excuses his heart from the otherwise
inevitable charge of selfish vanity; and so by madness itself he
preserves our esteem, and renders those actions natural by which he, the
first person, deserves it.
(C. 4.)
Andres and his master. The manner in which Don Quixote redressed this
wrong, is a picture of the true revolutionary passion in its first
honest state, while it is yet only a bewilderment of the understanding.
You have a benevolence limitless in its prayers, which are in fact
aspirations towards omnipotence; but between it and beneficence the
bridge of judgment--that is, of measurement of personal
power--intervenes, and must be passed. Otherwise you will be bruised by
the leap into the chasm, or be drowned in the revolutionary river, and
drag others with you to the same fate.
(C. 4.)
Merchants of Toledo.
When they were come so near as to be seen and heard, Don Quixote
raised his voice, and with arrogant air cried out: "Let the whole
world stand; if the whole world does not confess that there is not in
the whole world a damsel more beautiful than," &c.
Now mark the presumption which follows the self-complacency of the last
act! That was an honest attempt to redress a real wrong; this is an
arbitrary determination to enforce a Brissotine or Rousseau's ideal on
all his fellow creatures.
Let the whole world stand!
'If there had been any experience in proof of the excellence of our
code, where would be our superiority in this enlightened age?'
"No! the business is that without seeing her, you believe, confess,
affirm, swear, and maintain it; _and if not, I challenge you all to
battle_." [4]
Next see the persecution and fury excited by opposition however
moderate! The only words listened to are those, that without their
context and their conditionals, and transformed into positive
assertions, might give some shadow of excuse for the violence shown!
This rich story ends, to the compassion of the men in their senses, in a
sound rib-roasting of the idealist by the muleteer, the mob. And happy
for thee, poor knight! that the mob were against thee! For had they been
with thee, by the change of the moon and of them, thy head would have
been off.
(C. 5.) first part--The idealist recollects the causes that had been
accessary to the reverse and attempts to remove them--too late. He is
beaten and disgraced.
(C. 6.) This chapter on Don Quixote's library proves that the author did
not wish to destroy the romances, but to cause them to be read as
romances--that is, for their merits as poetry.
(C. 7.)
Among other things, Don Quixote told him, he should dispose himself to
go with him willingly;--for some time or other such an adventure might
present, that an island might be won, in the turn of a hand, and he be
left governor thereof.
At length the promises of the imaginative reason begin to act on the
plump, sensual, honest common sense accomplice,--but unhappily not in
the same person, and without the 'copula' of the judgment,--in hopes of
the substantial good things, of which the former contemplated only the
glory and the colours.
(C. 7.)
Sancho Panza went riding upon his ass, like any patriarch, with his
wallet and leathern bottle, and with a vehement desire to find himself
governor of the island which his master had promised him.
The first relief from regular labour is so pleasant to poor Sancho!
(C. 8.)
"I no gentleman! I swear by the great God, thou liest, as I am a
Christian. Biscainer by land, gentleman by sea, gentleman for the
devil, and thou liest: look then if thou hast any thing else to say."
This Biscainer is an excellent image of the prejudices and bigotry
provoked by the idealism of a speculator. This story happily detects the
trick which our imagination plays in the description of single combats:
only change the preconception of the magnificence of the combatants, and
all is gone.
(B. II. c. 2.)
"Be pleased, my lord Don Quixote, to bestow upon me the government of
that island," &c.
Sancho's eagerness for his government, the nascent lust of actual
democracy, or isocracy!
(C. 2.)
"But tell me, on your life, have you ever seen a more valorous knight
than I, upon the whole face of the known earth? Have you read in story
of any other, who has, or ever had, more bravery in assailing, more
breath in holding out, more dexterity in wounding, or more address in
giving a fall?"--"The truth is," answered Sancho, "that I never read
any history at all; for I can neither read nor write; but what I dare
affirm is, that I never served a bolder master," &c.
This appeal to Sancho, and Sancho's answer are exquisitely humorous. It
is impossible not to think of the French bulletins and proclamations.
Remark the necessity under which we are of being sympathized with, fly
as high into abstraction as we may, and how constantly the imagination
is recalled to the ground of our common humanity! And note a little
further on, the knight's easy vaunting of his balsam, and his quietly
deferring the making and application of it.
(C. 3.) The speech before the goatherds:
"Happy times and happy ages," &c. [5]
Note the rhythm of this, and the admirable beauty and wisdom of the
thoughts in themselves, but the total want of judgment in Don Quixote's
addressing them to such an audience.
(B. III. c. 3.) Don Quixote's balsam, and the vomiting and consequent
relief; an excellent hit at 'panacea nostrums', which cure the patient
by his being himself cured of the medicine by revolting nature.
(C. 4.)
"Peace! and have patience; the day will come," &c.
The perpetual promises of the imagination!
(Ib.)
"Your Worship," said Sancho, "would make a better preacher than knight
errant!"
Exactly so. This is the true moral.
(C. 6.)
The uncommon beauty of the description in the commencement of this
chapter. In truth, the whole of it seems to put all nature in its
heights and its humiliations, before us.
(Ib.) Sancho's story of the goats:
"Make account, he carried them all over," said Don Quixote, "and do
not be going and coming in this manner; for at this rate, you will not
have done carrying them over in a twelvemonth." "How many are passed
already?" said Sancho, &c.
Observe the happy contrast between the all-generalizing mind of the mad
knight, and Sancho's all-particularizing memory. How admirable a symbol
of the dependence of all 'copula' on the higher powers of the mind, with
the single exception of the succession in time and the accidental
relations of space. Men of mere common sense have no theory or means of
making one fact more important or prominent than the rest; if they lose
one link, all is lost. Compare Mrs. Quickly and the Tapster. [6] And
note also Sancho's good heart, when his master is about to leave him.
Don Quixote's conduct upon discovering the fulling-hammers, proves he
was meant to be in his senses. Nothing can be better conceived than his
fit of passion at Sancho's laughing, and his sophism of
self-justification by the courage he had shown.
Sancho is by this time cured, through experience, as far as his own
errors are concerned; yet still is he lured on by the unconquerable awe
of his master's superiority, even when he is cheating him.
(C. 8.)
The adventure of the Galley-slaves. I think this is the only passage of
moment in which Cervantes slips the mask of his hero, and speaks for
himself.
(C. 9.)
Don Quixote desired to have it, and bade him take the money, and keep
it for himself. Sancho kissed his hands for the favour, &c.
Observe Sancho's eagerness to avail himself of the permission of his
master, who, in the war sports of knight-errantry, had, without any
selfish dishonesty, overlooked the 'meum' and 'tuum.' Sancho's
selfishness is modified by his involuntary goodness of heart, and Don
Quixote's flighty goodness is debased by the involuntary or unconscious
selfishness of his vanity and self-applause.
(C. 10.)
Cardenio is the madman of passion, who meets and easily overthrows for
the moment the madman of imagination. And note the contagion of madness
of any kind, upon Don Quixote's interruption of Cardenio's story.
(C. 11.)
Perhaps the best specimen of Sancho's proverbializing is this:
"And I (Don Q.) say again, they lie, and will lie two hundred times
more, all who say, or think her so." "I neither say, nor think so,"
answered Sancho: "let those who say it, eat the lie, and swallow it
with their bread: whether they were guilty or no, they have given an
account to God before now: I come from my vineyard, I know nothing; I
am no friend to inquiring into other men's lives; 'for' he that buys
and lies shall find the lie left in his purse behind; 'besides,' naked
was I born, and naked I remain; I neither win nor lose; if they were
guilty, what is that to me? Many think to find bacon, where there is
not so much as a pin to hang it on: 'but' who can hedge in the cuckoo?
'Especially,' do they spare God himself?"
(Ib.)
"And it is no great matter, if it be in another hand; for by what I
remember, Dulcinea can neither write nor read," &c.
The wonderful twilight of the mind! and mark Cervantes's courage in
daring to present it, and trust to a distant posterity for an
appreciation of its truth to nature.
(P. II. B. III. c. 9.)
Sancho's account of what he had seen on Clavileno is a counterpart in
his style to Don Quixote's adventures in the cave of Montesinos. This
last is the only impeachment of the knight's moral character; Cervantes
just gives one instance of the veracity failing before the strong
cravings of the imagination for something real and external; the picture
would not have been complete without this; and yet it is so well
managed, that the reader has no unpleasant sense of Don Quixote having
told a lie. It is evident that he hardly knows whether it was a dream or
not; and goes to the enchanter to inquire the real nature of the
adventure.
[Footnote 1: 'Bien como quien se engendrò en una carcel, donde toda
incomodidad tiene su assiento, y todo triste ruido hace su
habitacion.' Like one you may suppose born in a prison, where every
inconvenience keeps its residence, and every dismal sound its
habitation. Pref. Jarvis's Tr. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: 'No estaba muy bien con'. Ed.]
[Footnote 3: Pero con todo. Ed.]
[Footnote 4: 'Donde no, conmigo sois en batalla, gente descomunal!'
Ed.]
[Footnote 5: 'Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos, &c.' Ed.]
[Footnote 6: See the 'Friend', vol. iii. p. 138. Ed.]
SUMMARY ON CERVANTES.
A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman, true to religion, and true
to honour.
A scholar and a soldier, and fought under the banners of Don John of
Austria, at Lepanto, lost his arm and was captured.
Endured slavery not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and by the
superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian owner.
Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny, the awful task of
achieving fame; and for that reason died poor and a prisoner, while
nobles and kings over their goblets of gold gave relish to their
pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the inventor of
novels for the Spaniards, and in his Persilis and Sigismunda, the
English may find the germ of their Robinson Crusoe.
The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of poverty and
sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth. He painted only
what he knew and had looked into, but he knew and had looked into much
indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the
world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled, yet with stainless
virtue.
LECTURE IX.
ON THE DISTINCTIONS OF THE WITTY, THE DROLL, THE ODD, AND THE HUMOUROUS;
THE NATURE AND CONSTITUENTS OF HUMOUR;--RABELAIS--SWIFT--STERNE.
I. Perhaps the most important of our intellectual operations are those
of detecting the difference in similar, and the identity in dissimilar,
things. Out of the latter operation it is that wit arises; and it,
generically regarded, consists in presenting thoughts or images in an
unusual connection with each other, for the purpose of exciting pleasure
by the surprise. This connection may be real; and there is in fact a
scientific wit; though where the object, consciously entertained, is
truth, and not amusement, we commonly give it some higher name. But in
wit popularly understood, the connection may be, and for the most part
is, apparent only, and transitory; and this connection may be by
thoughts, or by words, or by images. The first is our Butler's especial
eminence; the second, Voltaire's; the third, which we oftener call
fancy, constitutes the larger and more peculiar part of the wit of
Shakspeare. You can scarcely turn to a single speech of Falstaff's
without finding instances of it. Nor does wit always cease to deserve
the name by being transient, or incapable of analysis. I may add that
the wit of thoughts belongs eminently to the Italians, that of words to
the French, and that of images to the English.
II. Where the laughable is its own end, and neither inference, nor moral
is intended, or where at least the writer would wish it so to appear,
there arises what we call drollery. The pure, unmixed, ludicrous or
laughable belongs exclusively to the understanding, and must be
presented under the form of the senses; it lies within the spheres of
the eye and the ear, and hence is allied to the fancy. It does not
appertain to the reason or the moral sense, and accordingly is alien to
the imagination. I think Aristotle has already excellently defined the
laughable,[Greek (transliterated): tho geloion], as consisting of, or
depending on, what is out of its proper time and place, yet without
danger or pain. Here th'impropriety'--[Greek (transliterated): tho
ahtopon]--is the positive qualification; the 'dangerlessness'--[Greek
(transliterated): tho akindunon]--the negative. Neither the understanding
without an object of the senses, as for example, a mere notional error,
or idiocy;--nor any external object, unless attributed to the
understanding, can produce the poetically laughable. Nay, even in
ridiculous positions of the body laughed at by the vulgar, there is a
subtle personification always going on, which acts on the, perhaps,
unconscious mind of the spectator as a symbol of intellectual character.
And hence arises the imperfect and awkward effect of comic stories of
animals; because although the understanding is satisfied in them, the
senses are not. Hence too, it is, that the true ludicrous is its own
end. When serious satire commences, or satire that is felt as serious,
however comically drest, free and genuine laughter ceases; it becomes
sardonic. This you experience in reading Young, and also not
unfrequently in Butler. The true comic is the blossom of the nettle.
III. When words or images are placed in unusual juxta-position rather
than connection, and are so placed merely because the juxta-position is
unusual--we have the odd or the grotesque; the occasional use of which
in the minor ornaments of architecture, is an interesting problem for a
student in the psychology of the Fine Arts.
IV. In the simply laughable there is a mere disproportion between a
definite act and a definite purpose or end, or a disproportion of the
end itself to the rank or circumstances of the definite person; but
humour is of more difficult description. I must try to define it in the
first place by its points of diversity from the former species. Humour
does not, like the different kinds of wit, which is impersonal, consist
wholly in the understanding and the senses. No combination of thoughts,
words, or images will of itself constitute humour, unless some
peculiarity of individual temperament and character be indicated
thereby, as the cause of the same. Compare the comedies of Congreve with
the Falstaff in Henry IV. or with Sterne's Corporal Trim, Uncle Toby,
and Mr. Shandy, or with some of Steele's charming papers in the Tatler,
and you will feel the difference better than I can express it. Thus
again, (to take an instance from the different works of the same
writer), in Smollett's Strap, his Lieutenant Bowling, his Morgan the
honest Welshman, and his Matthew Bramble, we have exquisite
humour,--while in his Peregrine Pickle we find an abundance of drollery,
which too often degenerates into mere oddity; in short, we feel that a
number of things are put together to counterfeit humour, but that there
is no growth from within. And this indeed is the origin of the word,
derived from the humoral pathology, and excellently described by Ben
Jonson:
So in every human body,
The choler, melancholy, phlegm, and blood,
By reason that they flow continually
In some one part, and are not continent,
Receive the name of humours. Now thus far
It may, by metaphor, apply itself
Unto the general disposition:
As when some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his effects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluctions, all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour. [1]
Hence we may explain the congeniality of humour with pathos, so
exquisite in Sterne and Smollett, and hence also the tender feeling
which we always have for, and associate with, the humours or
hobby-horses of a man. First, we respect a humourist, because absence of
interested motive is the ground-work of the character, although the
imagination of an interest may exist in the individual himself, as if a
remarkably simple-hearted man should pride himself on his knowledge of
the world, and how well he can manage it:--and secondly, there always is
in a genuine humour an acknowledgement of the hollowness and farce of the
world, and its disproportion to the godlike within us. And it follows
immediately from this, that whenever particular acts have reference to
particular selfish motives, the humourous bursts into the indignant and
abhorring; whilst all follies not selfish are pardoned or palliated. The
danger of this habit, in respect of pure morality, is strongly
exemplified in Sterne.
This would be enough, and indeed less than this has passed, for a
sufficient account of humour, if we did not recollect that not every
predominance of character, even where not precluded by the moral sense,
as in criminal dispositions, constitutes what we mean by a humourist, or
the presentation of its produce, humour. What then is it? Is it
manifold? Or is there some one humorific point common to all that can be
called humourous?--I am not prepared to answer this fully, even if my
time permitted; but I think there is;--and that it consists in a certain
reference to the general and the universal, by which the finite great is
brought into identity with the little, or the little with the finite
great, so as to make both nothing in comparison with the infinite. The
little is made great, and the great little, in order to destroy both;
because all is equal in contrast with the infinite. "It is not without
reason, brother Toby, that learned men write dialogues on long
noses."[2] I would suggest, therefore, that whenever a finite is
contemplated in reference to the infinite, whether consciously or
unconsciously, humour essentially arises. In the highest humour, at
least, there is always a reference to, and a connection with, some
general power not finite, in the form of some finite ridiculously
disproportionate in our feelings to that of which it is, nevertheless,
the representative, or by which it is to be displayed. Humourous
writers, therefore, as Sterne in particular, delight, after much
preparation, to end in nothing, or in a direct contradiction.
That there is some truth in this definition, or origination of humour,
is evident; for you cannot conceive a humourous man who does not give
some disproportionate generality, or even a universality to his
hobby-horse, as is the case with Mr. Shandy; or at least there is an
absence of any interest but what arises from the humour itself, as in my
Uncle Toby, and it is the idea of the soul, of its undefined capacity
and dignity, that gives the sting to any absorption of it by any one
pursuit, and this not in respect of the humourist as a mere member of
society for a particular, however mistaken, interest, but as a man.
The English humour is the most thoughtful, the Spanish the most
etherial--the most ideal--of modern literature. Amongst the classic
ancients there was little or no humour in the foregoing sense of the
term. Socrates, or Plato under his name, gives some notion of humour in
the Banquet, when he argues that tragedy and comedy rest upon the same
ground. But humour properly took its rise in the middle ages; and the
Devil, the Vice of the mysteries, incorporates the modern humour in its
elements. It is a spirit measured by disproportionate finites. The Devil
is not, indeed, perfectly humourous; but that is only because he is the
extreme of all humour.
[Footnote 1: Every Man Out Of His Humour. Prologue.]
[Footnote 2: Trist. Sh. Vol. iii. c. 37.]
RABELAIS. [1]
Born at Chinon, 1483-4.--Died 1553.
One cannot help regretting that no friend of Rabelais, (and surely
friends he must have had), has left an authentic account of him. His
buffoonery was not merely Brutus' rough stick, which contained a rod of
gold; it was necessary as an amulet against the monks and bigots. Beyond
a doubt, he was among the deepest as well as boldest thinkers of his
age. Never was a more plausible, and seldom, I am persuaded, a less
appropriate line than the thousand times quoted,
Rabelais laughing in his easy chair--
of Mr. Pope. The caricature of his filth and zanyism proves how fully he
both knew and felt the danger in which he stood. I could write a
treatise in proof and praise of the morality and moral elevation of
Rabelais' work which would make the church stare and the conventicle
groan, and yet should be the truth and nothing but the truth. I class
Rabelais with the creative minds of the world, Shakspeare, Dante,
Cervantes, &c.
All Rabelais' personages are phantasmagoric allegories, but Panurge
above all. He is throughout the [Greek (transliterated):
panourgia],--the wisdom, that is, the cunning of the human animal,--the
understanding, as the faculty of means to purposes without ultimate
ends, in the most comprehensive sense, and including art, sensuous
fancy, and all the passions of the understanding. It is impossible to
read Rabelais without an admiration mixed with wonder at the depth and
extent of his learning, his multifarious knowledge, and original
observation beyond what books could in that age have supplied him with.
(B. III. c. 9.)
How Panurge asketh counsel of Pantagruel, whether he should marry, yea
or no.
Note this incomparable chapter. Pantagruel stands for the reason as
contradistinguished from the understanding and choice, that is, from
Panurge; and the humour consists in the latter asking advice of the
former on a subject in which the reason can only give the inevitable
conclusion, the syllogistic 'ergo', from the premisses provided by the
understanding itself, which puts each case so as of necessity to
predetermine the verdict thereon. This chapter, independently of the
allegory, is an exquisite satire on the spirit in which people commonly
ask advice.
[Footnote 1: No note remains of that part of this Lecture which treated
of Rabelais. This seems, therefore, a convenient place for the reception
of some remarks written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy of Rabelais,
about the year 1825. See Table Talk, vol. i. p. 177. Ed.]
SWIFT. [1]
Born in Dublin, 1667.--Died 1745.
In Swift's writings there is a false misanthropy grounded upon an
exclusive contemplation of the vices and follies of mankind, and this
misanthropic tone is also disfigured or brutalized by his obtrusion of
physical dirt and coarseness. I think Gulliver's Travels the great work
of Swift. In the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingnag he displays the
littleness and moral contemptibility of human nature; in that to the
Houyhnhnms he represents the disgusting spectacle of man with the
understanding only, without the reason or the moral feeling, and in his
horse he gives the misanthropic ideal of man--that is, a being virtuous
from rule and duty, but untouched by the principle of love.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]
STERNE.
Born at Clonmel, 1713.--Died 1768.
With regard to Sterne, and the charge of licentiousness which presses so
seriously upon his character as a writer, I would remark that there is a
sort of knowingness, the wit of which depends--1st, on the modesty it
gives pain to; or, 2dly, on the innocence and innocent ignorance over
which it triumphs; or, 3dly, on a certain oscillation in the
individual's own mind between the remaining good and the encroaching
evil of his nature--a sort of dallying with the devil--a fluxionary act
of combining courage and cowardice, as when a man snuffs a candle with
his fingers for the first time, or better still, perhaps, like that
trembling daring with which a child touches a hot tea urn, because it
has been forbidden; so that the mind has in its own white and black
angel the same or similar amusement, as may be supposed to take place
between an old debauchee and a prude,--she feeling resentment, on the
one hand, from a prudential anxiety to preserve appearances and have a
character, and, on the other, an inward sympathy with the enemy. We have
only to suppose society innocent, and then nine-tenths of this sort of
wit would be like a stone that falls in snow, making no sound because
exciting no resistance; the remainder rests on its being an offence
against the good manners of human nature itself.
This source, unworthy as it is, may doubtless be combined with wit,
drollery, fancy, and even humour, and we have only to regret the
misalliance; but that the latter are quite distinct from the former, may
be made evident by abstracting in our imagination the morality of the
characters of Mr. Shandy, my Uncle Toby, and Trim, which are all
antagonists to this spurious sort of wit, from the rest of Tristram
Shandy, and by supposing, instead of them, the presence of two or three
callous debauchees. The result will be pure disgust. Sterne cannot be
too severely censured for thus using the best dispositions of our nature
as the panders and condiments for the basest.
The excellencies of Sterne consist--
1. In bringing forward into distinct consciousness those minutiae of
thought and feeling which appear trifles, yet have an importance for the
moment, and which almost every man feels in one way or other. Thus is
produced the novelty of an individual peculiarity, together with the
interest of a something that belongs to our common nature. In short,
Sterne seizes happily on those points, in which every man is more or
less a humourist. And, indeed, to be a little more subtle, the
propensity to notice these things does itself constitute the humourist,
and the superadded power of so presenting them to men in general gives
us the man of humour. Hence the difference of the man of humour, the
effect of whose portraits does not depend on the felt presence of
himself, as a humourist, as in the instances of Cervantes and
Shakspeare--nay, of Rabelais too; and of the humourist, the effect of
whose works does very much depend on the sense of his own oddity, as in
Sterne's case, and perhaps Swift's; though Swift again would require a
separate classification.
2. In the traits of human nature, which so easily assume a particular
cast and colour from individual character. Hence this excellence and the
pathos connected with it quickly pass into humour, and form the ground
of it. See particularly the beautiful passage, so well known, of Uncle
Toby's catching and liberating the fly:
"Go,"--says he, one day at dinner, to an overgrown one which had
buzzed about his nose, and tormented him cruelly all dinner-time, and
which, after infinite attempts, he had caught at last, as it flew by
him;--"I'll not hurt thee," says my Uncle Toby, rising from his chair,
and going across the room, with the fly in his hand,--"I'll not hurt a
hair of thy head:--Go," says he, lifting up the sash, and opening his
hand as he spoke, to let it escape;--"go, poor devil, get thee gone,
why should I hurt thee? This world is surely wide enough to hold both
thee and me." (Vol. ii. ch. 12.)
Observe in this incident how individual character may be given by the
mere delicacy of presentation and elevation in degree of a common good
quality, humanity, which in itself would not be characteristic at all.
3. In Mr. Shandy's character,--the essence of which is a craving for
sympathy in exact proportion to the oddity and unsympathizability of
what he proposes;--this coupled with an instinctive desire to be at
least disputed with, or rather both in one, to dispute and yet to
agree--and holding as worst of all--to acquiesce without either
resistance or sympathy. This is charmingly, indeed, profoundly
conceived, and is psychologically and ethically true of all Mr.
Shandies. Note, too, how the contrasts of character, which are always
either balanced or remedied, increase the love between the brothers.
4. No writer is so happy as Sterne in the unexaggerated and truly
natural representation of that species of slander, which consists in
gossiping about our neighbours, as whetstones of our moral
discrimination; as if they were conscience-blocks which we used in our
apprenticeship, in order not to waste such precious materials as our own
consciences in the trimming and shaping of ourselves by
self-examination:--
Alas o'day!--had Mrs. Shandy (poor gentlewoman!) had but her wish in
going up to town just to lie in and come down again; which, they say,
she begged and prayed for upon her bare knees, and which, in my
opinion, considering the fortune which Mr. Shandy got with her, was no
such mighty matter to have complied with, the lady and her babe might
both of them have been alive at this hour. (Vol. i. c. 18.)
5. When you have secured a man's likings and prejudices in your favour,
you may then safely appeal to his impartial judgment. In the following
passage not only is acute sense shrouded in wit, but a life and a
character are added which exalt the whole into the dramatic:--
"I see plainly, Sir, by your looks" (or as the case happened) my
father would say--"that you do not heartily subscribe to this opinion
of mine--which, to those," he would add, "who have not carefully
sifted it to the bottom,--I own has an air more of fancy than of solid
reasoning in it; and yet, my dear Sir, if I may presume to know your
character, I am morally assured, I should hazard little in stating a
case to you, not as a party in the dispute, but as a judge, and
trusting my appeal upon it to your good sense and candid disquisition
in this matter; you are a person free from as many narrow prejudices
of education as most men; and, if I may presume to penetrate farther
into you, of a liberality of genius above bearing down an opinion,
merely because it wants friends. Your son,--your dear son,--from whose
sweet and open temper you have so much to expect,--your Billy, Sir!--
would you, for the world, have called him JUDAS? Would you, my dear
Sir," he would say, laying his hand upon your breast, with the
genteelest address,--and in that soft and irresistible 'piano' of
voice which the nature of the 'argumentum ad hominem' absolutely
requires,--"Would you, Sir, if a 'Jew' of a godfather had proposed the
name for your child, and offered you his purse along with it, would
you have consented to such a desecration of him? O my God!" he would
say, looking up, "if I know your temper rightly, Sir, you are
incapable of it;--you would have trampled upon the offer;--you would
have thrown the temptation at the tempter's head with abhorrence. Your
greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous
contempt of money, which you show me in the whole transaction, is
really noble;--and what renders it more so, is the principle of
it;--the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of
this very hypothesis, namely, that were your son called Judas,--the
sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have
accompanied him through life like his shadow, and in the end made a
miser and a rascal of him, in spite, Sir, of your example." (Vol. i.
c. 19.)
6. There is great physiognomic tact in Sterne. See it particularly
displayed in his description of Dr. Slop, accompanied with all that
happiest use of drapery and attitude, which at once give reality by
individualizing and vividness by unusual, yet probable, combinations:--
Imagine to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Doctor Slop,
of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of
back, and a sesquipedality of belly, which might have done honour to a
serjeant in the horseguards. ... Imagine such a one;--for such I say,
were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by
foot, waddling through the dirt upon the 'vertebræ' of a little
diminutive pony, of a pretty colour--but of strength,--alack! scarce
able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads
been in an ambling condition;--they were not. Imagine to yourself
Obadiah mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, pricked into a
full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way. (Vol.
ii. c. 9.)
7. I think there is more humour in the single remark, which I have
quoted before--"Learned men, brother Toby, don't write dialogues upon
long noses for nothing!"--than in the whole Slawkenburghian tale that
follows, which is mere oddity interspersed with drollery.
8. Note Sterne's assertion of, and faith in, a moral good in the
characters of Trim, Toby, &c. as contrasted with the cold scepticism of
motives which is the stamp of the Jacobin spirit. Vol. v. c. 9.
9. You must bear in mind, in order to do justice to Rabelais and Sterne,
that by right of humoristic universality each part is essentially a
whole in itself. Hence the digressive spirit is not mere wantonness, but
in fact the very form and vehicle of their genius. The connection, such
as was needed, is given by the continuity of the characters.
Instances of different forms of wit, taken largely:
1. "Why are you reading romances at your age?"--"Why, I used to be fond
of history, but I have given it up,--it was so grossly improbable."
2. "Pray, sir, do it!--although you have promised me."
3. The Spartan mother's--
"Return with, or on, thy shield."
"My sword is too short!"--"Take a step forwarder."
4. The Gasconade:--
"I believe you, Sir! but you will excuse my repeating it on account of
my provincial accent."
5. Pasquil on Pope Urban, who had employed a committee to rip up the old
errors of his predecessors.
Some one placed a pair of spurs on the heels of the statue of St. Peter,
and a label from the opposite statue of St. Paul, on the same bridge;--
'St. Paul.' "Whither then are you bound?"
'St. Peter.' "I apprehend danger here;-they'll soon call me in
question for denying my Master."
'St. Paul.' "Nay, then, I had better be off too; for they'll question
me for having persecuted the Christians, before my conversion."
6. Speaking of the small German potentates, I dictated the
phrase,--'officious for equivalents.' This my amanuensis
wrote,--'fishing for elephants;'--which, as I observed at the time, was
a sort of Noah's angling, that could hardly have occurred, except at the
commencement of the Deluge.
LECTURE X.
DONNE--DANTE--MILTON--PARADISE LOST.
DONNE.[1]
Born in London, 1573.--Died, 1631.
I.
With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw.
II
See lewdness and theology combin'd,--
A cynic and a sycophantic mind;
A fancy shar'd party per pale between
Death's heads and skeletons and Aretine!--
Not his peculiar defect or crime,
But the true current mintage of the time.
Such were the establish'd signs and tokens given
To mark a loyal churchman, sound and even,
Free from papistic and fanatic leaven.
The wit of Donne, the wit of Butler, the wit of Pope, the wit of
Congreve, the wit of Sheridan--how many disparate things are here
expressed by one and the same word, Wit!--Wonder-exciting vigour,
intenseness and peculiarity of thought, using at will the almost
boundless stores of a capacious memory, and exercised on subjects, where
we have no right to expect it--this is the wit of Donne! The four others
I am just in the mood to describe and inter-distinguish;--what a pity
that the marginal space will not let me!
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we--find two fitter hemispheres
Without sharp north, without declining west?
'Good-Morrow', v. 15, &c.
The sense is;--Our mutual loves may in many respects be fitly compared
to corresponding hemispheres; but as no simile squares ('nihil simile
est idem'), so here the simile fails, for there is nothing in our loves
that corresponds to the cold north, or the declining west, which in two
hemispheres must necessarily be supposed. But an ellipse of such length
will scarcely rescue the line from the charge of nonsense or a bull.
'January,' 1829.
Woman's constancy.
A misnomer. The title ought to be--
Mutual Inconstancy.
Whether both th' Indias of spice and 'mine', &c.
'Sun Rising', v. 17.
And see at night thy western land of 'mine', &c.
'Progress of the Soul', 1 Song, 2. st.
This use of the word mine specifically for mines of gold, silver, or
precious stones, is, I believe, peculiar to Donne.
[Footnote 1: Nothing remains of what was said on Donne in this Lecture.
Here, therefore, as in previous like instances, the gap is filled up
with some notes written by Mr. Coleridge in a volume of Chalmers's
'Poets', belonging to Mr. Gillman. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: The verses were added in pencil to the collection of
commendatory lines; No. I. is Mr. C.'s; the publication of No. II. I
trust the all-accomplished author will, under the circumstances, pardon.
Numerous and elaborate notes by Mr. Coleridge on Donne's Sermons are in
existence, and will be published hereafter. Ed.]
DANTE.
Born at Florence, 1265.--Died, 1321.
As I remarked in a former Lecture on a different subject (for subjects
the most diverse in literature have still their tangents), the Gothic
character, and its good and evil fruits, appeared less in Italy than in
any other part of European Christendom. There was accordingly much less
romance, as that word is commonly understood; or, perhaps, more truly
stated, there was romance instead of chivalry. In Italy, an earlier
imitation of, and a more evident and intentional blending with, the
Latin literature took place than elsewhere. The operation of the feudal
system, too, was incalculably weaker, of that singular chain of
independent interdependents, the principle of which was a confederacy
for the preservation of individual, consistently with general, freedom.
In short, Italy, in the time of Dante, was an afterbirth of eldest
Greece, a renewal or a reflex of the old Italy under its kings and first
Roman consuls, a net-work of free little republics, with the same
domestic feuds, civil wars, and party spirit,--the same vices and
virtues produced on a similarly narrow theatre,--the existing state of
things being, as in all small democracies, under the working and
direction of certain individuals, to whose will even the laws were
swayed;--whilst at the same time the singular spectacle was exhibited
amidst all this confusion of the flourishing of commerce, and the
protection and encouragement of letters and arts. Never was the
commercial spirit so well reconciled to the nobler principles of social
polity as in Florence. It tended there to union and permanence and
elevation,--not as the overbalance of it in England is now doing, to
dislocation, change and moral degradation. The intensest patriotism
reigned in these communities, but confined and attached exclusively to
the small locality of the patriot's birth and residence; whereas in the
true Gothic feudalism, country was nothing but the preservation of
personal independence. But then, on the other hand, as a counterbalance
to these disuniting elements, there was in Dante's Italy, as in Greece,
a much greater uniformity of religion common to all than amongst the
northern nations.
Upon these hints the history of the republican aeras of ancient Greece
and modern Italy ought to be written. There are three kinds or stages of
historic narrative: 1. that of the annalist or chronicler, who deals
merely in facts and events arranged in order of time, having no
principle of selection, no plan of arrangement, and whose work properly
constitutes a supplement to the poetical writings of romance or heroic
legends: 2. that of the writer who takes his stand on some moral point,
and selects a series of events for the express purpose of illustrating
it, and in whose hands the narrative of the selected events is modified
by the principle of selection;--as Thucydides, whose object was to
describe the evils of democratic and aristocratic partizanships;--or
Polybius, whose design was to show the social benefits resulting from
the triumph and grandeur of Rome, in public institutions and military
discipline;--or Tacitus, whose secret aim was to exhibit the pressure
and corruptions of despotism;--in all which writers and others like
them, the ground-object of the historian colours with artificial lights
the facts which he relates: 3. and which in idea is the grandest-the
most truly, founded in philosophy--there is the Herodotean history,
which is not composed with reference to any particular causes, but
attempts to describe human nature itself on a great scale as a portion
of the drama of providence, the free will of man resisting the destiny
of events,--for the individuals often succeeding against it, but for the
race always yielding to it, and in the resistance itself invariably
affording means towards the completion of the ultimate result. Mitford's
history is a good and useful work; but in his zeal against democratic
government, Mitford forgot, or never saw, that ancient Greece was not,
nor ought ever to be considered, a permanent thing, but that it existed,
in the disposition of providence, as a proclaimer of ideal truths, and
that everlasting proclamation being made, that its functions were
naturally at an end.
However, in the height of such a state of society in Italy, Dante was
born and flourished; and was himself eminently a picture of the age in
which he lived. But of more importance even than this, to a right
understanding of Dante, is the consideration that the scholastic
philosophy was then at its acme even in itself; but more especially in
Italy, where it never prevailed so exclusively as northward of the Alps.
It is impossible to understand the genius of Dante, and difficult to
understand his poem, without some knowledge of the characters, studies,
and writings of the schoolmen of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth
centuries. For Dante was the living link between religion and
philosophy; he philosophized the religion and christianized the
philosophy of Italy; and, in this poetic union of religion and
philosophy, he became the ground of transition into the mixed Platonism
and Aristotelianism of the Schools, under which, by numerous minute
articles of faith and ceremony, Christianity became a craft of
hair-splitting, and was ultimately degraded into a complete 'fetisch'
worship, divorced from philosophy, and made up of a faith without
thought, and a credulity directed by passion. Afterwards, indeed,
philosophy revived under condition of defending this very superstition;
and, in so doing, it necessarily led the way to its subversion, and that
in exact proportion to the influence of the philosophic schools. Hence
it did its work most completely in Germany, then in England, next in
France, then in Spain, least of all in Italy. We must, therefore, take
the poetry of Dante as christianized, but without the further Gothic
accession of proper chivalry. It was at a somewhat later period, that
the importations from the East, through the Venetian commerce and the
crusading armaments, exercised a peculiarly strong influence on Italy.
In studying Dante, therefore, we must consider carefully the differences
produced, first, by allegory being substituted for polytheism; and
secondly and mainly, by the opposition of Christianity to the spirit of
pagan Greece, which receiving the very names of its gods from Egypt,
soon deprived them of all that was universal. The Greeks changed the
ideas into finites, and these finites into 'anthropomorphi,' or forms of
men. Hence their religion, their poetry, nay, their very pictures,
became statuesque. With them the form was the end. The reverse of this
was the natural effect of Christianity; in which finites, even the human
form, must, in order to satisfy the mind, be brought into connexion
with, and be in fact symbolical of, the infinite; and must be considered
in some enduring, however shadowy and indistinct, point of view, as the
vehicle or representative of moral truth.
Hence resulted two great effects; a combination of poetry with doctrine,
and, by turning the mind inward on its own essence instead of letting it
act only on its outward circumstances and communities, a combination of
poetry with sentiment. And it is this inwardness or subjectivity, which
principally and most fundamentally distinguishes all the classic from
all the modern poetry. Compare the passage in the 'Iliad' (Z. vi.
119-236.) in which Diomed and Glaucus change arms,--
[Greek (transliterated): Cheiras t'allilon labetin kai pistosanto]
They took each other by the hand, and pledged friendship--
with the scene in 'Ariosto' (Orlando Furioso, c. i. st. 20-22.), where
Rinaldo and Ferrauto fight and afterwards make it up:--
Al Pagan la proposta non dispiacque:
Così fu differita la tenzone;
E tal tregua tra lor subito nacque,
Sì l' odio e l' ira va in oblivïone,
Che 'l Pagano al partir dalle fresche acque
Non lasciò a piede il buon figliuol d' Amone:
Con preghi invita, e al fin lo toglie in groppa,
E per l' orme d' Angelica galoppa.
Here Homer would have left it. But the Christian poet has his own
feelings to express, and goes on:--
Oh gran bontà de' cavalieri antiqui!
Eran rivali, eran di fè diversi,
E si sentían degli aspri colpi iniqui
Per tutta la persona anco dolersi;
E pur per selve oscure e calli obbliqui
Insieme van senza sospetto aversi!
And here you will observe, that the reaction of Ariosto's own feelings
on the image or act is more fore-grounded (to use a painter's phrase)
than the image or act itself.
The two different modes in which the imagination is acted on by the
ancient and modern poetry, may be illustrated by the parallel effects
caused by the contemplation of the Greek or Roman-Greek architecture,
compared with the Gothic. In the Pantheon, the whole is perceived in a
perceived harmony with the parts which compose it; and generally you
will remember that where the parts preserve any distinct individuality,
there simple beauty, or beauty simply, arises; but where the parts melt
undistinguished into the whole, there majestic beauty, or majesty, is
the result. In York Minster, the parts, the grotesques, are in
themselves very sharply distinct and separate, and this distinction and
separation of the parts is counterbalanced only by the multitude and
variety of those parts, by which the attention is bewildered;--whilst
the whole, or that there is a whole produced, is altogether a feeling in
which the several thousand distinct impressions lose themselves as in a
universal solvent. Hence in a Gothic cathedral, as in a prospect from a
mountain's top, there is, indeed, a unity, an awful oneness;--but it is,
because all distinction evades the eye. And just such is the distinction
between the 'Antigone' of Sophocles and the 'Hamlet' of Shakespeare.
The 'Divina Commedia' is a system of moral, political, and theological
truths, with arbitrary personal exemplifications, which are not, in my
opinion, allegorical. I do not even feel convinced that the punishments
in the Inferno are strictly allegorical. I rather take them to have been
in Dante's mind 'quasi'-allegorical, or conceived in analogy to pure
allegory.
I have said, that a combination of poetry with doctrines, is one of the
characteristics of the Christian muse; but I think Dante has not
succeeded in effecting this combination nearly so well as Milton.
This comparative failure of Dante, as also some other peculiarities of
his mind, in 'malam partem', must be immediately attributed to the state
of North Italy in his time, which is vividly represented in Dante's
life; a state of intense democratical partizanship, in which an
exaggerated importance was attached to individuals, and which whilst it
afforded a vast field for the intellect, opened also a boundless arena
for the passions, and in which envy, jealousy, hatred, and other
malignant feelings, could and did assume the form of patriotism, even to
the individual's own conscience.
All this common, and, as it were, natural partizanship, was aggravated
arid coloured by the Guelf and Ghibelline factions; and, in part
explanation of Dante's adherence to the latter, you must particularly
remark, that the Pope had recently territorialized his authority to a
great extent, and that this increase of territorial power in the church,
was by no means the same beneficial movement for the citizens of free
republics, as the parallel advance in other countries was for those who
groaned as vassals under the oppression of the circumjacent baronial
castles. [1]
By way of preparation to a satisfactory perusal of the 'Divina
Commedia', I will now proceed to state what I consider to be Dante's
chief excellences as a poet. And I begin with:
I. Style--the vividness, logical connexion, strength and energy of which
cannot be surpassed. In this I think Dante superior to Milton; and his
style is accordingly more imitable than Milton's, and does to this day
exercise a greater influence on the literature of his country. You
cannot read Dante without feeling a gush of manliness of thought within
you. Dante was very sensible of his own excellence in this particular,
and speaks of poets as guardians of the vast armory of language, which
is the intermediate something between matter and spirit:--
Or se' tu quel Virgilio, e quella fonte,
Che spande di parlar sì largo fiume?
Risposi lui con vergognosa fronte.
O degli altri poeti onore e lume,
Vagliami 'l lungo studio e 'l grande amore,
Che m' han fatto cercar lo tuo volume.
Tu se' lo mio maestro, e 'l mio autore:
_Tu se' solo colui, da cu' io tolsi
Lo bello stile, che m' ha fatto onore._
('Inf'. c. 1. v. 79.)
"And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring,
From which such copious floods of eloquence
Have issued?" I, with front abash'd, replied:
"Glory and light of all the tuneful train!
May it avail me, that I long with zeal
Have sought thy volume, and with love immense
Have conn'd it o'er. My master, thou, and guide!
'Thou he from whom I have alone deriv'd
That style, which for its beauty into fame
Exalts me.'"
(Cary. [his translation--text Ed.])
Indeed there was a passion and a miracle of words in the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, after the long slumber of language in barbarism,
which gave an almost romantic character, a virtuous quality and power,
to what was read in a book, independently of the thoughts or images
contained in it. This feeling is very often perceptible in Dante.
II. The Images in Dante are not only taken from obvious nature, and are
all intelligible to all, but are ever conjoined with the universal
feeling received from nature, and therefore affect the general feelings
of all men. And in this respect, Dante's excellence is very great, and
may be contrasted with the idiosyncracies of some meritorious modern
poets, who attempt an eruditeness, the result of particular feelings.
Consider the simplicity, I may say plainness, of the following simile,
and how differently we should in all probability deal with it at the
present day:
Quale i fioretti dal notturno gelo
Chinati e chiusi, poi che 'l sol gl' imbianca,
Si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stelo,--
Fal mi fec' io di mia virtute stanca;
('Inf.' c. 2. v. 127.)
As florets, by the frosty air of night
Bent down and clos'd, when day has blanch'd their leaves,
Rise all unfolded on their spiry stems,--
So was my fainting vigour new restor'd.
(Cary. [2])
III. Consider the wonderful profoundness of the whole third canto of the
'Inferno'; and especially of the inscription over Hell gate:
Per me si va, &c.--
which can only be explained by a meditation on the true nature of
religion; that is,--reason 'plus' the understanding. I say profoundness
rather than sublimity; for Dante does not so much elevate your thoughts
as send them down deeper. In this canto all the images are distinct, and
even vividly distinct; but there is a total impression of infinity; the
wholeness is not in vision or conception, but in an inner feeling of
totality, and absolute being.
IV. In picturesqueness, Dante is beyond all other poets, modern or
ancient, and more in the stern style of Pindar, than of any other.
Michel Angelo is said to have made a design for every page of the
'Divina Commedia'. As superexcellent in this respect, I would note the
conclusion of the third canto of the 'Inferno':
Ed ecco verso noi venir per nave
Un vecchio bianco per antico pelo
Gridando: guai a voi anime prave: &c. ...
(Ver. 82. &c.)
And lo! toward us in a bark
Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld,
Crying, "Woe to you wicked spirits!" ...
(CARY.)
Caron dimonio con occhi di bragia
Loro accennando, tutte le raccoglie:
Batte col remo qualunque s' adagia.
Come d' autunno si levan le foglie
L' una appresso dell altra, infin che 'l ramo
Rende alia terra tutte le sue spoglie;
Similemente il mal seme d' Adamo,
Gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una
Per cenni, com' augel per suo richiamo.
(Ver. 100, &c.)
--Charon, demoniac form,
With eyes of burning coal, collects them all,
Beck'ning, and each that lingers, with his oar
Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves,
One still another following, till the bough
Strews all its honours on the earth beneath;--
E'en in like manner Adam's evil brood
Cast themselves one by one down from the shore
Each at a beck, as falcon at his call.
(CARY.)
And this passage, which I think admirably picturesque:
Ma poco valse, che l' ale al sospetto
Non potero avanzar: quegli andò sotto,
E quei drizzò, volando, suso il petto.
Non altrimenti l' anitra di botto,
Quando 'l falcon s' appressa, giù s' attuffa,
Ed ei ritorna su crucciato e rotto.
Irato Calcabrina della buffa,
Volando dietro gli tenne, invaghito,
Che quei campasse, per aver la zuffa:
E come 'l barattier fu disparito,
Cosi volse gli artigli al suo compagno,
E fu con lui sovra 'l fosso ghermito.
Ma l' altro fu bene sparvier grifagno
Ad artigliar ben lui, e amedue
Cadder nel mezzo del bollente stagno.
Lo caldo sghermidor subito fue:
Ma però di levarsi era niente,
Si aveano inviscate l' ale sue.
('Infer.' c. xxii. ver. 127, &c.)
But little it avail'd: terror outstripp'd
His following flight: the other plung'd beneath,
And he with upward pinion rais'd his breast:
E'en thus the water-fowl, when she perceives
The falcon near, dives instant down, while he
Enrag'd and spent retires. That mockery
In Calcabrina fury stirr'd, who flew
After him, with desire of strife inflam'd;
And, for the barterer had 'scap'd, so turn'd
His talons on his comrade. O'er the dyke
In grapple close they join'd; but th' other prov'd
A goshawk, able to rend well his foe;
And in the boiling lake both fell. The heat
Was umpire soon between them, but in vain
To lift themselves they strove, so fast were glued
Their pennons.
(CARY.)
V. Very closely connected with this picturesqueness, is the topographic
reality of Dante's journey through Hell. You should note and dwell on
this as one of his great charms, and which gives a striking peculiarity
to his poetic power. He thus takes the thousand delusive forms of a
nature worse than chaos, having no reality but from the passions which
they excite, and compels them into the service of the permanent. Observe
the exceeding truth of these lines:
Noi ricidemmo 'l cerchio all' altra riva,
Sovr' una fonte che bolle, e riversa,
Per un fossato che da lei diriva.
L' acqua era buja molto più che persa:
E noi in compagnia dell' onde bige
Entrammo giù per una via diversa.
Una palude fa, ch' ha nome Stige,
Questo tristo ruscel, quando è disceso
Al piè delle maligne piagge grige.
Ed io che di mirar mi stava inteso,--
Vidi genti fangose in quel pantano
Ignude tutte, e con sembiante offeso.
Questi si percotean non pur con mano,
Ma con la testa, e col petto, e co' piedi,
Troncandosi co' denti a brano a brano. ...
Così girammo della lorda pozza
Grand' arco tra la ripa secca e 'l mezzo,
Con gli occhi volti a chi del fango ingozza:
'Venimmo appi d' una torre al dassezzo'.
(C. vii. ver. 100 and 127.)
--We the circle cross'd
To the next steep, arriving at a well,
That boiling pours itself down to a foss
Sluic'd from its source. Far murkier was the wave
Than sablest grain: and we in company
Of th' inky waters, journeying by their side,
Enter'd, though by a different track, beneath.
Into a lake, the Stygian nam'd, expands
The dismal stream, when it hath reach'd the foot
Of the grey wither'd cliffs. Intent I stood
To gaze, and in the marish sunk, descried
A miry tribe, all naked, and with looks
Betok'ning rage. They with their hands alone
Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,
Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs. ...
--Our route
Thus compass'd, we a segment widely stretch'd
Between the dry embankment and the cove
Of the loath'd pool, turning meanwhile our eyes
Downward on those who gulp'd its muddy lees;
_Nor stopp'd, till to a tower's low base we came._
(CARY.)
VI. For Dante's power,--his absolute mastery over, although rare
exhibition of, the pathetic, I can do no more than refer to the passages
on Francesca di Rimini (Infer. C. v. ver. 73 to the end.) and on
Ugolino, (Infer. C. xxxiii. ver. 1. to 75.) They are so well known, and
rightly so admired, that it would be pedantry to analyze their
composition; but you will note that the first is the pathos of passion,
the second that of affection; and yet even in the first, you seem to
perceive that the lovers have sacrificed their passion to the cherishing
of a deep and rememberable impression.
VII. As to going into the endless subtle beauties of Dante, that is
impossible; but I cannot help citing the first triplet of the 29th canto
of the Inferno:
La molta gente e le diverse piaghe
Avean le luci m 'e s' inebriate,
Che dello stare a piangere eran vaghe.
So were mine eyes inebriate with the view
Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds
Disfigur'd, that they long'd to stay and weep.
CARY.
Nor have I now room for any specific comparison of Dante with Milton.
But if I had, I would institute it upon the ground of the last canto of
the Inferno from the 1st to the 69th line, and from the 106th to the
end. And in this comparison I should notice Dante's occasional fault of
becoming grotesque from being too graphic without imagination; as in his
Lucifer compared with Milton's Satan. Indeed he is sometimes horrible
rather than terrible,--falling into the [Greek (transliteration):
misaeton] instead of the [Greek (transliteration): deinon] of
Longinus;[3] in other words, many of his images excite bodily disgust,
and not moral fear. But here, as in other cases, you may perceive that
the faults of great authors are generally excellencies carried to an
excess.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Coleridge here notes: "I will, if I can, here make an
historical movement, and pay a proper compliment to Mr. Hallam."
Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Mr. Coleridge here notes: "Here to speak of Mr. Cary's
translation."--Ed.]
[Footnote 3: 'De Subl.' 1. ix.]
MILTON.
Born in London, 1608.--Died, 1674.
If we divide the period from the accession of Elizabeth to the
Protectorate of Cromwell into two unequal portions, the first ending
with the death of James I. the other comprehending the reign of Charles
and the brief glories of the Republic, we are forcibly struck with a
difference in the character of the illustrious actors, by whom each
period is rendered severally memorable. Or rather, the difference in the
characters of the great men in each period, leads us to make this
division.
Eminent as the intellectual powers were that were displayed in both; yet
in the number of great men, in the various sorts of excellence, and not
merely in the variety but almost diversity of talents united in the same
individual, the age of Charles falls short of its predecessor; and the
stars of the Parliament, keen as their radiance was, in fulness and
richness of lustre, yield to the constellation at the court of
Elizabeth;--which can only be paralleled by Greece in her brightest
moment, when the titles of the poet, the philosopher, the historian, the
statesman and the general not seldom formed a garland round the same
head, as in the instances of our Sidneys and Raleighs. But then, on the
other hand, there was a vehemence of will, an enthusiasm of principle, a
depth and an earnestness of spirit, which the charms of individual fame
and personal aggrandisement could not pacify,--an aspiration after
reality, permanence, and general good,--in short, a moral grandeur in
the latter period, with which the low intrigues, Machiavellic maxims,
and selfish and servile ambition of the former, stand in painful
contrast.
The causes of this it belongs not to the present occasion to detail at
length; but a mere allusion to the quick succession of revolutions in
religion, breeding a political indifference in the mass of men to
religion itself, the enormous increase of the royal power in consequence
of the humiliation of the nobility and the clergy--the transference of
the papal authority to the crown,--the unfixed state of Elizabeth's own
opinions, whose inclinations were as popish as her interests were
protestant--the controversial extravagance and practical imbecility of
her successor--will help to explain the former period; and the
persecutions that had given a life and soul-interest to the disputes so
imprudently fostered by James,--the ardour of a conscious increase of
power in the commons, and the greater austerity of manners and maxims,
the natural product and most formidable weapon of religious disputation,
not merely in conjunction, but in closest combination, with newly
awakened political and republican zeal, these perhaps account for the
character of the latter aera.
In the close of the former period, and during the bloom of the latter,
the poet Milton was educated and formed; and he survived the latter, and
all the fond hopes and aspirations which had been its life; and so in
evil days, standing as the representative of the combined excellence of
both periods, he produced the 'Paradise Lost as by an after-throe of
nature. "There are some persons (observes a divine, a contemporary of
Milton's) of whom the grace of God takes early hold, and the good spirit
inhabiting them, carries them on in an even constancy through innocence
into virtue, their Christianity bearing equal date with their manhood,
and reason and religion, like warp and woof, running together, make up
one web of a wise and exemplary life. This (he adds) is a most happy
case, wherever it happens; for, besides that there is no sweeter or more
lovely thing on earth than the early buds of piety, which drew from our
Saviour signal affection to the beloved disciple, it is better to have
no wound than to experience the most sovereign balsam, which, if it work
a cure, yet usually leaves a scar behind." Although it was and is my
intention to defer the consideration of Milton's own character to the
conclusion of this Lecture, yet I could not prevail on myself to
approach the Paradise Lost without impressing on your minds the
conditions under which such a work was in fact producible at all, the
original genius having been assumed as the immediate agent and efficient
cause; and these conditions I find in the character of the times and in
his own character. The age in which the foundations of his mind were
laid, was congenial to it as one golden era of profound erudition and
individual genius;--that in which the superstructure was carried up, was
no less favourable to it by a sternness of discipline and a show of
self-control, highly flattering to the imaginative dignity of an heir of
fame, and which won Milton over from the dear-loved delights of academic
groves and cathedral aisles to the anti-prelatic party. It acted on him,
too, no doubt, and modified his studies by a characteristic
controversial spirit, (his presentation of God is tinted with it)--a
spirit not less busy indeed in political than in theological and
ecclesiastical dispute, but carrying on the former almost always, more
or less, in the guise of the latter. And so far as Pope's censure [1] of
our poet,--that he makes God the Father a school divine--is just, we
must attribute it to the character of his age, from which the men of
genius, who escaped, escaped by a worse disease, the licentious
indifference of a Frenchified court.
Such was the 'nidus' or soil, which constituted, in the strict sense of
the word, the circumstances of Milton's mind. In his mind itself there
were purity and piety absolute; an imagination to which neither the past
nor the present were interesting, except as far as they called forth and
enlivened the great ideal, in which and for which he lived; a keen love
of truth, which, after many weary pursuits, found a harbour in a sublime
listening to the still voice in his own spirit, and as keen a love of
his country, which, after a disappointment still more depressive,
expanded and soared into a love of man as a probationer of immortality.
These were, these alone could be, the conditions under which such a work
as the Paradise Lost could be conceived and accomplished. By a life-long
study Milton had known--
What was of use to know,
What best to say could say, to do had done.
His actions to his words agreed, his words
To his large heart gave utterance due, his heart
Contain'd of good, wise, fair, the perfect shape;
and he left the imperishable total, as a bequest to the ages coming, in
the 'Paradise Lost'. [2]
Difficult as I shall find it to turn over these leaves without catching
some passage, which would tempt me to stop, I propose to consider,
1st, the general plan and arrangement of the work;
2ndly, the subject with its difficulties and advantages;
3rdly, the poet's object, the spirit in the letter, the [Greek
(transliterated): enthumion en muthps], the true school-divinity;
and lastly, the characteristic excellencies of the poem, in what they
consist, and by what means they were produced.
1. As to the plan and ordonnance of the Poem.
Compare it with the 'Iliad', many of the books of which might change
places without any injury to the thread of the story. Indeed, I doubt
the original existence of the 'Iliad' as one poem; it seems more probable
that it was put together about the time of the Pisistratidae. The
'Iliad'--and, more or less, all epic poems, the subjects of which are
taken from history--have no rounded conclusion; they remain, after all,
but single chapters from the volume of history, although they are
ornamental chapters. Consider the exquisite simplicity of the Paradise
Lost. It and it alone really possesses a beginning, a middle, and an
end; it has the totality of the poem as distinguished from the 'ab
ovo' birth and parentage, or straight line, of history.
2. As to the subject.
In Homer, the supposed importance of the subject, as the first effort of
confederated Greece, is an after-thought of the critics; and the
interest, such as it is, derived from the events themselves, as
distinguished from the manner of representing them, is very languid to
all but Greeks. It is a Greek poem. The superiority of the 'Paradise Lost'
is obvious in this respect, that the interest transcends the limits of a
nation. But we do not generally dwell on this excellence of the 'Paradise
Lost', because it seems attributable to Christianity itself;--yet in fact
the interest is wider than Christendom, and comprehends the Jewish and
Mohammedan worlds;--nay, still further, inasmuch as it represents the
origin of evil, and the combat of evil and good, it contains matter of
deep interest to all mankind, as forming the basis of all religion, and
the true occasion of all philosophy whatsoever.
The FALL of Man is the subject; Satan is the cause; man's blissful state
the immediate object of his enmity and attack; man is warned by an angel
who gives him an account of all that was requisite to be known, to make
the warning at once intelligible and awful; then the temptation ensues,
and the Fall; then the immediate sensible consequence; then the
consolation, wherein an angel presents a vision of the history of men
with the ultimate triumph of the Redeemer. Nothing is touched in this
vision but what is of general interest in religion; any thing else would
have been improper.
The inferiority of Klopstock's 'Messiah' is inexpressible. I admit the
prerogative of poetic feeling, and poetic faith; but I cannot suspend
the judgment even for a moment. A poem may in one sense be a dream, but
it must be a waking dream. In Milton you have a religious faith combined
with the moral nature; it is an efflux; you go along with it. In
Klopstock there is a wilfulness; he makes things so and so. The feigned
speeches and events in the 'Messiah' shock us like falsehoods; but nothing
of that sort is felt in the 'Paradise Lost', in which no particulars, at
least very few indeed, are touched which can come into collision or
juxta-position with recorded matter.
But notwithstanding the advantages in Milton's subject, there were
concomitant insuperable difficulties, and Milton has exhibited
marvellous skill in keeping most of them out of sight. High poetry is
the translation of reality into the ideal under the predicament of
succession of time only. The poet is an historian, upon condition of
moral power being the only force in the universe. The very grandeur of
his subject ministered a difficulty to Milton. The statement of a being
of high intellect, warring against the supreme Being, seems to
contradict the idea of a supreme Being. Milton precludes our feeling
this, as much as possible, by keeping the peculiar attributes of
divinity less in sight, making them to a certain extent allegorical
only. Again, poetry implies the language of excitement; yet how to
reconcile such language with God? Hence Milton confines the poetic
passion in God's speeches to the language of scripture; and once only
allows the 'passio vera', or 'quasi-humana' to appear, in the
passage, where the Father contemplates his own likeness in the Son
before the battle:--
Go then, thou Mightiest, in thy Father's might,
Ascend my chariot, guide the rapid wheels
That shake Heaven's basis, bring forth all my war,
My bow and thunder; my almighty arms
Gird on, and sword upon thy puissant thigh;
Pursue these sons of darkness, drive them out
From all Heaven's bounds into the utter deep:
There let them learn, as likes them, to despise
God and Messiah his anointed king.
(B. VI. v. 710.)
3. As to Milton's object:--
It was to justify the ways of God to man! The controversial spirit
observable in many parts of the poem, especially in God's speeches, is
immediately attributable to the great controversy of that age, the
origination of evil. The Arminians considered it a mere calamity. The
Calvinists took away all human will. Milton asserted the will, but
declared for the enslavement of the will out of an act of the will
itself. There are three powers in us, which distinguish us from the
beasts that perish;--1, reason; 2, the power of viewing universal truth;
and 3, the power of contracting universal truth into particulars.
Religion is the will in the reason, and love in the will.
The character of Satan is pride and sensual indulgence, finding in self
the sole motive of action. It is the character so often seen 'in
little' on the political stage. It exhibits all the restlessness,
temerity, and cunning which have marked the mighty hunters of mankind
from Nimrod to Napoleon. The common fascination of men is, that these
great men, as they are called, must act from some great motive. Milton
has carefully marked in his Satan the intense selfishness, the alcohol
of egotism, which would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. To
place this lust of self in opposition to denial of self or duty, and to
show what exertions it would make, and what pains endure to accomplish
its end, is Milton's particular object in the character of Satan. But
around this character he has thrown a singularity of daring, a grandeur
of sufferance, and a ruined splendour, which constitute the very height
of poetic sublimity.
Lastly, as to the execution:--
The language and versification of the 'Paradise Lost' are peculiar in
being so much more necessarily correspondent to each than those in any
other poem or poet. The connexion of the sentences and the position of
the words are exquisitely artificial; but the position is rather
according to the logic of passion or universal logic, than to the logic
of grammar. Milton attempted to make the English language obey the logic
of passion as perfectly as the Greek and Latin. Hence the occasional
harshness in the construction.
Sublimity is the pre-eminent characteristic of the Paradise Lost. It is
not an arithmetical sublime like Klopstock's, whose rule always is to
treat what we might think large as contemptibly small. Klopstock
mistakes bigness for greatness. There is a greatness arising from images
of effort and daring, and also from those of moral endurance; in Milton
both are united. The fallen angels are human passions, invested with a
dramatic reality.
The apostrophe to light at the commencement of the third book is
particularly beautiful as an intermediate link between Hell and Heaven;
and observe, how the second and third book support the subjective
character of the poem. In all modern poetry in Christendom there is an
under consciousness of a sinful nature, a fleeting away of external
things, the mind or subject greater than the object, the reflective
character predominant. In the 'Paradise Lost' the sublimest parts are the
revelations of Milton's own mind, producing itself and evolving its own
greatness; and this is so truly so, that when that which is merely
entertaining for its objective beauty is introduced, it at first seems a
discord.
In the description of Paradise itself you have Milton's sunny side as a
man; here his descriptive powers are exercised to the utmost, and he
draws deep upon his Italian resources. In the description of Eve, and
throughout this part of the poem, the poet is predominant over the
theologian. Dress is the symbol of the Fall, but the mark of intellect;
and the metaphysics of dress are, the hiding what is not symbolic and
displaying by discrimination what is. The love of Adam and Eve in
Paradise is of the highest merit--not phantomatic, and yet removed from
every thing degrading. It is the sentiment of one rational being towards
another made tender by a specific difference in that which is
essentially the same in both; it is a union of opposites, a giving and
receiving mutually of the permanent in either, a completion of each in
the other.
Milton is not a picturesque, but a musical, poet; although he has this
merit that the object chosen by him for any particular foreground always
remains prominent to the end, enriched, but not incumbered, by the
opulence of descriptive details furnished by an exhaustless imagination.
I wish the Paradise Lost were more carefully read and studied than I can
see any ground for believing it is, especially those parts which, from
the habit of always looking for a story in poetry, are scarcely read at
all,--as for example, Adam's vision of future events in the 11th and
12th books. No one can rise from the perusal of this immortal poem
without a deep sense of the grandeur and the purity of Milton's soul, or
without feeling how susceptible of domestic enjoyments he really was,
notwithstanding the discomforts which actually resulted from an
apparently unhappy choice in marriage. He was, as every truly great poet
has ever been, a good man; but finding it impossible to realize his own
aspirations, either in religion, or politics, or society, he gave up his
heart to the living spirit and light within him, and avenged himself on
the world by enriching it with this record of his own transcendant
ideal.
[Footnote 1: Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 264.]
[Footnote 2: Here Mr. C. notes: "Not perhaps here, but towards, or as,
the conclusion, to chastise the fashionable notion that poetry is a
relaxation or amusement, one of the superfluous toys and luxuries of the
intellect! To contrast the permanence of poems with the transiency and
fleeting moral effects of empires, and what are called, great events."
Ed.]
NOTES ON MILTON. 1807. [1]
(Hayley quotes the following passage:--)
"Time serves not now, and, perhaps, I might seem too profuse to give
any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits
of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest
hope and hardest attempting; whether that epic form, whereof the two
poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a
diffuse, and the Book of Job' a brief, model," p. 69.
These latter words deserve particular notice. I do not doubt that Milton
intended his 'Paradise Lost' as an epic of the first class, and that the
poetic dialogue of the 'Book of Job' was his model for the general scheme
of his 'Paradise Regained'. Readers would not be disappointed in this
latter poem, if they proceeded to a perusal of it with a proper
preconception of the kind of interest intended to be excited in that
admirable work. In its kind it is the most perfect poem extant, though
its kind may be inferior in interest--being in its essence didactic--to
that other sort, in which instruction is conveyed more effectively,
because less directly, in connection with stronger and more pleasurable
emotions, and thereby in a closer affinity with action. But might we not
as rationally object to an accomplished woman's conversing, however
agreeably, because it has happened that we have received a keener
pleasure from her singing to the harp? 'Si genus sit probo et sapienti
viro hand indignum, et si poema sit in suo genere perfectum, satis est.
Quod si hoc auctor idem altioribus numeris et carmini diviniori ipsum
per se divinum superaddiderit, mehercule satis est, et plusquam
satis'. [2] I cannot, however, but wish that the answer of Jesus to Satan
in the 4th book, (v. 285.)--
Think not but that I know these things;
Or think I know them not,
Not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought, &c.
had breathed the spirit of Hayley's noble quotation rather than the
narrow bigotry of Gregory the Great. The passage is, indeed, excellent,
and is partially true; but partial truth is the worst mode of conveying
falsehood.
Hayley, p. 75. "The sincerest friends of Milton may here agree with
Johnson, who speaks of 'his controversial merriment as
disgusting'."
The man who reads a work meant for immediate effect on one age with the
notions and feelings of another, may be a refined gentleman, but must be
a sorry critic. He who possesses imagination enough to live with his
forefathers, and, leaving comparative reflection for an after moment, to
give himself up during the first perusal to the feelings of a
contemporary, if not a partizan, will, I dare aver, rarely find any part
of Milton's prose works disgusting.
(Hayley, p. 104. Hayley is speaking of the passage in Milton's Answer to
Icon Basilice, in which he accuses Charles of taking his Prayer in
captivity from Pamela's prayer in the 3rd book of Sidney's Arcadia. The
passage begins,--
"But this king, not content with that which, although in a thing holy,
is no holy theft, to attribute to his own making other men's whole
prayers, &c." Symmons' ed. 1806, p. 407.)
Assuredly, I regret that Milton should have written this passage; and
yet the adoption of a prayer from a romance on such an occasion does not
evince a delicate or deeply sincere mind. We are the creatures of
association. There are some excellent moral and even serious lines in
Hudibras; but what if a clergyman should adorn his sermon with a
quotation from that poem! Would the abstract propriety of the verses
leave him "honourably acquitted?" The Christian baptism of a line in
Virgil is so far from being a parallel, that it is ridiculously
inappropriate,--an absurdity as glaring as that of the bigotted
Puritans, who objected to some of the noblest and most scriptural
prayers ever dictated by wisdom and piety, simply because the Roman
Catholics had used them.
(Hayley, p. 107.) "The ambition of Milton," &c.
I do not approve the so frequent use of this word relatively to Milton.
Indeed the fondness for ingrafting a good sense on the word "ambition,"
is not a Christian impulse in general.
(Hayley, p. 110.) "Milton himself seems to have thought it allowable in
literary contention to vilify, &c. the character of an opponent; but
surely this doctrine is unworthy," &c.
If ever it were allowable, in this ease it was especially so. But these
general observations, without meditation on the particular times and the
genius of the times, are most often as unjust as they are always
superficial.
(Hayley, p. 133. Hayley is speaking of Milton's panegyric on Cromwell's
government:-)
Besides, however Milton might and did regret the immediate necessity,
yet what alternative was there? Was it not better that Cromwell should
usurp power, to protect religious freedom at least, than that the
Presbyterians should usurp it to introduce a religious
persecution,--extending the notion of spiritual concerns so far as to
leave no freedom even to a man's bedchamber?
(Hayley, p. 250. Hayley's conjectures on the origin of the 'Paradise
Lost':--)
If Milton borrowed a hint from any writer, it was more probably from
Strada's Prolusions, in which the Fall of the Angels is pointed out as
the noblest subject for a Christian poet.[1] The more dissimilar the
detailed images are, the more likely it is that a great genius should
catch the general idea.
(Hayl. p. 294. Extracts from the 'Adamo' of Andreini:)
"Lucifero. Che dal mio centre oscuro
Mi chiama a rimirar cotanta luce?"
"Who from my dark abyss
Calls me to gaze on this 'excess of light?'"
The words in italics (single quotation marks: text Ed.) are an unfair
translation. They may suggest that Milton really had read and did
imitate this drama. The original is 'in so great light.' Indeed the
whole version is affectedly and inaccurately Miltonic.
(p Ib. v. 11.)
Che di fango opre festi--
Forming thy works of 'dust' (no, dirt.--)
(Ib. v. 17.)
Tessa pur stella a stella
V'aggiungo e luna, e sole.--
Let him unite above Star upon star, moon, sun.
Let him weave star to star, Then join both moon and sun!
(Ib. v. 21.)
Ch'al fin con biasmo e scorno
Vana l'opra sara, vano il sudore!
Since in the end division
Shall prove his works and all his efforts vain.
Since finally with censure and disdain
Vain shall the work be, and his toil be vain!
1796. [3]
The reader of Milton must be always on his duty: he is surrounded with
sense; it rises in every line; every word is to the purpose. There are
no lazy intervals; all has been considered, and demands and merits
observation. If this be called obscurity, let it be remembered that it
is such an obscurity as is a compliment to the reader; not that vicious
obscurity, which proceeds from a muddled head.
[Footnote 1: These notes were written by Mr. Coleridge in a copy of
Hayley's Life of Milton, (4to. 1796), belonging to Mr. Poole. By him
they were communicated, and this seems the fittest place for their
publication. Ed. ]
[Footnote 2: The reference seems generally to be to the 5th Prolusion of
the 1st Book.
'Hic arcus ac tela, quibus olim in magno illo Superum tumultu
princeps armorum Michael confixit auctorem proditionis; hic fulmina
humanae mentis terror. In nubibus armatas bello legiones instruam,
atque inde pro re nata auxiliares ad terram copias evocabo. Hic mihi
Caelites, quos esse ferunt elementorum tutelares, prima ilia corpora
miscebunt'.
(sect. 4.) Ed. ]
[Footnote 3: From a common-place book of Mr. C.'s, communicated by Mr.
J. M. Gutch. Ed.]
LECTURE XI. [1]
ASIATIC AND GREEK MYTHOLOGIES--ROBINSON CRUSOE--USE OF WORKS OF
IMAGINATION IN EDUCATION.
A confounding of God with Nature, and an incapacity of finding unity in
the manifold and infinity in the individual,--these are the origin of
polytheism. The most perfect instance of this kind of theism is that of
early Greece; other nations seem to have either transcended, or come
short of, the old Hellenic standard,--a mythology in itself
fundamentally allegorical, and typical of the powers and functions of
nature, but subsequently mixed up with a deification of great men and
hero-worship,--so that finally the original idea became inextricably
combined with the form and attributes of some legendary individual. In
Asia, probably from the greater unity of the government and the still
surviving influence of patriarchal tradition, the idea of the unity of
God, in a distorted reflection of the Mosaic scheme, was much more
generally preserved; and accordingly all other super or ultra-human
beings could only be represented as ministers of, or rebels against, his
will. The Asiatic genii and fairies are, therefore, always endowed with
moral qualities, and distinguishable as malignant or benevolent to man.
It is this uniform attribution of fixed moral qualities to the
supernatural agents of eastern mythology that particularly separates
them from the divinities of old Greece.
Yet it is not altogether improbable that in the Samothracian or Cabeiric
mysteries the link between the Asiatic and Greek popular schemes of
mythology lay concealed. Of these mysteries there are conflicting
accounts, and, perhaps, there were variations of doctrine in the lapse
of ages and intercourse with other systems. But, upon a review of all
that is left to us on this subject in the writings of the ancients, we
may, I think, make out thus much of an interesting fact,--that
'Cabiri', impliedly at least, meant 'socii, complices,' having
a hypostatic or fundamental union with, or relation to, each other; that
these mysterious divinities were, ultimately at least, divided into a
higher and lower triad; that the lower triad, 'primi quia infimi,'
consisted of the old Titanic deities or powers of nature, under the
obscure names of 'Axieros, Axiokersos,' and 'Axiokersa,'
representing symbolically different modifications of animal desire or
material action, such as hunger, thirst, and fire, without
consciousness; that the higher triad, 'ultimi quia superiores,'
consisted of Jupiter, (Pallas, or Apollo, or Bacchus, or Mercury,
mystically called 'Cadmilos') and Venus, representing, as before,
the [Greek (transliterated): nous] or reason, the [Greek: logos] or word or
communicative power, and the [Greek: eros] or love;-that the
'Cadmilos' or Mercury, the manifested, communicated, or sent,
appeared not only in his proper person as second of the higher triad,
but also as a mediator between the higher and lower triad, and so there
were seven divinities; and, indeed, according to some authorities, it
might seem that the 'Cadmilos' acted once as a mediator of the
higher, and once of the lower, triad, and that so there were eight
Cabeiric divinities. The lower or Titanic powers being subdued, chaos
ceased, and creation began in the reign of the divinities of mind and
love; but the chaotic gods still existed in the abyss, and the notion of
evoking them was the origin, the idea, of the Greek necromancy.
These mysteries, like all the others, were certainly in connection with
either the Phoenician or Egyptian systems, perhaps with both. Hence the
old Cabeiric powers were soon made to answer to the corresponding
popular divinities; and the lower triad was called by the uninitiated,
Ceres, Vulcan or Pluto, and Proserpine, and the 'Cadmilos' became
Mercury. It is not without ground that I direct your attention, under
these circumstances, to the probable derivation of some portion of this
most remarkable system from patriarchal tradition, and to the connection
of the Cabeiri with the Kabbala.
The Samothracian mysteries continued in celebrity till some time after
the commencement of the Christian era. [2] But they gradually sank with
the rest of the ancient system of mythology, to which, in fact, they did
not properly belong. The peculiar doctrines, however, were preserved in
the memories of the initiated, and handed down by individuals. No doubt
they were propagated in Europe, and it is not improbable that Paracelsus
received many of his opinions from such persons, and I think a
connection may be traced between him and Jacob Behmen.
The Asiatic supernatural beings are all produced by imagining an
excessive magnitude, or an excessive smallness combined with great
power; and the broken associations, which must have given rise to such
conceptions, are the sources of the interest which they inspire, as
exhibiting, through the working of the imagination, the idea of power in
the will. This is delightfully exemplified in the 'Arabian Nights'
Entertainments', and indeed, more or less, in other works of the same
kind. In all these there is the same activity of mind as in dreaming,
that is--an exertion of the fancy in the combination and recombination of
familiar objects so as to produce novel and wonderful imagery. To this
must be added that these tales cause no deep feeling of a moral
kind--whether of religion or love; but an impulse of motion is
communicated to the mind without excitement, and this is the reason of
their being so generally read and admired.
I think it not unlikely that the 'Milesian Tales' contained the germs of
many of those now in the Arabian Nights; indeed it is scarcely possible
to doubt that the Greek empire must have left deep impression on the
Persian intellect. So also many of the Roman Catholic legends are taken
from Apuleius. In that exquisite story of Cupid and Psyche, the allegory
is of no injury to the dramatic vividness of the tale. It is evidently a
philosophic attempt to parry Christianity with a 'quasi'-Platonic
account of the fall and redemption of the soul.
The charm of De Foe's works, especially of 'Robinson Crusoe', is founded
on the same principle. It always interests, never agitates. Crusoe
himself is merely a representative of humanity in general; neither his
intellectual nor his moral qualities set him above the middle degree of
mankind; his only prominent characteristic is the spirit of enterprise
and wandering, which is, nevertheless, a very common disposition. You
will observe that all that is wonderful in this tale is the result of
external circumstances--of things which fortune brings to Crusoe's hand.
[Footnote 1: Partly from Mr. Green's note. 'Ed.']
[Footnote 2: In the reign of Tiberius, A. D. 18, Germanicus attempted to
visit Samothrace;--'illum in regressu sacra Samothracum visere
nitentem obvii aquilones depulere.' Tacit. 'Ann.' II. e. 54. Ed.]
NOTES ON ROBINSON CRUSOE. [1]
(Vol. i. p. 17.)
But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could
resist; and though I had several times loud calls from my reason, and
my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I
know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret
overruling decree that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own
destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it
with our eyes open.
The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed
by them. Robinson Crusoe was not conscious of the master impulse, even
because it was his master, and had taken, as he says, full possession of
him. When once the mind, in despite of the remonstrating conscience, has
abandoned its free power to a haunting impulse or idea, then whatever
tends to give depth and vividness to this idea or indefinite
imagination, increases its despotism, and in the same proportion renders
the reason and free will ineffectual. Now, fearful calamities,
sufferings, horrors, and hair-breadth escapes will have this effect, far
more than even sensual pleasure and prosperous incidents. Hence the evil
consequences of sin in such cases, instead of retracting or deterring
the sinner, goad him on to his destruction. This is the moral of
Shakspeare's 'Macbeth', and the true solution of this paragraph,--not any
overruling decree of divine wrath, but the tyranny of the sinner's own
evil imagination, which he has voluntarily chosen as his master.
Compare the contemptuous Swift with the contemned De Foe, and how
superior will the latter be found! But by what test?--Even by this; that
the writer who makes me sympathize with his presentations with the whole
of my being, is more estimable than he who calls forth, and appeals but
to, a part of my being--my sense of the ludicrous, for instance. De
Foe's excellence it is, to make me forget my specific class, character,
and circumstances, and to raise me while I read him, into the universal
man.
(P. 80.)
I smiled to myself at the sight of this money: "O drug!" said I aloud,
&c. 'However, upon second thoughts, I took it away'; and wrapping
all this in a piece of canvass, &c.
Worthy of Shakspeare!--and yet the simple semicolon after it, the
instant passing on without the least pause of reflex consciousness, is
more exquisite and masterlike than the touch itself. A meaner writer, a
Marmontel, would have put an (!) after 'away,' and have commenced
a fresh paragraph. 30th July, 1830.
(P. 111.)
And I must confess, my religious thankfulness to God's providence
began to abate too, upon the discovering that all this was nothing
but what was common; though I ought to have been as thankful for so
strange and unforeseen a providence, as if it had been miraculous.
To make men feel the truth of this is one characteristic object of the
miracles worked by Moses;-in them the providence is miraculous, the
miracles providential.
(1 P. 126.) The growing up of the corn, as is hinted in my Journal,
had, at first, some little influence upon me, and began to affect me
with seriousness, as long as I thought it had something miraculous in
it, &c.
By far the ablest vindication of miracles which I have met with. It is
indeed the true ground, the proper purpose and intention of a miracle.
(P. 141.) To think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord
of all this country indefeasibly, &c.
By the by, what is the law of England respecting this? Suppose I had
discovered, or been wrecked on an uninhabited island, would it be mine
or the king's?
(P. 223.)
I considered--that as I could not foresee what the ends of divine
wisdom might be in all this, so I was not to dispute his sovereignty,
who, as I was his creature, had an undoubted right, by creation, to
govern and dispose of me absolutely as he thought fit, &c.
I could never understand this reasoning, grounded on a complete
misapprehension of St. Paul's image of the potter, Rom. ix., or rather I
do fully understand the absurdity of it. The susceptibility of pain and
pleasure, of good and evil, constitutes a right in every creature
endowed therewith in relation to every rational and moral being,--a'
fortiori', therefore, to the Supreme Reason, to the absolutely good
Being. Remember Davenant's verses;--
Doth it our reason's mutinies appease
To say, the potter may his own clay mould
To every use, or in what shape he please,
At first not counsell'd, nor at last controll'd?
Power's hand can neither easy be, nor strict
To lifeless clay, which ease nor torment knows,
And where it cannot favour or afflict,
It neither justice or injustice shows.
But souls have life, and life eternal too:
Therefore, if doom'd before they can offend,
It seems to show what heavenly power can do,
But does not in that deed that power commend.
(Death of Astragon. st. 88, &c. P. 232-3.)
And this I must observe with grief too, that the discomposure of my
mind had too great impressions also upon the religious parts of my
thoughts,--praying to God being properly an act of the mind, not of
the body.
As justly conceived as it is beautifully expressed. And a mighty motive
for habitual prayer; for this cannot but greatly facilitate the
performance of rational prayer even in moments of urgent distress.
(P. 244.)
That this would justify the conduct of the Spaniards in all their
barbarities practised in America.
De Foe was a true philanthropist, who had risen above the antipathies of
nationality; but he was evidently partial to the Spanish character,
which, however, it is not, I fear, possible to acquit of cruelty.
Witness the Netherlands, the Inquisition, the late Guerilla warfare, &c.
(P. 249.)
That I shall not discuss, and perhaps cannot account for; but
certainly they are a proof of the converse of spirits, &c.
This reminds me of a conversation I once over heard. "How a statement so
injurious to Mr. A. and so contrary to the truth, should have been made
to you by Mr. B. I do not pretend to account for;--only I know of my own
knowledge that B. is an inveterate liar, and has long borne malice
against Mr. A.; and I can prove that he has repeatedly declared that in
some way or other he would do Mr. A. a mischief."
(P. 254.)
The place I was in was a most delightful cavity or grotto of its kind,
as could be expected, though perfectly dark; the floor was dry and
level, and had a sort of small loose gravel on it, &c.
How accurate an observer of nature De Foe was! The reader will at once
recognize Professor Buckland's caves and the diluvial gravel.
(P. 308.)
I entered into a long discourse with him about the devil, the original
of him, his rebellion against God, his enmity to man, the reason of
it, his setting himself up in the dark parts of the world to be
worshipped instead of God, &c.
I presume that Milton's 'Paradise Lost' must have been bound up with one
of Crusoe's Bibles; otherwise I should be puzzled to know where he found
all this history of the Old Gentleman. Not a word of it in the Bible
itself, I am quite sure. But to be serious. De Foe did not reflect that
all these difficulties are attached to a mere fiction, or, at the best,
an allegory, supported by a few popular phrases and figures of speech
used incidentally or dramatically by the Evangelists,--and that the
existence of a personal, intelligent, evil being, the counterpart and
antagonist of God, is in direct contradiction to the most express
declarations of Holy Writ. '"Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord
hath not done it?"' Amos, iii. 6. '"I make peace and create evil."' Isa.
xlv. 7. This is the deep mystery of the abyss of God.
(Vol. ii. p. 3.)
I have often heard persons of good judgment say, ... that there is no
such thing as a spirit appearing, a ghost walking, and the like, &c.
I cannot conceive a better definition of Body than "spirit appearing,"
or of a flesh-and-blood man than a rational spirit apparent. But a
spirit 'per se' appearing is tantamount to a spirit appearing
without its appearances. And as for ghosts, it is enough for a man of
common sense to observe, that a ghost and a shadow are concluded in the
same definition, that is, visibility without tangibility.
(P. 9.)
She was, in a few words the stay of all my affairs, the centre of all
my enterprises, &c.
The stay of his affairs, the centre of his interests, the regulator of
his schemes and movements, whom it soothed his pride to submit to, and
in complying with whose wishes the conscious sensation of his acting
will increased the impulse, while it disguised the coercion, of
duty!--the clinging dependent, yet the strong supporter--the comforter,
the comfort, and the soul's living home! This is De Foe's comprehensive
character of the wife, as she should be; and, to the honour of womanhood
be it spoken, there are few neighbourhoods in which one name at least
might not be found for the portrait.
The exquisite paragraphs in this and the next page, in addition to
others scattered, though with a sparing hand, through his novels, afford
sufficient proof that De Foe was a first-rate master of periodic style;
but with sound judgment, and the fine tact of genius, he has avoided it
as adverse to, nay, incompatible with, the every-day matter of fact
realness, which forms the charm and the character of all his romances.
The Robinson Crusoe is like the vision of a happy night-mair, such as a
denizen of Elysium might be supposed to have from a little excess in his
nectar and ambrosia supper. Our imagination is kept in full play,
excited to the highest; yet all the while we are touching, or touched
by, common flesh and blood.
(P. 67.)
The ungrateful creatures began to be as insolent and troublesome as
before, &c.
How should it be otherwise? They were idle; and when we will not sow
corn, the devil will be sure to sow weeds, night-shade, henbane, and
devil's-bit.
(P. 82.)
That hardened villain was so far from denying it, that he said it was
true, and ---- him they would do it still before they had done with
them.
Observe when a man has once abandoned himself to wickedness, he cannot
stop, and does not join the devils till he has become a devil himself.
Rebelling against his conscience he becomes the slave of his own furious
will.
One excellence of De Foe, amongst many, is his sacrifice of lesser
interest to the greater because more universal. Had he (as without any
improbability he might have done) given his Robinson Crusoe any of the
turn for natural history, which forms so striking and delightful a
feature in the equally uneducated Dampier;--had he made him find out
qualities and uses in the before (to him) unknown plants of the island,
discover, for instance, a substitute for hops, or describe birds,
&c.--many delightful pages and incidents might have enriched the
book;--but then Crusoe would have ceased to be the universal
representative, the person, for whom every reader could substitute
himself. But now nothing is done, thought, suffered, or desired, but
what every man can imagine himself doing, thinking, feeling, or wishing
for. Even so very easy a problem as that of finding a substitute for
ink, is with exquisite judgment made to baffle Crusoe's inventive
faculties. And in what he does, he arrives at no excellence; he does not
make basket work like Will Atkins; the carpentering, tailoring, pottery,
&c. are all just what will answer his purposes, and those are confined
to needs that all men have, and comforts that all men desire. Crusoe
rises only to the point to which all men may be made to feel that they
might, and that they ought to, rise in religion,--to resignation,
dependence on, and thankful acknowledgement of, the divine mercy and
goodness.
In the education of children, love is first to be instilled, and out of
love obedience is to be educed. Then impulse and power should be given
to the intellect, and the ends of a moral being be exhibited. For this
object thus much is effected by works of imagination;--that they carry
the mind out of self, and show the possible of the good and the great in
the human character. The height, whatever it may be, of the imaginative
standard will do no harm; we are commanded to imitate one who is
inimitable. We should address ourselves to those faculties in a child's
mind, which are first awakened by nature, and consequently first admit
of cultivation, that is to say, the memory and the imagination. The
comparing power, the judgment, is not at that age active, and ought not
to be forcibly excited, as is too frequently and mistakenly done in the
modern systems of education, which can only lead to selfish views,
debtor and creditor principles of virtue, and an inflated sense of
merit. In the imagination of man exist the seeds of all moral and
scientific improvement; chemistry was first alchemy, and out of
astrology sprang astronomy. In the childhood of those sciences the
imagination opened a way, and furnished materials, on which the
ratiocinative powers in a maturer state operated with success. The
imagination is the distinguishing characteristic of man as a progressive
being; and I repeat that it ought to be carefully guided and
strengthened as the indispensable means and instrument of continued
amelioration and refinement. Men of genius and goodness are generally
restless in their minds in the present, and this, because they are by a
law of their nature unremittingly regarding themselves in the future,
and contemplating the possible of moral and intellectual advance towards
perfection. Thus we live by hope and faith; thus we are for the most
part able to realize what we will, and thus we accomplish the end of our
being. The contemplation of futurity inspires humility of soul in our
judgment of the present.
I think the memory of children cannot, in reason, be too much stored
with the objects and facts of natural history. God opens the images of
nature, like the leaves of a book, before the eyes of his creature,
Man--and teaches him all that is grand and beautiful in the foaming
cataract, the glassy lake, and the floating mist.
The common modern novel, in which there is no imagination, but a
miserable struggle to excite and gratify mere curiosity, ought, in my
judgment, to be wholly forbidden to children. Novel-reading of this sort
is especially injurious to the growth of the imagination, the judgment,
and the morals, especially to the latter, because it excites mere
feelings without at the same time ministering an impulse to action.
Women are good novelists, but indifferent poets; and this because they
rarely or never thoroughly distinguish between fact and fiction. In the
jumble of the two lies the secret of the modern novel, which is the
'medium aliquid' between them, having just so much of fiction as to
obscure the fact, and so much of fact as to render the fiction insipid.
The perusal of a fashionable lady's novel is to me very much like
looking at the scenery and decorations of a theatre by broad daylight.
The source of the common fondness for novels of this sort rests in that
dislike of vacancy and that love of sloth, which are inherent in the
human mind; they afford excitement without producing reaction. By
reaction I mean an activity of the intellectual faculties, which shows
itself in consequent reasoning and observation, and originates action
and conduct according to a principle. Thus, the act of thinking presents
two sides for contemplation,--that of external causality, in which the
train of thought may be considered as the result of outward impressions,
of accidental combinations, of fancy, or the associations of the
memory,--and on the other hand, that of internal causality, or of the
energy of the will on the mind itself. Thought, therefore, might thus be
regarded as passive or active; and the same faculties may in a popular
sense be expressed as perception or observation, fancy or imagination,
memory or recollection.
[Footnote 1: These notes were written by Mr. C. in Mr. Gillman's copy of
Robinson Crusoe, in the summer of 1830. The references in the text are
to Major's edition, 1831. Ed.]
LECTURE XII.
DREAMS--APPARITIONS--ALCHEMISTS--PERSONALITY OF THE EVIL BEING--BODILY
IDENTITY.
It is a general, but, as it appears to me, a mistaken opinion, that in
our ordinary dreams we judge the objects to be real. I say our ordinary
dreams;--because as to the night-mair the opinion is to a considerable
extent just. But the night-mair is not a mere dream, but takes place
when the waking state of the brain is recommencing, and most often
during a rapid alternation, a twinkling, as it were, of sleeping and
waking;--while either from pressure on, or from some derangement in, the
stomach or other digestive organs acting on the external skin (which is
still in sympathy with the stomach and bowels,) and benumbing it, the
sensations sent up to the brain by double touch (that is, when my own
hand touches my side or breast,) are so faint as to be merely equivalent
to the sensation given by single touch, as when another person's hand
touches me. The mind, therefore, which at all times, with and without
our distinct consciousness, seeks for, and assumes, some outward cause
for every impression from without, and which in sleep, by aid of the
imaginative faculty, converts its judgments respecting the cause into a
personal image as being the cause,--the mind, I say, in this case,
deceived by past experience, attributes the painful sensation received
to a correspondent agent,--an assassin, for instance, stabbing at the
side, or a goblin sitting on the breast. Add too that the impressions of
the bed, curtains, room, &c. received by the eyes in the half-moments of
their opening, blend with, and give vividness and appropriate distance
to, the dream image which returns when they close again; and thus we
unite the actual perceptions, or their immediate reliques, with the
phantoms of the inward sense; and in this manner so confound the
half-waking, half-sleeping, reasoning power, that we actually do pass a
positive judgment on the reality of what we see and hear, though often
accompanied by doubt and self-questioning, which, as I have myself
experienced, will at times become strong enough, even before we awake,
to convince us that it is what it is--namely, the night-mair.
In ordinary dreams we do not judge the objects to be real;--we simply do
not determine that they are unreal. The sensations which they seem to
produce, are in truth the causes and occasions of the images; of which
there are two obvious proofs: first, that in dreams the strangest and
most sudden metamorphoses do not create any sensation of surprise: and
the second, that as to the most dreadful images, which during the dream
were accompanied with agonies of terror, we merely awake, or turn round
on the other side, and off fly both image and agony, which would be
impossible if the sensations were produced by the images. This has
always appeared to me an absolute demonstration of the true nature of
ghosts and apparitions--such I mean of the tribe as were not pure
inventions. Fifty years ago, (and to this day in the ruder parts of
Great Britain and Ireland, in almost every kitchen and in too many
parlours it is nearly the same,) you might meet persons who would assure
you in the most solemn manner, so that you could not doubt their
veracity at least, that they had seen an apparition of such and such a
person,--in many cases, that the apparition had spoken to them; and they
would describe themselves as having been in an agony of terror. They
would tell you the story in perfect health. Now take the other class of
facts, in which real ghosts have appeared;--I mean, where figures have
been dressed up for the purpose of passing for apparitions:--in every
instance I have known or heard of (and I have collected very many) the
consequence has been either sudden death, or fits, or idiocy, or mania,
or a brain fever. Whence comes the difference? evidently from
this,--that in the one case the whole of the nervous system has been by
slight internal causes gradually and all together brought into a certain
state, the sensation of which is extravagantly exaggerated during sleep,
and of which the images are the mere effects and exponents, as the
motions of the weathercock are of the wind;--while in the other case,
the image rushing through the senses upon a nervous system, wholly
unprepared, actually causes the sensation, which is sometimes powerful
enough to produce a total check, and almost always a lesion or
inflammation. Who has not witnessed the difference in shock when we have
leaped down half-a-dozen steps intentionally, and that of having missed
a single stair. How comparatively severe the latter is! The fact really
is, as to apparitions, that the terror produces the image instead of the
contrary; for 'in omnem actum perceptionis influit imaginatio,' as
says Wolfe.
O, strange is the self-power of the imagination--when painful sensations
have made it their interpreter, or returning gladsomeness or
convalescence has made its chilled and evanished figures and landscape
bud, blossom, and live in scarlet, green, and snowy white (like the
fire-screen inscribed with the nitrate and muriate of cobalt,)--strange
is the power to represent the events and circumstances, even to the
anguish or the triumph of the 'quasi'-credent soul, while the
necessary conditions, the only possible causes of such contingencies,
are known to be in fact quite hopeless;--yea, when the pure mind would
recoil from the eve-lengthened shadow of an approaching hope, as from a
crime;-and yet the effect shall have place, and substance, and living
energy, and, on a blue islet of ether, in a whole sky of blackest
cloudage, shine like a firstling of creation!
To return, however to apparitions, and by way of an amusing illustration
of the nature and value of even contemporary testimony upon such
subjects, I will present you with a passage, literally translated by my
friend, Mr. Southey, from the well known work of Bernal Dias, one of the
companions of Cortes, in the conquest of Mexico:
Here it is that Gomara says, that Francisco de Morla rode forward on a
dappled grey horse, before Cortes and the cavalry came up, and that
the apostle St. Iago, or St. Peter, was there. I must say that all our
works and victories are by the hand of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that
in this battle there were for each of us so many Indians, that they
could have covered us with handfuls of earth, if it had not been that
the great mercy of God helped us in every thing. And it may be that he
of whom Gomara speaks, was the glorious Santiago or San Pedro, and I,
as a sinner, was not worthy to see him; but he whom I saw there and
knew, was Francisco de Morla on a chestnut horse, who came up with
Cortes. And it seems to me that now while I am writing this, the whole
war is represented before these sinful eyes, just in the manner as we
then went through it. And though I, as an unworthy sinner, might not
deserve to see either of these glorious apostles, there were in our
company above four hundred soldiers, and Cortes, and many other
knights; and it would have been talked of and testified, and they
would have made a church, when they peopled the town, which would have
been called Santiago de la Vittoria, or San Pedro de la Vittoria, as
it is now called, Santa Maria de la Vittoria. And if it was, as Gomara
says, bad Christians must we have been, when our Lord God sent us his
holy apostles, not to acknowledge his great mercy, and venerate his
church daily. And would to God, it had been, as the Chronicler
says!--but till I read his Chronicle, I never heard such a thing from
any of the conquerors who were there.
Now, what if the odd accident of such a man as Bernal Dias' writing a
history had not taken place! Gomara's account, the account of a
contemporary, which yet must have been read by scores who were present,
would have remained uncontradicted. I remember the story of a man, whom
the devil met and talked with, but left at a particular lane;--the man
followed him with his eyes, and when the devil got to the turning or
bend of the lane, he vanished! The devil was upon this occasion drest in
a blue coat, plush waistcoat, leather breeches and boots, and talked and
looked just like a common man, except as to a particular lock of hair
which he had. "And how do you know then that it was the devil?"--"How do
I know," replied the fellow,--"why, if it had not been the devil, being
drest as he was, and looking as he did, why should I have been sore
stricken with fright, when I first saw him? and why should I be in such
a tremble all the while he talked? And, moreover, he had a particular
sort of a kind of a lock, and when I groaned and said, upon every
question he asked me, Lord have mercy upon me! or, Christ have mercy
upon me! it was plain enough that he did not like it, and so he left
me!"--The man was quite sober when he related this story; but as it
happened to him on his return from market, it is probable that he was
then muddled. As for myself, I was actually seen in Newgate in the
winter of 1798;--the person who saw me there, said he had asked my name
of Mr. A. B. a known acquaintance of mine, who told him that it was
young Coleridge, who had married the eldest Miss----. "Will you go to
Newgate, Sir?" said my friend; "for I assure you that Mr. C. is now in
Germany." "Very willingly," replied the other, and away they went to
Newgate, and sent for A. B. "Coleridge," cried he, "in Newgate! God
forbid!" I said, "young Col ---- who married the eldest Miss ----." The
names were something similar. And yet this person had himself really
seen me at one of my lectures.
I remember, upon the occasion of my inhaling the nitrous oxide at the
Royal Institution, about five minutes afterwards, a gentleman came from
the other side of the theatre and said to me,--"Was it not ravishingly
delightful, Sir?"--"It was highly pleasurable, no doubt."--"Was it not
very like sweet music?"--"I cannot say I perceived any analogy to
it."--"Did you not say it was very like Mrs. Billington singing by your
ear?"--"No, Sir, I said that while I was breathing the gas, there was a
singing in my ears."
To return, however, to dreams, I not only believe, for the reasons
given, but have more than once actually experienced that the most
fearful forms, when produced simply by association, instead of causing
fear, operate no other effect than the same would do if they had passed
through my mind as thoughts, while I was composing a faery tale; the
whole depending on the wise and gracious law in our nature, that the
actual bodily sensations, called forth according to the law of
association by thoughts and images of the mind, never greatly transcend
the limits of pleasurable feeling in a tolerably healthy frame, unless
where an act of the judgment supervenes and interprets them as
purporting instant danger to ourselves.
[1] There have been very strange and incredible stories told of and by
the alchemists. Perhaps in some of them there may have been a specific
form of mania, originating in the constant intension of the mind on an
imaginary end, associated with an immense variety of means, all of them
substances not familiar to men in general, and in forms strange and
unlike to those of ordinary nature. Sometimes, it seems as if the
alchemists wrote like the Pythagoreans on music, imagining a
metaphysical and inaudible music as the basis of the audible. It is
clear that by sulphur they meant the solar rays or light, and by mercury
the principle of ponderability, so that their theory was the same with
that of the Heraclitic physics, or the modern German 'Naturphilosophie',
which deduces all things from light and gravitation, each being bipolar;
gravitation=north and south, or attraction and repulsion; light=east and
west, or contraction and dilation; and gold being the tetrad, or
interpenetration of both, as water was the dyad of light, and iron the
dyad of gravitation.
It is, probably, unjust to accuse the alchemists generally of dabbling
with attempts at magic in the common sense of the term. The supposed
exercise of magical power always involved some moral guilt, directly or
indirectly, as in stealing a piece of meat to lay on warts, touching
humours with the hand of an executed person, &c. Rites of this sort and
other practices of sorcery have always been regarded with trembling
abhorrence by all nations, even the most ignorant, as by the Africans,
the Hudson's Bay people and others. The alchemists were, no doubt, often
considered as dealers in art magic, and many of them were not unwilling
that such a belief should be prevalent; and the more earnest among them
evidently looked at their association of substances, fumigations, and
other chemical operations as merely ceremonial, and seem, therefore, to
have had a deeper meaning, that of evoking a latent power. It would be
profitable to make a collection of all the cases of cures by magical
charms and incantations; much useful information might, probably, be
derived from it; for it is to be observed that such rites are the form
in which medical knowledge would be preserved amongst a barbarous and
ignorant people.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Green's note. Ed.]
Note. [1] June, 1827.
The apocryphal book of Tobit consists of a very simple, but beautiful
and interesting, family-memoir, into which some later Jewish poet or
fabulist of Alexandria wove the ridiculous and frigid machinery,
borrowed from the popular superstitions of the Greeks (though, probably,
of Egyptian origin), and accommodated, clumsily enough, to the purer
monotheism of the Mosaic law. The Rape of the Lock is another instance
of a simple tale thus enlarged at a later period, though in this case by
the same author, and with a very different result. Now unless Mr.
Hillhouse is Romanist enough to receive this nursery-tale garnish of a
domestic incident as grave history and holy writ, (for which, even from
learned Roman Catholics, he would gain more credit as a very obedient
child of the Church than as a biblical critic), he will find it no easy
matter to support this assertion of his by the passages of Scripture
here referred to, consistently with any sane interpretation of their
import and purpose.
I. The Fallen Spirits.
This is the mythological form, or, if you will, the symbolical
representation, of a profound idea necessary as the 'prae-suppositum' of
the Christian scheme, or a postulate of reason, indispensable, if we
would render the existence of a world of finites compatible with the
assumption of a super-mundane God, not one with the world. In short,
this idea is the condition under which alone the reason of man can
retain the doctrine of an infinite and absolute Being, and yet keep
clear of pantheism as exhibited by Benedict Spinosa.
II. The Egyptian Magicians.
This whole narrative is probably a relic of the old diplomatic
'lingua-arcana,' or state-symbolique--in which the prediction of
events is expressed as the immediate causing of them. Thus the prophet
is said to destroy the city, the destruction of which he predicts. The
word which our version renders by '"enchantments"' signifies
"flames or burnings," by which it is probable that the Egyptians were
able to deceive the spectators, and substitute serpents for staves. See
Parkhurst 'in voce.'
And with regard to the possessions in the Gospels, bear in mind first of
all, that spirits are not necessarily souls or 'I's' ('ich-heiten' or
'self-consciousnesses'), and that the most ludicrous absurdities would
follow from taking them as such in the Gospel instances; and secondly,
that the Evangelist, who has recorded the most of these incidents,
himself speaks of one of these possessed persons as a lunatic;--
[Greek (transliterated): selaeniazetai--epsaelthen ap auton to daimonion.]
Matt. xvii. 15.18. while St. John names them not at all, but seems to
include them under the description of diseased or deranged persons. That
madness may result from spiritual causes, and not only or principally
from physical ailments, may readily be admitted. Is not our will itself
a spiritual power? Is it not the spirit of the man? The mind of a
rational and responsible being (that is, of a free-agent) is a spirit,
though it does not follow that all spirits are minds. Who shall dare
determine what spiritual influences may not arise out of the collective
evil wills of wicked men? Even the bestial life, sinless in animals and
their nature, may when awakened in the man and by his own act admitted
into his will, become a spiritual influence. He receives a nature into
his will, which by this very act becomes a corrupt will; and 'vice
versa,' this will becomes his nature, and thus a corrupt nature. This
may be conceded; and this is all that the recorded words of our Saviour
absolutely require in order to receive an appropriate sense; but this is
altogether different from making spirits to be devils, and devils
self-conscious individuals.
[Footnote 1: Written in a copy of Mr. Hillhouse's 'Hadad'. 'Ed.']
NOTES. [1] March, 1824.
'A Christian's conflicts and conquests', p. 459.
By the devil we are to understand that apostate spirit which fell from
God, and is always designing to hale down others from God also. The
Old Dragon (mentioned in the Revelation) with his tail drew down the
third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.
How much is it to be regretted, that so enlightened and able a divine as
Smith, had not philosophically and scripturally enucleated this so
difficult yet important question,--respecting the personal existence of
the evil principle; that is, whether as [Greek (transliterated): to
theion] of paganism is [Greek: o theos] in Christianity, so the [Greek:
to ponaeron] is to be [Greek: o ponaeros],--and whether this is an
express doctrine of Christ, and not merely a Jewish dogma left
undisturbed to fade away under the increasing light of the Gospel,
instead of assuming the former, and confirming the position by a verse
from a poetic tissue of visual symbols,--a verse alien from the subject,
and by which the Apocalypt enigmatized the Neronian persecutions and the
apostacy through fear occasioned by it in a large number of converts.
(Ib. p. 463.)
When we say, the devil is continually busy with us, I mean not only
some apostate spirit as one particular being, but that spirit of
apostacy which is lodged in all men's natures; and this may seem
particularly to be aimed at in this place, if we observe the
context:--as the scripture speaks of Christ not only as a particular
person, but as a divine principle in holy souls. Indeed the devil is
not only the name of one particular thing, but a nature.
May I not venture to suspect that this was Smith's own belief and
judgment? and that his conversion of the Satan, that is,
'circuitor', or minister of police (what our Sterne calls the
accusing angel) in the prologue to Job into the devil was a mere
condescension to the prevailing prejudice? Here, however, he speaks like
himself, and like a true religious philosopher, who felt that the
personality of evil spirits is a trifling question, compared with the
personality of the evil principle. This is indeed most momentous.
[Footnote 1: Written in a copy of "Select Discourses by John Smith, of
Queen's College, Cambridge, 1660," and communicated by the Rev. Edward
Coleridge. Ed.]
NOTE ON A PASSAGE IN THE LIFE OF HENRY EARL OF MORLAND. 20th June,
1827.
The defect of this and all similar theories that I am acquainted with,
or rather, let me say, the desideratum, is the neglect of a previous
definition of the term "body." What do you mean by it? The immediate
grounds of a man's size, visibility, tangibility, &c?--But these are in
a continual flux even as a column of smoke. The material particles of
carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, lime, phosphorus, sulphur, soda,
iron, that constitute the ponderable organism in May, 1827, at the
moment of Pollio's death in his 70th year, have no better claim to be
called his "body," than the numerical particles of the same names that
constituted the ponderable mass in May, 1787, in Pollio's prime of
manhood in his 30th year;--the latter no less than the former go into
the grave, that is, suffer dissolution, the one in a series, the other
simultaneously. The result to the particles is precisely the same in
both, and of both therefore we must say with holy Paul,--'"Thou fool!
that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be,"'
&c. Neither this nor that is the body that abideth. Abideth, I say; for
that which riseth again must have remained, though perhaps in an inert
state.--It is not dead, but sleepeth;--that is, it is not dissolved any
more than the exterior or phenomenal organism appears to us dissolved
when it lieth in apparent inactivity during our sleep.
Sound reasoning this, to the best of my judgment, as far as it goes. But
how are we to explain the reaction of this fluxional body on the animal?
In each moment the particles by the informing force of the living
principle constitute an organ not only of motion and sense, but of
consciousness. The organ plays on the organist. How is this conceivable?
The solution requires a depth, stillness, and subtlety of spirit not
only for its discovery, but even for the understanding of it when
discovered, and in the most appropriate words enunciated. I can merely
give a hint. The particles themselves must have an interior and
gravitative being, and the multeity must be a removable or at least
suspensible accident.
LECTURE XIII. ON POESY OR ART.
Man communicates by articulation of sounds, and paramountly by the
memory in the ear; nature by the impression of bounds and surfaces on
the eye, and through the eye it gives significance and appropriation,
and thus the conditions of memory, or the capability of being
remembered, to sounds, smells, &c. Now Art, used collectively for
painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between,
and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of
humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into
every thing which is the object of his contemplation; colour, form,
motion and sound are the elements which it combines, and it stamps them
into unity in the mould of a moral idea.
The primary art is writing;--primary, if we regard the purpose
abstracted from the different modes of realizing it, those steps of
progression of which the instances are still visible in the lower
degrees of civilization. First, there is mere gesticulation; then
rosaries or 'wampun'; then picture-language; then hieroglyphics, and
finally alphabetic letters. These all consist of a translation of man
into nature, of a substitution of the visible for the audible.
The so called music of savage tribes as little deserves the name of art
for the understanding as the ear warrants it for music. Its lowest state
is a mere expression of passion by sounds which the passion itself
necessitates;--the highest amounts to no more than a voluntary
reproduction of these sounds in the absence of the occasioning causes,
so as to give the pleasure of contrast,--for example, by the various
outcries of battle in the song of security and triumph. Poetry also is
purely human; for all its materials are from the mind, and all its
products are for the mind. But it is the apotheosis of the former state,
in which by excitement of the associative power passion itself imitates
order, and the order resulting produces a pleasurable passion, and thus
it elevates the mind by making its feelings the object of its reflexion.
So likewise, whilst it recalls the sights and sounds that had
accompanied the occasions of the original passions, poetry impregnates
them with an interest not their own by means of the passions, and yet
tempers the passion by the calming power which all distinct images exert
on the human soul. In this way poetry is the preparation for art,
inasmuch as it avails itself of the forms of nature to recall, to
express, and to modify the thoughts and feelings of the mind. Still,
however, poetry can only act through the intervention of articulate
speech, which is so peculiarly human, that in all languages it
constitutes the ordinary phrase by which man and nature are
contradistinguished. It is the original force of the word 'brute,' and
even 'mute,' and 'dumb' do not convey the absence of sound, but the
absence of articulated sounds.
As soon as the human mind is intelligibly addressed by an outward image
exclusively of articulate speech, so soon does art commence. But please
to observe that I have laid particular stress on the words 'human
mind,'--meaning to exclude thereby all results common to man and all
other sentient creatures, and consequently confining myself to the
effect produced by the congruity of the animal impression with the
reflective powers of the mind; so that not the thing presented, but that
which is re-presented by the thing shall be the source of the pleasure.
In this sense nature itself is to a religious observer the art of God;
and for the same cause art itself might be defined as of a middle
quality between a thought and a thing, or as I said before, the union
and reconciliation of that which is nature with that which is
exclusively human. It is the figured language of thought, and is
distinguished from nature by the unity of all the parts in one thought
or idea. Hence nature itself would give us the impression of a work of
art if we could see the thought which is present at once in the whole
and in every part; and a work of art will be just in proportion as it
adequately conveys the thought, and rich in proportion to the variety of
parts which it holds in unity.
If, therefore, the term 'mute' be taken as opposed not to sound but to
articulate speech, the old definition of painting will in fact be the
true and best definition of the Fine Arts in general, that is, 'muta
poesis', mute poesy, and so of course poesy. And, as all languages
perfect themselves by a gradual process of desynonymizing words
originally equivalent, I have cherished the wish to use the word 'poesy'
as the generic or common term, and to distinguish that species of poesy
which is not 'muta poesis' by its usual name 'poetry;' while of all
the other species which collectively form the Fine Arts, there would
remain this as the common definition,--that they all, like poetry, are
to express intellectual purposes, thoughts, conceptions, and sentiments
which have their origin in the human mind,--not, however, as poetry
does, by means of articulate speech, but as nature or the divine art
does, by form, colour, magnitude, proportion, or by sound, that is,
silently or musically.
Well! it may be said--but who has ever thought otherwise? We all know
that art is the imitatress of nature. And, doubtless, the truths which I
hope to convey would be barren truisms, if all men meant the same by the
words 'imitate' and 'nature.' But it would be flattering mankind at
large, to presume that such is the fact. First, to imitate. The
impression on the wax is not an imitation, but a copy, of the seal; the
seal itself is an imitation. But, further, in order to form a
philosophic conception, we must seek for the kind, as the heat in ice,
invisible light, &c. whilst, for practical purposes, we must have
reference to the degree. It is sufficient that philosophically we
understand that in all imitation two elements must coexist, and not only
coexist, but must be perceived as coexisting. These two constituent
elements are likeness and unlikeness, or sameness and difference, and in
all genuine creations of art there must be a union of these disparates.
The artist may take his point of view where he pleases, provided that
the desired effect be perceptibly produced,--that there be likeness in
the difference, difference in the likeness, and a reconcilement of both
in one. If there be likeness to nature without any check of difference,
the result is disgusting, and the more complete the delusion, the more
loathsome the effect. Why are such simulations of nature, as wax-work
figures of men and women, so disagreeable? Because, not finding the
motion and the life which we expected, we are shocked as by a falsehood,
every circumstance of detail, which before induced us to be interested,
making the distance from truth more palpable. You set out with a
supposed reality and are disappointed and disgusted with the deception;
whilst, in respect to a work of genuine imitation, you begin with an
acknowledged total difference, and then every touch of nature gives you
the pleasure of an approximation to truth. The fundamental principle of
all this is undoubtedly the horror of falsehood and the love of truth
inherent in the human breast. The Greek tragic dance rested on these
principles, and I can deeply sympathize in imagination with the Greeks
in this favourite part of their theatrical exhibitions, when I call to
mind the pleasure I felt in beholding the combat of the Horatii and
Curiatii most exquisitely danced in Italy to the music of Cimarosa.
Secondly, as to nature. We must imitate nature! yes, but what in
nature,--all and every thing? No, the beautiful in nature. And what then
is the beautiful? What is beauty? It is, in the abstract, the unity of
the manifold, the coalescence of the diverse; in the concrete, it is the
union of the shapely ('formosum') with the vital. In the dead
organic it depends on regularity of form, the first and lowest species
of which is the triangle with all its modifications, as in crystals,
architecture, &c.; in the living organic it is not mere regularity of
form, which would produce a sense of formality; neither is it
subservient to any thing beside itself. It may be present in a
disagreeable object, in which the proportion of the parts constitutes a
whole; it does not arise from association, as the agreeable does, but
sometimes lies in the rupture of association; it is not different to
different individuals and nations, as has been said, nor is it connected
with the ideas of the good, or the fit, or the useful. The sense of
beauty is intuitive, and beauty itself is all that inspires pleasure
without, and aloof from, and even contrarily to, interest.
If the artist copies the mere nature, the 'natura naturata', what
idle rivalry? If he proceeds only from a given form, which is supposed
to answer to the notion of beauty, what an emptiness, what an unreality
there always is in his productions, as in Cipriani's pictures! Believe
me, you must master the essence, the 'natura naturans', which
presupposes a bond between nature in the higher sense and the soul of
man.
The wisdom in nature is distinguished from that in man by the
co-instantaneity of the plan and the execution; the thought and the
product are one, or are given at once; but there is no reflex act, and
hence there is no moral responsibility. In man there is reflexion,
freedom, and choice; he is, therefore, the head of the visible creation.
In the objects of nature are presented, as in a mirror, all the possible
elements, steps, and processes of intellect antecedent to consciousness,
and therefore to the full development of the intelligential act; and
man's mind is the very focus of all the rays of intellect which are
scattered throughout the images of nature. Now so to place these images,
totalized, and fitted to the limits of the human mind, as to elicit
from, and to superinduce upon, the forms themselves the moral reflexions
to which they approximate, to make the external internal, the internal
external, to make nature thought, and thought nature,--this is the
mystery of genius in the Fine Arts. Dare I add that the genius must act
on the feeling, that body is but a striving to become mind,--that it is
mind in its essence!
In every work of art there is a reconcilement of the external with the
internal; the conscious is so impressed on the unconscious as to appear
in it; as compare mere letters inscribed on a tomb with figures
themselves constituting the tomb. He who combines the two is the man of
genius; and for that reason he must partake of both. Hence there is in
genius itself an unconscious activity; nay, that is the genius in the
man of genius. And this is the true exposition of the rule that the
artist must first eloign himself from nature in order to return to her
with full effect. Why this? Because if he were to begin by mere painful
copying, he would produce masks only, not forms breathing life. He must
out of his own mind create forms according to the severe laws of the
intellect, in order to generate in himself that co-ordination of freedom
and law, that involution of obedience in the prescript, and of the
prescript in the impulse to obey, which assimilates him to nature, and
enables him to understand her. He merely absents himself for a season
from her, that his own spirit, which has the same ground with nature,
may learn her unspoken language in its main radicals, before he
approaches to her endless compositions of them. Yes, not to acquire cold
notions--lifeless technical rules--but living and life-producing ideas,
which shall contain their own evidence, the certainty that they are
essentially one with the germinal causes in nature--his consciousness
being the focus and mirror of both,--for this does the artist for a time
abandon the external real in order to return to it with a complete
sympathy with its internal and actual. For of all we see, hear, feel and
touch the substance is and must be in ourselves; and therefore there is
no alternative in reason between the dreary (and thank heaven! almost
impossible) belief that every thing around us is but a phantom, or that
the life which is in us is in them likewise; and that to know is to
resemble, when we speak of objects out of ourselves, even as within
ourselves to learn is, according to Plato, only to recollect;--the only
effective answer to which, that I have been fortunate to meet with, is
that which Pope has consecrated for future use in the line--
And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin!
The artist must imitate that which is within the thing, that which is
active through form and figure, and discourses to us by symbols--the
'Natur-geist', or spirit of nature, as we unconsciously imitate those
whom we love; for so only can he hope to produce any work truly natural
in the object and truly human in the effect. The idea which puts the
form together cannot itself be the form. It is above form, and is its
essence, the universal in the individual, or the individuality
itself,--the glance and the exponent of the indwelling power.
Each thing that lives has its moment of self-exposition, and so has each
period of each thing, if we remove the disturbing forces of accident. To
do this is the business of ideal art, whether in images of childhood,
youth, or age, in man or in woman. Hence a good portrait is the abstract
of the personal; it is not the likeness for actual comparison, but for
recollection. This explains why the likeness of a very good portrait is
not always recognized; because some persons never abstract, and amongst
these are especially to be numbered the near relations and friends of
the subject, in consequence of the constant pressure and check exercised
on their minds by the actual presence of the original. And each thing
that only appears to live has also its possible position of relation to
life, as nature herself testifies, who, where she cannot be, prophecies
her being in the crystallized metal, or the inhaling plant.
The charm, the indispensable requisite, of sculpture is unity of effect.
But painting rests in a material remoter from nature, and its compass is
therefore greater. Light and shade give external, as well internal,
being even with all its accidents, whilst sculpture is confined to the
latter. And here I may observe that the subjects chosen for works of
art, whether in sculpture or painting, should be such as really are
capable of being expressed and conveyed within the limits of those arts.
Moreover they ought to be such as will affect the spectator by their
truth, their beauty, or their sublimity, and therefore they may be
addressed to the judgment, the senses, or the reason. The peculiarity of
the impression which they may make, may be derived either from colour
and form, or from proportion and fitness, or from the excitement of the
moral feelings; or all these maybe combined. Such works as do combine
these sources of effect must have the preference in dignity.
Imitation of the antique may be too exclusive, and may produce an
injurious effect on modern sculpture;--1st, generally, because such an
imitation cannot fail to have a tendency to keep the attention fixed on
externals rather than on the thought within;--2ndly, because,
accordingly, it leads the artist to rest satisfied with that which is
always imperfect, namely, bodily form, and circumscribes his views of
mental expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only;--3rdly,
because it induces an effort to combine together two incongruous things,
that is to say, modern feelings in antique forms;--4thly, because it
speaks in a language, as it were, learned and dead, the tones of which,
being unfamiliar, leave the common spectator cold and unimpressed;--and
lastly, because it necessarily causes a neglect of thoughts, emotions
and images of profounder interest and more exalted dignity, as motherly,
sisterly, and brotherly love, piety, devotion, the divine become
human,--the Virgin, the Apostle, the Christ. The artist's principle in
the statue of a great man should be the illustration of departed merit;
and I cannot but think that a skilful adoption of modern habiliments
would, in many instances, give a variety and force of effect which a
bigotted adherence to Greek or Roman costume precludes. It is, I
believe, from artists finding Greek models unfit for several important
modern purposes, that we see so many allegorical figures on monuments
and elsewhere. Painting was, as it were, a new art, and being unshackled
by old models it chose its own subjects, and took an eagle's flight. And
a new field seems opened for modern sculpture in the symbolical
expression of the ends of life, as in Guy's monument, Chantrey's
children in Worcester Cathedral, &c.
Architecture exhibits the greatest extent of the difference from nature
which may exist in works of art. It involves all the powers of design,
and is sculpture and painting inclusively. It shews the greatness of
man, and should at the same time teach him humility.
Music is the most entirely human of the fine arts, and has the fewest
'analoga' in nature. Its first delightfulness is simple accordance with
the ear; but it is an associated thing, and recalls the deep emotions of
the past with an intellectual sense of proportion. Every human feeling
is greater and larger than the exciting cause,--a proof, I think, that
man is designed for a higher state of existence; and this is deeply
implied in music in which there is always something more and beyond the
immediate expression.
With regard to works in all the branches of the fine arts, I may remark
that the pleasure arising from novelty must of course be allowed its due
place and weight. This pleasure consists in the identity of two opposite
elements, that is to say--sameness and variety. If in the midst of the
variety there be not some fixed object for the attention, the unceasing
succession of the variety will prevent the mind from observing the
difference of the individual objects; and the only thing remaining will
be the succession, which will then produce precisely the same effect as
sameness. This we experience when we let the trees or hedges pass before
the fixed eye during a rapid movement in a carriage, or on the other
hand, when we suffer a file of soldiers or ranks of men in procession to
go on before us without resting the eye on any one in particular. In
order to derive pleasure from the occupation of the mind, the principle
of unity must always be present, so that in the midst of the multeity
the centripetal force be never suspended, nor the sense be fatigued by
the predominance of the centrifugal force. This unity in multeity I have
elsewhere stated as the principle of beauty. It is equally the source of
pleasure in variety, and in fact a higher term including both. What is
the seclusive or distinguishing term between them?
Remember that there is a difference between form as proceeding, and
shape as superinduced;--the latter is either the death or the
imprisonment of the thing;--the former is its self-witnessing and
self-effected sphere of agency. Art would or should be the abridgment of
nature. Now the fulness of nature is without character, as water is
purest when without taste, smell, or colour; but this is the highest,
the apex only,--it is not the whole. The object of art is to give the
whole 'ad hominem'; hence each step of nature hath its ideal, and hence
the possibility of a climax up to the perfect form of a harmonized
chaos.
To the idea of life victory or strife is necessary; as virtue consists
not simply in the absence of vices, but in the overcoming of them. So it
is in beauty. The sight of what is subordinated and conquered heightens
the strength and the pleasure; and this should be exhibited by the
artist either inclusively in his figure, or else out of it and beside it
to act by way of supplement and contrast. And with a view to this,
remark the seeming identity of body and mind in infants, and thence the
loveliness of the former; the commencing separation in boyhood, and the
struggle of equilibrium in youth: thence onward the body is first simply
indifferent; then demanding the translucency of the mind not to be worse
than indifferent; and finally all that presents the body as body
becoming almost of an excremental nature.
LECTURE XIV.
ON STYLE.
I have, I believe, formerly observed with regard to the character of the
governments of the East, that their tendency was despotic, that is,
towards unity; whilst that of the Greek governments, on the other hand,
leaned to the manifold and the popular, the unity in them being purely
ideal, namely of all as an identification of the whole. In the northern
or Gothic nations the aim and purpose of the government were the
preservation of the rights and interests of the individual in
conjunction with those of the whole. The individual interest was sacred.
In the character and tendency of the Greek and Gothic languages there is
precisely the same relative difference. In Greek the sentences are long,
and the structure architectural, so that each part or clause is
insignificant when compared with the whole. The result is every thing,
the steps and processes nothing. But in the Gothic and, generally, in
what we call the modern, languages, the structure is short, simple, and
complete in each part, and the connexion of the parts with the sum total
of the discourse is maintained by the sequency of the logic, or the
community of feelings excited between the writer and his readers. As an
instance equally delightful and complete, of what may be called the
Gothic structure as contra-distinguished from that of the Greeks, let me
cite a part of our famous Chaucer's character of a parish priest as he
should be. Can it ever be quoted too often?
A good man thér was of religiöun
That was a pouré Parsone of a toun,
But riche he was of holy thought and werk;
He was alsó a lerned man, a clerk,
That Cristés gospel trewély wolde preche;
His párishens [1] devoutly wolde he teche;
Benigne he was, and wonder [2] diligent,
And in adversite ful patient,
And swiche [3] he was ypreved [4] often sithes [5];
Ful loth were him to cursen for his tithes,
But rather wolde he yeven [6] out of doute
Unto his pouré párishens aboute
Of hís offríng, and eke of his substánce;
He coude in litel thing have suffisance:
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder,
But he ne [7] left nought for no rain ne [8] thonder,
In sikenesse and in mischief to visíte
The ferrest [9] in his parish moche and lite [10]
Upon his fete, and in his hand a staf:
This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf, [11]
That first he wrought, and afterward he taught,
Out of the gospel he the wordés caught,
And this figúre he added yet thereto,
That if gold rusté, what should iren do.
He setté not his benefice to hire,
And lette [12] his shepe accombred [13] in the mire,
And ran untó Londón untó Seint Poules,
To seken him a chantérie for soules,
Or with a brotherhede to be withold,
But dwelt at home, and kepté wel his fold,
So that the wolf ne made it not miscarie:
He was a shepherd and no mercenarie;
And though he holy were and vertuous,
He was to sinful men not dispitous, [14]
Ne of his speché dangerous ne digne, [15]
But in his teching discrete and benigne,
To drawen folk to heven with fairénesse,
By good ensample was his besinesse;
But it were any persone obstinat,
What so he were of high or low estat,
Him wolde he snibben [16] sharply for the nones:
A better preest I trowe that no wher non is;
He waited after no pompe ne reverence,
He maked him no spiced conscience,
But Cristés love and his apostles' twelve
He taught, but first he folwed it himselve. [17]
[Footnote 1: Parishioners.] [Footnote 2: Wondrous.]
[Footnote 3: Such.] [Footnote 4: Proved.]
[Footnote 5: Times.] [Footnote 6: Give or have given.]
[Footnote 7: Not.] [Footnote 8: Nor.]
[Footnote 9: Farthest.] [Footnote 10: Great and small.]
[Footnote 11: Gave.] [Footnote 12: Left.]
[Footnote 13: Encumbered.] [Footnote 14: Despiteous.]
[Footnote 15: Proud.] [Footnote 16: Reprove.]
[Footnote: Prologue to Canterbury Tales.]
Such change as really took place in the style of our literature after
Chaucer's time is with difficulty perceptible, on account of the dearth
of writers, during the civil wars of the 15th century. But the
transition was not very great; and accordingly we find in Latimer and
our other venerable authors about the time of Edward VI. as in Luther,
the general characteristics of the earliest manner;--that is, every part
popular, and the discourse addressed to all degrees of intellect;--the
sentences short, the tone vehement, and the connexion of the whole
produced by honesty and singleness of purpose, intensity of passion, and
pervading importance of the subject.
Another and a very different species of style is that which was derived
from, and founded on, the admiration and cultivation of the classical
writers, and which was more exclusively addressed to the learned class
in society. I have previously mentioned Boccaccio as the original
Italian introducer of this manner, and the great models of it in English
are Hooker, Bacon, Milton, and Taylor, although it may be traced in many
other authors of that age. In all these the language is dignified but
plain, genuine English, although elevated and brightened by superiority
of intellect in the writer. Individual words themselves are always used
by them in their precise meaning, without either affectation or
slipslop. The letters and state papers of Sir Francis Walsingham are
remarkable for excellence in style of this description. In Jeremy Taylor
the sentences are often extremely long, and yet are generally so
perspicuous in consequence of their logical structure, that they require
no reperusal to be understood; and it is for the most part the same in
Milton and Hooker.
Take the following sentence as a specimen of the sort of style to which
I have been alluding:--
Concerning Faith, the principal object whereof is that eternal verity
which hath discovered the treasures of hidden wisdom in Christ;
concerning Hope, the highest object whereof is that everlasting
goodness which in Christ doth quicken the dead; concerning Charity,
the final object whereof is that incomprehensible beauty which shineth
in the countenance of Christ, the Son of the living God: concerning
these virtues, the first of which beginning here with a weak
apprehension of things not seen, endeth with the intuitive vision of
God in the world to come; the second beginning here with a trembling
expectation of things far removed, and as yet but only heard of,
endeth with real and actual fruition of that which no tongue can
express; the third beginning here with a weak inclination of heart
towards him unto whom we are not able to approach, endeth with endless
union, the mystery whereof is higher than the reach of the thoughts of
men; concerning that Faith, Hope, and Charity, without which there can
be no salvation, was there ever any mention made saving only in that
Law which God himself hath from Heaven revealed? There is not in the
world a syllable muttered with certain truth concerning any of these
three, more than hath been supernaturally received from the mouth of
the eternal God.
Eccles. 'Pol.' I. s. 11.
The unity in these writers is produced by the unity of the subject, and
the perpetual growth and evolution of the thoughts, one generating, and
explaining, and justifying, the place of another, not, as it is in
Seneca, where the thoughts, striking as they are, are merely strung
together like beads, without any causation or progression. The words are
selected because they are the most appropriate, regard being had to the
dignity of the total impression, and no merely big phrases are used
where plain ones would have sufficed, even in the most learned of their
works.
There is some truth in a remark, which I believe was made by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, that the greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation,
and that the next greatest is he who corrupts it. The true classical
style of Hooker and his fellows was easily open to corruption; and Sir
Thomas Brown it was, who, though a writer of great genius, first
effectually injured the literary taste of the nation by his introduction
of learned words, merely because they were learned. It would be
difficult to describe Brown adequately; exuberant in conception and
conceit, dignified, hyperlatinistic, a quiet and sublime enthusiast; yet
a fantast, a humourist, a brain with a twist; egotistic like Montaigne,
yet with a feeling heart and an active curiosity, which, however, too
often degenerates into a hunting after oddities. In his
'Hydriotaphia' and, indeed, almost all his works the entireness of
his mental action is very observable; he metamorphoses every thing, be
it what it may, into the subject under consideration. But Sir Thomas
Brown with all his faults had a genuine idiom; and it is the existence
of an individual idiom in each, that makes the principal writers before
the Restoration the great patterns or integers of English style. In them
the precise intended meaning of a word can never be mistaken; whereas in
the later writers, as especially in Pope, the use of words is for the
most part purely arbitrary, so that the context will rarely show the
true specific sense, but only that something of the sort is designed. A
perusal of the authorities cited by Johnson in his dictionary under any
leading word, will give you a lively sense of this declension in
etymological truth of expression in the writers after the Restoration,
or perhaps, strictly, after the middle of the reign of Charles II.
The general characteristic of the style of our literature down to the
period which I have just mentioned, was gravity, and in Milton and some
other writers of his day there are perceptible traces of the sternness
of republicanism. Soon after the Restoration a material change took
place, and the cause of royalism was graced, sometimes disgraced, by
every shade of lightness of manner. A free and easy style was considered
as a test of loyalty, or at all events, as a badge of the cavalier
party; you may detect it occasionally even in Barrow, who is, however,
in general remarkable for dignity and logical sequency of expression;
but in L'Estrange, Collyer, and the writers of that class, this easy
manner was carried out to the utmost extreme of slang and ribaldry. Yet
still the works, even of these last authors, have considerable merit in
one point of view; their language is level to the understandings of all
men; it is an actual transcript of the colloquialism of the day, and is
accordingly full of life and reality. Roger North's life of his brother
the Lord Keeper, is the most valuable specimen of this class of our
literature; it is delightful, and much beyond any other of the writings
of his contemporaries.
From the common opinion that the English style attained its greatest
perfection in and about Queen Ann's reign I altogether dissent; not only
because it is in one species alone in which it can be pretended that the
writers of that age excelled their predecessors, but also because the
specimens themselves are not equal, upon sound principles of judgment,
to much that had been produced before. The classical structure of
Hooker--the impetuous, thought-agglomerating, flood of Taylor--to these
there is no pretence of a parallel; and for mere ease and grace, is
Cowley inferior to Addison, being as he is so much more thoughtful and
full of fancy? Cowley, with the omission of a quaintness here and there,
is probably the best model of style for modern imitation in general.
Taylor's periods have been frequently attempted by his admirers; you
may, perhaps, just catch the turn of a simile or single image, but to
write in the real manner of Jeremy Taylor would require as mighty a mind
as his. Many parts of Algernon Sidney's treatises afford excellent
exemplars of a good modern practical style; and Dryden in his prose
works, is a still better model, if you add a stricter and purer grammar.
It is, indeed, worthy of remark that all our great poets have been good
prose writers, as Chaucer, Spenser, Milton; and this probably arose from
their just sense of metre. For a true poet will never confound verse and
prose; whereas it is almost characteristic of indifferent prose writers
that they should be constantly slipping into scraps of metre. Swift's
style is, in its line, perfect; the manner is a complete expression of
the matter, the terms appropriate, and the artifice concealed. It is
simplicity in the true sense of the word.
After the Revolution, the spirit of the nation became much more
commercial, than it had been before; a learned body, or clerisy, as
such, gradually disappeared, and literature in general began to be
addressed to the common miscellaneous public. That public had become
accustomed to, and required, a strong stimulus; and to meet the
requisitions of the public taste, a style was produced which by
combining triteness of thought with singularity and excess of manner of
expression, was calculated at once to soothe ignorance and to flatter
vanity. The thought was carefully kept down to the immediate
apprehension of the commonest understanding, and the dress was as
anxiously arranged for the purpose of making the thought appear
something very profound. The essence of this style consisted in a mock
antithesis, that is, an opposition of mere sounds, in a rage for
personification, the abstract made animate, far-fetched metaphors,
strange phrases, metrical scraps, in every thing, in short, but genuine
prose. Style is, of course, nothing else but the art of conveying the
meaning appropriately and with perspicuity, whatever that meaning may
be, and one criterion of style is that it shall not be translateable
without injury to the meaning. Johnson's style has pleased many from the
very fault of being perpetually translateable; he creates an impression
of cleverness by never saying any thing in a common way. The best
specimen of this manner is in Junius, because his antithesis is less
merely verbal than Johnson's. Gibbon's manner is the worst of all; it
has every fault of which this peculiar style is capable. Tacitus is an
example of it in Latin; in coming from Cicero you feel the
'falsetto' immediately.
In order to form a good style, the primary rule and condition is, not to
attempt to express ourselves in language before we thoroughly know our
own meaning;--when a man perfectly understands himself, appropriate
diction will generally be at his command either in writing or speaking.
In such cases the thoughts and the words are associated. In the next
place preciseness in the use of terms is required, and the test is
whether you can translate the phrase adequately into simpler terms,
regard being had to the feeling of the whole passage. Try this upon
Shakspeare, or Milton, and see if you can substitute other simpler words
in any given passage without a violation of the meaning or tone. The
source of bad writing is the desire to be something more than a man of
sense,--the straining to be thought a genius; and it is just the same in
speech making. If men would only say what they have to say in plain
terms, how much more eloquent they would be! Another rule is to avoid
converting mere abstractions into persons. I believe you will very
rarely find in any great writer before the Revolution the possessive
case of an inanimate noun used in prose instead of the dependent case,
as 'the watch's hand,' for 'the hand of the watch.' The possessive or
Saxon genitive was confined to persons, or at least to animated
subjects. And I cannot conclude this Lecture without insisting on the
importance of accuracy of style as being near akin to veracity and
truthful habits of mind; he who thinks loosely will write loosely, and,
perhaps, there is some moral inconvenience in the common forms of our
grammars which give children so many obscure terms for material
distinctions. Let me also exhort you to careful examination of what you
read, if it be worth any perusal at all; such examination will be a
safeguard from fanaticism, the universal origin of which is in the
contemplation of phenomena without investigation into their causes.
NOTES ON SIR THOMAS BROWN'S 'RELIGIO MEDICI'. 1802. [1]
Strong feeling and an active intellect conjoined, lead almost
necessarily, in the first stage of philosophising, to Spinosism. Sir T.
Brown was a Spinosist without knowing it.
If I have not quite all the faith that the author of the 'Religio Medici'
possessed, I have all the inclination to it; it gives me pleasure to
believe.
The postscript at the very end of the book is well worth reading. Sir K.
Digby's observations, however, are those of a pedant in his own system
and opinion. He ought to have considered the R. M. in a dramatic, and
not in a metaphysical, view, as a sweet exhibition of character and
passion, and not as an expression, or investigation, of positive truth.
The R. M. is a fine portrait of a handsome man in his best clothes; it
is much of what he was at all times, a good deal of what he was only in
his best moments. I have never read a book in which I felt greater
similarity to my own make of mind--active in inquiry, and yet with an
appetite to believe--in short an affectionate visionary! But then I
should tell a different tale of my own heart; for I would not only
endeavour to tell the truth, (which I doubt not Sir T. B. has done), but
likewise to tell the whole truth, which most assuredly he has not done.
However, it is a most delicious book. His own character was a fine
mixture of humourist, genius, and pedant. A library was a living world
to him, and every book a man, absolute flesh and blood! and the gravity
with which he records contradictory opinions is exquisite.
(Part 1. sect. 9.)
Now contrarily, I bless myself, and am thankful that I lived not in
the days of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor his disciples, &c.
So say I.
(S. 15.)
I could never content my contemplation with those general pieces of
wonder, the flux and reflux of the sea, the increase of Nile, the
conversion of the needle to the north; and have studied to match and
parallel those in the more obvious and neglected pieces of nature;
which without further travel I can do in the cosmography of myself; we
carry with us the wonders we seek without us. There is all Africa and
her prodigies in us; we are that bold and adventurous piece of nature,
which he that studies wisely learns in a 'compendium' what others
labour at in a divided piece and endless volume.
This is the true characteristic of genius; our destiny and instinct is
to unriddle the world, and he is the man of genius who feels this
instinct fresh and strong in his nature; who perceiving the riddle and
the mystery of all things even the commonest, needs no strange and
out-of-the-way tales or images to stimulate him into wonder and a deep
interest.
(S. 16, 17.)
All this is very fine philosophy, and the best and most ingenious
defence of revelation. Moreover, I do hold and believe that a toad is
a comely animal; but nevertheless a toad is called ugly by almost all
men, and it is the business of a philosopher to explain the reason of
this.
S. 19. This is exceedingly striking. Had Sir T. B. lived now-a-days, he
would probably have been a very ingenious and bold infidel in his real
opinions, though the kindness of his nature would have kept him aloof
from vulgar prating obtrusive infidelity.
S. 35. An excellent burlesque on parts of the Schoolmen, though I
believe an unintentional one.
S. 36. Truly sublime--and in Sir T. B.'s very best manner.
S. 39. This is a most admirable passage. Yes,--the history of a man for
the nine months preceding his birth, would, probably, be far more
interesting, and contain events of greater moment than all the three
score and ten years that follow it.
(S. 48.)
This is made good by experience, which can from the ashes of a plant
revive the plant, and from its cinders recall it into its stalks and
leaves again.
Stuff. This was, I believe, some lying boast of Paracelsus, which the
good Sir T. B. has swallowed for a fact.
(Part II. s. 2.)
I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and
accomplish the will and command of my God.
We ought not to relieve a poor man merely because our own feelings impel
us, but because these feelings are just and proper feelings. My feelings
might impel me to revenge with the same force with which they urge me to
charity. I must therefore have some rule by which I may judge my
feelings,--and this rule is God's will.
(S. 5, 6.)
I never yet cast a true affection on a woman; but I have loved my
friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God.
We cannot love a friend as a woman; but we may love a woman as a friend.
Friendship satisfies the highest parts of our nature; but a wife, who is
capable of friendship, satisfies all. The great business of real
unostentatious virtue is--not to eradicate any genuine instinct or
appetite of human nature; but--to establish a concord and unity betwixt
all parts of our nature, to give a feeling and a passion to our purer
intellect, and to intellectualize our feelings and passions. This a
happy marriage, blest with children, effectuates in the highest degree,
of which our nature is capable, and is therefore chosen by St. Paul as
the symbol of the union of the church with Christ; that is, of the souls
of all good men with God. "I scarcely distinguish," said once a good old
man, "the wife of my old age from the wife of my youth; for when we were
both young, and she was beautiful, for once that I caressed her with a
meaner passion, I caressed her a thousand times with love--and these
caresses still remain to us." Besides, there is another reason why
friendship is of somewhat less value than love, which includes
friendship, it is this--we may love many persons, all very dearly; but
we cannot love many persons all equally dearly. There will be
differences, there will be gradations. But our nature imperiously asks a
summit, a resting-place; it is with the affections in love as with the
reason in religion, we cannot diffuse and equalize; we must have a
supreme, a one, the highest. What is more common than to say of a man in
love, 'he idolizes her,' 'he makes a god of her?' Now, in order that a
person should continue to love another better than all others, it seems
necessary, that this feeling should be reciprocal. For if it be not so,
sympathy is broken off in the very highest point. A. (we will say by way
of illustration) loves B. above all others, in the best and fullest
sense of the word, love, but B. loves C. above all others. Either,
therefore, A. does not sympathize with B. in this most important
feeling; and then his love must necessarily be incomplete, and
accompanied with a craving after something that is not, and yet might
be; or he does sympathize with B. in loving C. above all others--and
then, of course, he loves C. better than B. Now it is selfishness, at
least it seems so to me, to desire that your friend should love you
better than all others--but not to wish that a wife should.
(S. 6.)
Another misery there is in affection, that whom we truly love like
ourselves, we forget their looks, nor can our memory retain the idea
of their faces; and it is no wonder: for they are ourselves, and our
affection makes their looks our own.
A thought I have often had, and once expressed it in almost the same
language. The fact is certain, but the explanation here given is very
unsatisfactory. For why do we never have an image of our own faces--an
image of fancy, I mean?
(S. 7.)
I can hold there is no such thing as injury; that if there be, there
is no such injury as revenge, and no such revenge as the contempt of
an injury; that to hate another, is to malign himself, and that the
truest way to love another is to despise ourselves.
I thank God that I can, with a full and unfeigning heart, utter Amen to
this passage.
(S. 10.)
In brief, there can be nothing truly alone, and by itself, which is
not truly one; and such is only God.
Reciprocity is that which alone gives stability to love. It is not mere
selfishness that impels all kind natures to desire that there should be
some one human being, to whom they are most dear. It is because they
wish some one being to exist, who shall be the resting place and summit
of their love; and this in human nature is not possible, unless the two
affections coincide. The reason is, that the object of the highest love
will not otherwise be the same in both parties.
(S. 11.)
I thank God for my happy dreams, &c.
I am quite different from Sir T. B. in this; for all, or almost all, the
painful and fearful thoughts that I know, are in my dreams;--so much so,
that when I am wounded by a friend, or receive an unpleasant letter, it
throws me into a state very nearly resembling that of a dream.
(S. 13.)
Statists that labour to contrive a commonwealth without any poverty,
take away the object of our charity, not only not understanding the
commonwealth of a Christian, but forgetting the prophecies of Christ.
O, for shame! for shame! Is there no fit object of charity but abject
poverty? And what sort of a charity must that be which wishes misery
in order that it may have the credit of relieving a small part of
it,--pulling down the comfortable cottages of independent industry to
build alms-houses out of the ruins!
This book paints certain parts of my moral and intellectual being, (the
best parts, no doubt,) better than any other book I have ever met
with;--and the style is throughout delicious.
[Footnote 1: Communicated by Mr. Wordsworth. Ed.]
NOTES ON JUNIUS. 1807.
'Stat nominis umbra'.
As he never dropped the mask, so he too often used the poisoned dagger
of an assassin.
'Dedication to the English nation'.
The whole of this dedication reads like a string of aphorisms arranged
in chapters, and classified by a resemblance of subject, or a cento of
points.
(Ib.)
If an honest, and I may truly affirm a laborious, zeal for the public
service has given me any weight in your esteem, let me exhort and
conjure you never to suffer an invasion of your political
constitution, however minute the instance may appear, to pass by,
without a determined persevering resistance.
A longer sentence and proportionately inelegant.
(Ib.)
If you reflect that in the changes of administration which have marked
and disgraced the present reign, although your warmest patriots have,
in their turn, been invested with the lawful and unlawful authority of
the crown, and though other reliefs or improvements have been held
forth to the people, yet that no one man in office has ever promoted
or encouraged a bill for shortening the duration of parliaments, but
that (whoever was minister) the opposition to this measure, ever since
the septennial act passed, has been constant and uniform on the part
of government.
Long, and as usual, inelegant. Junius cannot manage a long sentence; it
has all the 'ins' and 'outs' of a snappish figure-dance.
Preface.
An excellent preface, and the sentences not so snipt as in the
dedication. The paragraph near the conclusion beginning with "some
opinion may now be expected," &c. and ending with "relation between
guilt and punishment," deserves to be quoted as a master-piece of
rhetorical ratiocination in a series of questions that permit no answer;
or (as Junius says) carry their own answer along with them. The great
art of Junius is never to say too much, and to avoid with equal anxiety
a commonplace manner, and matter that is not commonplace. If ever he
deviates into any originality of thought, he takes care that it shall be
such as excites surprise for its acuteness, rather than admiration for
its profundity. He takes care? say rather, that nature took care for
him. It is impossible to detract from the merit of these Letters: they
are suited to their purpose, and perfect in their kind. They impel to
action, not thought. Had they been profound or subtle in thought, or
majestic and sweeping in composition, they would have been adapted for
the closet of a Sidney, or for a House of Lords such as it was in the
time of Lord Bacon; but they are plain and sensible whenever the author
is in the right, and whether right or wrong, always shrewd and
epigrammatic, and fitted for the coffee-house, the exchange, the lobby
of the House of Commons, and to be read aloud at a public meeting. When
connected, dropping the forms of connection, desultory without
abruptness or appearance of disconnection, epigrammatic and antithetical
to excess, sententious and personal, regardless of right or wrong, yet
well-skilled to act the part of an honest warm-hearted man, and even
when he is in the right, saying the truth but never proving it, much
less attempting to bottom it,--this is the character of Junius;--and on
this character, and in the mould of these writings must every man cast
himself, who would wish in factious times to be the important and long
remembered agent of a faction. I believe that I could do all that Junius
has done, and surpass him by doing many things which he has not done:
for example,--by an occasional induction of startling facts, in the
manner of Tom Paine, and lively illustrations and witty applications of
good stories and appropriate anecdotes in the manner of Horne Tooke. I
believe I could do it if it were in my nature to aim at this sort of
excellence, or to be enamoured of the fame, and immediate influence,
which would be its consequence and reward. But it is not in my nature. I
not only love truth, but I have a passion for the legitimate
investigation of truth. The love of truth conjoined with a keen delight
in a strict and skillful yet impassioned argumentation, is my
master-passion, and to it are subordinated even the love of liberty and
all my public feelings--and to it whatever I labour under of vanity,
ambition, and all my inward impulses.
Letter I. From this Letter all the faults and excellencies of Junius
may be exemplified. The moral and political aphorisms are just and
sensible, the irony in which his personal satire is conveyed is fine,
yet always intelligible; but it approaches too nearly to the nature of a
sneer; the sentences are cautiously constructed without the forms of
connection; the 'he' and 'it' everywhere substituted for the
'who' and 'which'; the sentences are short, laboriously
balanced, and the antitheses stand the test of analysis much better than
Johnson's. These are all excellencies in their kind;--where is the
defect? In this;--there is too much of each, and there is a defect of
many things, the presence of which would have been not only valuable for
their own sakes, but for the relief and variety which they would have
given. It is observable too that every Letter adds to the faults of
these Letters, while it weakens the effect of their beauties.
L. III. A capital letter, addressed to a private person, and intended as
a sharp reproof for intrusion. Its short sentences, its witty
perversions and deductions, its questions and omissions of connectives,
all in their proper places, are dramatically good.
(L. V.)
For my own part, I willingly leave it to the public to determine
whether your vindication of your friend has been as able and judicious
as it was certainly well intended; and you, I think, may be satisfied
with the warm acknowledgements he already owes you for making him the
principal figure in a piece in which, but for your amicable
assistance, he might have passed without particular notice or
distinction.
A long sentence and, as usual, inelegant and cumbrous. This Letter is a
faultless composition with exception of the one long sentence.
(L. VII.)
These are the gloomy companions of a disturbed 'imagination'; the
melancholy madness of poetry, without the 'inspiration'.
The rhyme is a fault. 'Fancy' had been better; though but for the rhyme,
imagination is the fitter word.
(Ib.)
Such a question might perhaps discompose the gravity of his muscles,
but I believe it would little affect the tranquillity of his
conscience.
A false antithesis, a mere verbal balance; there are far, far too many
of these. However, with these few exceptions, this Letter is a blameless
composition. Junius may be safely studied as a model for letters where
he truly writes letters. Those to the Duke of Grafton and others, are
small pamphlets in the form of letters.
(L. VIII.)
To do justice to your Grace's humanity, you felt for Mac Quick as you
ought to do; and, if you had been contented to assist him indirectly,
without a notorious denial of justice, or openly insulting the sense
of the nation, you might have satisfied every duty of political
friendship, without committing the honour of your sovereign, or
hazarding the reputation of his government.
An inelegant cluster of 'withouts'. Junius asks questions
incomparably well;--but 'ne quid nimis'.
L. IX. Perhaps the fair way of considering these Letters would be as a
kind of satirical poems; the short, and for ever balanced, sentences
constitute a true metre; and the connection is that of satiric poetry, a
witty logic, an association of thoughts by amusing semblances of cause
and effect, the sophistry of which the reader has an interest in not
stopping to detect, for it flatters his love of mischief, and makes the
sport.
L. XII. One of Junius's arts, and which gives me a high notion of his
genius, as a poet and satirist, is this:--he takes for granted the
existence of a character that never did and never can exist, and then
employs his wit, and surprises and amuses his readers with analyzing its
incompatibilities.
L. XIV. Continual sneer, continual irony, all excellent, if it were not
for the 'all;'--but a countenance, with a malignant smile in statuary
fixure on it, becomes at length an object of aversion, however beautiful
the face, and however beautiful the smile. We are relieved, in some
measure, from this by frequent just and well expressed moral aphorisms;
but then the preceding and following irony gives them the appearance of
proceeding from the head, not from the heart. This objection would be
less felt, when the Letters were first published at considerable
intervals; but Junius wrote for posterity.
L. XXIII. Sneer and irony continued with such gross violation of good
sense, as to be perfectly nonsense. The man who can address another on
his most detestable vices in a strain of cold continual irony, is
himself a wretch.
(L. XXXV.)
To honour them with a determined predilection and confidence in
exclusion of your English subjects, who placed your family, and, in
spite of treachery and rebellion, have supported it upon the throne,
is a mistake too gross even for the unsuspecting generosity of youth.
The words 'upon the throne', stand unfortunately for the harmonious
effect of the balance of 'placed' and 'supported.'
This address to the king is almost faultless in composition, and has
been evidently tormented with the file. But it has fewer beauties than
any other long letter of Junius; and it is utterly undramatic. There is
nothing in the style, the transitions, or the sentiments, which
represents the passions of a man emboldening himself to address his
sovereign personally. Like a Presbyterian's prayer, you may substitute
almost every where the third for the second person without injury. The
newspaper, his closet, and his own person were alone present to the
author's intention and imagination. This makes the composition vapid. It
possesses an Isocratic correctness, when it should have had the force
and drama of an oration of Demosthenes. From this, however, the
paragraph beginning with the words "As to the Scotch," and also the last
two paragraphs must be honourably excepted. They are, perhaps, the
finest passages in the whole collection.
NOTES ON BARCLAY'S 'ARGENIS'. 1803. [1]
Heaven forbid that this work should not exist in its present form and
language! Yet I cannot avoid the wish that it had, during the reign of
James I., been moulded into an heroic poem in English octave stanza, or
epic blank verse;--which, however, at that time had not been invented,
and which, alas! still remains the sole property of the inventor, as if
the Muses had given him an unevadible patent for it. Of dramatic blank
verse we have many and various specimens;--for example, Shakspeare's as
compared with Massinger's, both excellent in their kind:--of lyric, and
of what may be called Orphic, or philosophic, blank verse, perfect
models may be found in Wordsworth: of colloquial blank verse there are
excellent, though not perfect, examples in Cowper;--but of epic blank
verse, since Milton, there is not one.
It absolutely distresses me when I reflect that this work, admired as it
has been by great men of all ages, and lately, I hear, by the poet
Cowper, should be only not unknown to general readers. It has been
translated into English two or three times--how, I know not, wretchedly,
I doubt not. It affords matter for thought that the last translation (or
rather, in all probability, miserable and faithless abridgment of some
former one) was given under another name. What a mournful proof of the
incelebrity of this great and amazing work among both the public and the
people! For as Wordsworth, the greater of the two great men of this
age,--(at least, except Davy and him, I have known, read of, heard of,
no others)--for as Wordsworth did me the honour of once observing to me,
the people and the public are two distinct classes, and, as things go,
the former is likely to retain a better taste, the less it is acted out
by the latter. Yet Telemachus is in every mouth, in every school-boy's
and school-girl's hand! It is awful to say of a work, like the Argenis,
the style and Latinity of which, judged (not according to classical
pedantry, which pronounces every sentence right which can be found in
any book prior to Boetius, however vicious the age, or affected the
author, and every sentence wrong, however natural and beautiful, which
has been of the author's own combination),--but, according to the
universal logic of thought as modified by feeling, is equal to that of
Tacitus in energy and genuine conciseness, and is as perspicuous as that
of Livy, whilst it is free from the affectations, obscurities, and lust
to surprise of the former, and seems a sort of antithesis to the
slowness and prolixity of the latter;--(this remark does not, however,
impeach even the classicality of the language, which, when the freedom
and originality, the easy motion and perfect command of the thoughts,
are considered, is truly wonderful:--of such a work it is awful to say,
that it would have been well if it had been written in English or
Italian verse! Yet the event seems to justify the notion. Alas! it is
now too late. What modern work, even of the size of the 'Paradise
Lost'--much less of the 'Faery Queene'--would be read in the present day,
or even bought or be likely to be bought, unless it were an instructive
work, as the phrase is, like Roscoe's quartos of Leo X., or entertaining
like Boswell's three of Dr. Johnson's conversations. It may be fairly
objected--what work of surpassing merit has given the proof?--Certainly,
none. Yet still there are ominous facts, sufficient, I fear, to afford a
certain prophecy of its reception, if such were produced.
[Footnote 1: Communicated by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge. Ed.]
NOTE IN CASAUBON'S 'PERSIUS'. 1807.
There are six hundred and sixteen pages in this volume, of which
twenty-two are text; and five hundred and ninety-four commentary and
introductory matter. Yet when I recollect, that I have the whole works
of Cicero, Livy, and Quinctilian, with many others,--the whole works of
each in a single volume, either thick quarto with thin paper and small
yet distinct print, or thick octavo or duodecimo of the same character,
and that they cost me in the proportion of a shilling to a guinea for
the same quantity of worse matter in modern books, or editions,--I a
poor man, yet one whom [Greek (transliterated): Biblion ktaeseos ek
paidariou deinos ekrataese pothos] feel the liveliest gratitude for the
age, which produced such editions, and for the education, which by
enabling me to understand and taste the Greek and Latin writers, has
thus put it in my power to collect on my own shelves, for my actual use,
almost all the best books in spite of my small income. Somewhat too I am
indebted to the ostentation of expense among the rich, which has
occasioned these cheap editions to become so disproportionately cheap.
NOTES ON CHAPMAN'S HOMER.
EXTRACT OF A LETTER SENT WITH THE VOLUME. [1] 1807.
Chapman I have sent in order that you might read the 'Odyssey'; the
'Iliad' is fine, but less equal in the translation, as well as less
interesting in itself. What is stupidly said of Shakspeare, is really
true and appropriate of Chapman; mighty faults counterpoised by mighty
beauties. Excepting his quaint epithets which he affects to render
literally from the Greek, a language above all others blest in the happy
marriage of sweet words, and which in our language are mere printer's
compound epithets--such as quaffed divine
'joy-in-the-heart-of-man-infusing' wine, (the undermarked is to be one
word, because one sweet mellifluous word expresses it in
Homer);--excepting this, it has no look, no air, of a translation. It is
as truly an original poem as the 'Faery Queene';--it will give you small
idea of Homer, though a far truer one than Pope's epigrams, or Cowper's
cumbersome most anti-Homeric Miltonism. For Chapman writes and feels as
a poet,--as Homer might have written had he lived in England in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth. In short, it is an exquisite poem, in spite of
its frequent and perverse quaintnesses and harshnesses, which are,
however, amply repaid by almost unexampled sweetness and beauty of
language, all over spirit and feeling. In the main it is an English
heroic poem, the tale of which is borrowed from the Greek. The
dedication to the 'Iliad' is a noble copy of verses, especially those
sublime lines beginning,--
O!'tis wondrous much
(Though nothing prisde) that the right vertuous touch
Of a well written soule, to vertue moves.
Nor haue we soules to purpose, if their loves
Of fitting objects be not so inflam'd.
How much then, were this kingdome's maine soule maim'd,
To want this great inflamer of all powers
That move in humane soules! All realmes but yours,
Are honor'd with him; and hold blest that state
That have his workes to reade and contemplate.
In which, humanitie to her height is raisde;
Which all the world (yet, none enough) hath praisde.
Seas, earth, and heaven, he did in verse comprize;
Out sung the Muses, and did equalise
Their king Apollo; being so farre from cause
Of princes light thoughts, that their gravest lawes
May finde stuffe to be fashiond by his lines.
Through all the pompe of kingdomes still he shines
And graceth all his gracers. Then let lie
Your lutes, and viols, and more loftily
Make the heroiques of your Homer sung,
To drums and trumpets set his Angels tongue:
And with the princely sports of haukes you use,
Behold the kingly flight of his high Muse:
And see how like the Phöenix she renues
Her age, and starrie feathers in your sunne;
Thousands of yeares attending; everie one
Blowing the holy fire, and throwing in
Their seasons, kingdomes, nations that have bin
Subverted in them; lawes, religions, all
Offerd to change, and greedie funerall;
Yet still your Homer lasting, living, raigning.--
and likewise the 1st, the 11th, and last but one, of the prefatory
sonnets to the 'Odyssey'. Could I have foreseen any other speedy
opportunity, I should have begged your acceptance of the volume in a
somewhat handsomer coat; but as it is, it will better represent the
sender,--to quote from myself--
A man disherited, in form and face,
By nature and mishap, of outward grace. [2]
Chapman in his moral heroic verse, as in this dedication and the
prefatory sonnets to his 'Odyssey', stands above Ben Jonson; there is more
dignity, more lustre, and equal strength; but not midway quite between
him and the sonnets of Milton. I do not know whether I give him the
higher praise, in that he reminds me of Ben Jonson with a sense of his
superior excellence, or that he brings Milton to memory notwithstanding
his inferiority. His moral poems are not quite out of books like
Jonson's, nor yet do the sentiments so wholly grow up out of his own
natural habit and grandeur of thought, as in Milton. The sentiments have
been attracted to him by a natural affinity of his intellect, and so
combined;-but Jonson has taken them by individual and successive acts of
choice. [3]
All this and the preceding is well felt and vigorously, though harshly,
expressed, respecting sublime poetry 'in genere'; but in reading
Homer I look about me, and ask how does all this apply here. For surely
never was there plainer writing; there are a thousand charms of sun and
moonbeam, ripple, and wave, and stormy billow, but all on the surface.
Had Chapman read Proclus and Porphyry?--and did he really believe
them,--or even that they believed themselves? They felt the immense
power of a Bible, a Shaster, a Koran. There was none in Greece or Rome,
and they tried therefore by subtle allegorical accommodations to conjure
the poem of Homer into the [Greek (transliterated): biblon
theoparadoton] of Greek faith. [4]
Chapman's identification of his fate with Homer's, and his complete
forgetfulness of the distinction between Christianity and idolatry,
under the general feeling of some religion, is very interesting. It is
amusing to observe, how familiar Chapman's fancy has become with Homer,
his life and its circumstances, though the very existence of any such
individual, at l east with regard to the 'Iliad' and the 'Hymns', is more
than problematic. N. B. The rude engraving in the page was designed by
no vulgar hand. It is full of spirit and passion. [5]
I am so dull, that neither in the original nor in any translation could
I ever find any wit or wise purpose in this poem. The whole humour seems
to lie in the names. The frogs and mice are not frogs or mice, but men,
and yet they do nothing that conveys any satire. In the Greek there is
much beauty of language, but the joke is very flat. This is always the
case in rude ages;--their serious vein is inimitable,--their comic low
and low indeed. The psychological cause is easily stated, and copiously
exemplifiable.
[Footnote 1: Communicated through Mr. Wordsworth. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: Dedication to Prince Henry.]
[Footnote 3: 'Epistle Dedicatorie to the Odyssey'.]
[Footnote 4: 'Epistle Dedicatorie to the Batrachomyomachia'.]
[Footnote 5: End of the 'Batrachomyomachia'.]
NOTE IN BAXTER'S 'LIFE OF HIMSELF'. 1820.
Among the grounds for recommending the perusal of our elder
writers--Hooker--Taylor--Baxter--in short almost any of the folios
composed from Edward VI. to Charles II. I note:
1. The overcoming the habit of deriving your whole pleasure passively
from the book itself, which can only be effected by excitement of
curiosity or of some passion. Force yourself to reflect on what you read
paragraph by paragraph, and in a short time you will derive your
pleasure, an ample portion of it, at least, from the activity of your
own mind. All else is picture sunshine.
2. The conquest of party and sectarian prejudices, when you have on the
same table before you the works of a Hammond and a Baxter, and reflect
how many and how momentous their points of agreement, how few and almost
childish the differences, which estranged and irritated these good men.
Let us but imagine what their blessed spirits now feel at the retrospect
of their earthly frailties, and can we do other than strive to feel as
they now feel, not as they once felt? So will it be with the disputes
between good men of the present day; and if you have no other reason to
doubt your opponent's goodness than the point in dispute, think of
Baxter and Hammond, of Milton and Taylor, and let it be no reason at
all.
3. It will secure you from the narrow idolatry of the present times and
fashions, and create the noblest kind of imaginative power in your soul,
that of living in past ages;--wholly devoid of which power, a man can
neither anticipate the future, nor ever live a truly human life, a life
of reason in the present.
4. In this particular work we may derive a most instructive lesson, that
in certain points, as of religion in relation to law, the 'medio
tutis--simus ibis', is inapplicable. There is no 'medium' possible; and
all the attempts as those of Baxter, though no more were required than
'I believe in God through Christ,' prove only the mildness of the
proposer's temper, but as a rule would be either equal to nothing, at
least exclude only the two or three in a century that make it a matter
of religion to declare themselves atheists, or else be just as fruitful
a rule for a persecutor as the most complete set of articles that could
be framed by a Spanish Inquisition. For to 'believe' must mean to
believe aright--and 'God' must mean the true God--and 'Christ' the
Christ in the sense and with the attributes understood by Christians who
are truly Christians. An established church with a liturgy is the
sufficient solution of the problem 'de jure magistratus'. Articles of
faith are in this point of view superfluous; for is it not too absurd
for a man to hesitate at subscribing his name to doctrines which yet in
the more awful duty of prayer and profession he dares affirm before his
Maker! They are therefore, in this sense, merely superfluous;--not worth
re-enacting, had they ever been done away with;--not worth removing now
that they exist.
5. The characteristic contra-distinction between the speculative
reasoners of the age before the Revolution, and those since, is
this:--the former cultivated metaphysics without, or neglecting
empirical, psychology:--the latter cultivate a mechanical psychology to
the neglect and contempt of metaphysics. Both, therefore, are almost
equi-distant from true philosophy. Hence the belief in ghosts, witches,
sensible replies to prayer, &c. in Baxter and in a hundred others. See
also Luther's 'Table Talk'.
6. The earlier part of this volume is interesting as materials for
medical history. The state of medical science in the reign of Charles I.
was almost incredibly low.
FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON TASTE. 1810.
The same arguments that decide the question, whether taste has any fixed
principles, may probably lead to a determination of what those
principles are. First then, what is taste in its metaphorical sense, or,
which will be the easiest mode of arriving at the same solution, what is
there in the primary sense of the word, which may give to its
metaphorical meaning an import different from that of sight or hearing,
on the one hand, and of touch or smell on the other? And this question
seems the more natural, because in correct language we confine beauty,
the main subject of taste, to objects of sight and combinations of
sounds, and never, except sportively or by abuse of words, speak of a
beautiful flavour or a beautiful scent.
Now the analysis of our senses in the commonest books of anthropology
has drawn our attention to the distinction between the perfectly
organic, and the mixed senses;--the first presenting objects, as
distinct from the perception;--the last as blending the perception with
the sense of the object. Our eyes and ears--(I am not now considering
what is or is not the case really, but only that of which we are
regularly conscious as appearances,) our eyes most often appear to us
perfect organs of the sentient principle, and wholly in action, and our
hearing so much more so than the three other senses, and in all the
ordinary exertions of that sense, perhaps, equally so with the sight,
that all languages place them in one class, and express their different
modifications by nearly the same metaphors. The three remaining senses
appear in part passive, and combine with the perception of the outward
object a distinct sense of our own life. Taste, therefore, as opposed to
vision and sound, will teach us to expect in its metaphorical use a
certain reference of any given object to our own being, and not merely a
distinct notion of the object as in itself, or in its independent
properties. From the sense of touch, on the other hand, it is
distinguishable by adding to this reference to our vital being some
degree of enjoyment, or the contrary,--some perceptible impulse from
pleasure or pain to complacency or dislike. The sense of smell, indeed,
might perhaps have furnished a metaphor of the same import with that of
taste; but the latter was naturally chosen by the majority of civilized
nations on account of the greater frequency, importance, and dignity of
its employment or exertion in human nature.
By taste, therefore, as applied to the fine arts, we must be supposed to
mean an intellectual perception of any object blended with a distinct
reference to our own sensibility of pain or pleasure, or, 'vice
versa', a sense of enjoyment or dislike co-instantaneously combined
with, and appearing to proceed from, some intellectual perception of the
object;--intellectual perception, I say; for otherwise it would be a
definition of taste in its primary rather than in its metaphorical
sense. Briefly, taste is a metaphor taken from one of our mixed senses,
and applied to objects of the more purely organic senses, and of our
moral sense, when we would imply the co-existence of immediate personal
dislike or complacency. In this definition of taste, therefore, is
involved the definition of fine arts, namely, as being such the chief
and discriminative purpose of which it is to gratify the taste,--that
is, not merely to connect, but to combine and unite, a sense of
immediate pleasure in ourselves, with the perception of external
arrangement.
The great question, therefore, whether taste in any one of the fine arts
has any fixed principle or ideal, will find its solution in the
ascertainment of two facts:--first, whether in every determination of
the taste concerning any work of the fine arts, the individual does not,
with or even against the approbation of his general judgment,
involuntarily claim that all other minds ought to think and feel the
same; whether the common expressions, 'I dare say I may be wrong, but
that is my particular taste;'--are uttered as an offering of courtesy,
as a sacrifice to the undoubted fact of our individual fallibility, or
are spoken with perfect sincerity, not only of the reason but of the
whole feeling, with the same entireness of mind and heart, with which we
concede a right to every person to differ from another in his preference
of bodily tastes and flavours. If we should find ourselves compelled to
deny this, and to admit that, notwithstanding the consciousness of our
liability to error, and in spite of all those many individual
experiences which may have strengthened the consciousness, each man does
at the moment so far legislate for all men, as to believe of necessity
that he is either right or wrong, and that if it be right for him, it is
universally right,--we must then proceed to ascertain:--secondly,
whether the source of these phenomena is at all to be found in those
parts of our nature, in which each intellect is representative of
all,--and whether wholly, or partially. No person of common reflection
demands even in feeling, that what tastes pleasant to him ought to
produce the same effect on all living beings; but every man does and
must expect and demand the universal acquiescence of all intelligent
beings in every conviction of his understanding. ...
FRAGMENT OF AN ESSAY ON BEAUTY. 1818.
The only necessary, but this the absolutely necessary, pre-requisite to
a full insight into the grounds of the beauty in the objects of sight,
is--the directing of the attention to the action of those thoughts in
our own mind which are not consciously distinguished. Every man may
understand this, if he will but recall the state of his feelings in
endeavouring to recollect a name, which he is quite sure that he
remembers, though he cannot force it back into consciousness. This
region of unconscious thoughts, oftentimes the more working the more
indistinct they are, may, in reference to this subject, be conceived as
forming an ascending scale from the most universal associations of
motion with the functions and passions of life,--as when, on passing out
of a crowded city into the fields on a day in June, we describe the
grass and king-cups as nodding their heads and dancing in the
breeze,--up to the half perceived, yet not fixable, resemblance of a
form to some particular object of a diverse class, which resemblance we
need only increase but a little, to destroy, or at least injure, its
beauty-enhancing effect, and to make it a fantastic intrusion of the
accidental and the arbitrary, and consequently a disturbance of the
beautiful. This might be abundantly exemplified and illustrated from the
paintings of Salvator Rosa.
I am now using the term beauty in its most comprehensive sense, as
including expression and artistic interest,--that is, I consider not
only the living balance, but likewise all the accompaniments that even
by disturbing are necessary to the renewal and continuance of the
balance. And in this sense I proceed to show, that the beautiful in the
object may be referred to two elements,--lines and colours; the first
belonging to the shapely ('forma, formalis, formosus'), and in
this, to the law, and the reason; and the second, to the lively, the
free, the spontaneous, and the self-justifying. As to lines, the
rectilineal are in themselves the lifeless, the determined 'ab
extra', but still in immediate union with the cycloidal, which are
expressive of function. The curve line is a modification of the force
from without by the force from within, or the spontaneous. These are not
arbitrary symbols, but the language of nature, universal and intuitive,
by virtue of the law by which man is impelled to explain visible motions
by imaginary causative powers analogous to his own acts, as the Dryads,
Hamadryads, Naiads, &c.
The better way of applying these principles will be by a brief and rapid
sketch of the history of the fine arts,--in which it will be found, that
the beautiful in nature has been appropriated to the works of man, just
in proportion as the state of the mind in the artists themselves
approached to the subjective beauty. Determine what predominance in the
minds of the men is preventive of the living balance of excited
faculties, and you will discover the exact counterpart in the outward
products. Egypt is an illustration of this. Shapeliness is intellect
without freedom; but colours are significant. The introduction of the
arch is not less an epoch in the fine than in the useful arts.
Order is beautiful arrangement without any purpose 'ad
extra';--therefore there is a beauty of order, or order may be
contemplated exclusively as beauty.
The form given in every empirical intuition,--the stuff, that is, the
quality of the stuff, determines the agreeable: but when a thing excites
us to receive it in such and such a mould, so that its exact
correspondence to that mould is what occupies the mind,--this is taste
or the sense of beauty. Whether dishes full of painted wood or exquisite
viands were laid out on a table in the same arrangement, would be
indifferent to the taste, as in ladies' patterns; but surely the one is
far more agreeable than the other. Hence observe the disinterestedness
of all taste; and hence also a sensual perfection with intellect is
occasionally possible without moral feeling. So it may be in music and
painting, but not in poetry. How far it is a real preference of the
refined to the gross pleasures, is another question, upon the
supposition that pleasure, in some form or other, is that alone which
determines men to the objects of the former;--whether experience does
not show that if the latter were equally in our power, occasioned no
more trouble to enjoy, and caused no more exhaustion of the power of
enjoying them by the enjoyment itself, we should in real practice prefer
the grosser pleasure. It is not, therefore, any excellence in the
quality of the refined pleasures themselves, but the advantages and
facilities in the means of enjoying them, that give them the
pre-eminence.
This is, of course, on the supposition of the absence of all moral
feeling. Suppose its presence, and then there will accrue an excellence
even to the quality of the pleasures themselves; not only, however, of
the refined, but also of the grosser kinds,--inasmuch as a larger sweep
of thoughts will be associated with each enjoyment, and with each
thought will be associated a number of sensations; and so, consequently,
each pleasure will become more the pleasure of the whole being. This is
one of the earthly rewards of our being what we ought to be, but which
would be annihilated, if we attempted to be it for the sake of this
increased enjoyment. Indeed it is a contradiction to suppose it. Yet
this is the common 'argumentum in circulo', in which the
eudsemonists flee and pursue. ...
POEMS AND POETICAL FRAGMENTS.
'Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus'. CATULLUS.
My Lesbia, let us love and live,
And to the winds, my Lesbia, give
Each cold restraint, each boding fear
Of age, and all its saws severe!
Yon sun now posting to the main
Will set,--but 'tis to rise again;--
But we, when once our little light
Is set, must sleep in endless night.
Then come, with whom alone I'll live,
A thousand kisses take and give!
Another thousand!--to the store
Add hundreds--then a thousand more!
And when they to a million mount,
Let confusion take the account,--
That you, the number never knowing,
May continue still bestowing--
That I for joys may never pine,
Which never can again be mine! [1]
'Lugete, O Veneres, Cupidinesque.' CATULLUS.
Pity, mourn in plaintive tone
The lovely starling dead and gone!
Weep, ye Loves! and Venus, weep
The lovely starling fall'n asleep!
Venus see with tearful eyes--
In her lap the starling lies,
While the Loves all in a ring
Softly stroke the stiffen'd wing.
'Moriens superstiti'.
"The hour-bell sounds, and I must go;
Death waits--again I hear him calling;--
No cowardly desires have I,
Nor will I shun his face appalling.
I die in faith and honour rich--
But ah! I leave behind my treasure
In widowhood and lonely pain;--
To live were surely then a pleasure!
"My lifeless eyes upon thy face
Shall never open more to-morrow;
To-morrow shall thy beauteous eyes
Be closed to love, and drown'd in sorrow;
To-morrow death shall freeze this hand,
And on thy breast, my wedded treasure,
I never, never more shall live;--
Alas! I quit a life of pleasure."
'Morienti superstes.'
"Yet art thou happier far than she
Who feels the widow's love for thee!
For while her days are days of weeping,
Thou, in peace, in silence sleeping,
In some still world, unknown, remote,
The mighty parent's care hast found,
Without whose tender guardian thought
No sparrow falleth to the ground."
[Footnote 1: This and the following poems and fragments, with the
exception of those marked with an asterisk, were communicated by Mr.
Gutch. Ed.]
THE STRIPLING'S WAR SONG.
IMITATED FROM STOLBERG.
My noble old warrior! this heart has beat high,
Since you told of the deeds that our countrymen wrought;
Ah! give me the sabre which hung by thy thigh,
And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!
O, despise not my youth! for my spirit is steel'd,
And I know there is strength in the grasp of my hand;
Yea, as firm as thyself would I move to the field,
And as proudly would die for my dear father-land.
In the sports of my childhood I mimick'd the fight,--
The shrill of a trumpet suspended my breath;
And my fancy still wander'd by day and by night
Amid tumult and perils,'mid conquest and death.
My own eager shout in the heat of my trance,
How oft it awakes me from dreams full of glory,
When I meant to have leap'd on the hero of France,
And have dash'd him to earth pale and deathless and gory!
As late through the city with bannerets streaming,
And the music of trumpets the warriors flew by,--
With helmet and scymetar naked and gleaming
On their proud trampling thunder-hoof'd steeds did they fly,--
I sped to yon heath which is lonely and bare--
For each nerve was unquiet, each pulse in alarm,--
I hurl'd my mock lance through the objectless air,
And in open-eyed dream prov'd the strength of my arm.
Yes, noble old warrior! this heart has beat high,
Since you told of thedeeds that our countrymen wrought;
Ah! give me the falchion that hung by thy thigh,
And I too will fight as my forefathers fought!
[*] His own fair countenance, his kingly forehead,
His tender smiles, love's day-dawn on his lips,
The sense, and spirit, and the light divine,
At the same moment in his steadfast eye
Were virtue's native crest, th' immortal soul's
Unconscious meek self-heraldry,--to man
Genial, and pleasant to his guardian angel.
He suffer'd, nor complain'd;--tho' oft with tears
He mourn'd th' oppression of his helpless brethren,--
Yea, with a deeper and yet holier grief
Mourn'd for the oppressor. In those sabbath hours
His solemn grief, like the slow cloud at sunset,
Was but the veil of purest meditation
Pierced thro' and saturate with the rays of mind.
'Twas sweet to know it only possible!
Some wishes cross'd my mind and dimly cheer'd it,
And one or two poor melancholy pleasures,
Each in the pale unwarming light of hope
Silvering its flimsy wing, flew silent by--
Moths in the moonbeam!--
--Behind the thin
Grey cloud that cover'd, but not hid, the sky,
The round full moon look'd small.
The subtle snow in every passing breeze
Rose curling from the grove like shafts of smoke.
--On the broad mountain top
The neighing wild colt races with the wind
O'er fern and heath-flowers.
--Like a mighty giantess
Seized in sore travail and prodigious birth,
Sick nature struggled: long and strange her pangs,
Her groans were horrible;--but O, most fair
The twins she bore, Equality and Peace.
--Terrible and loud
As the strong voice that from the thunder-cloud
Speaks to the startled midnight.
Such fierce vivacity as fires the eye
Of genius fancy-craz'd.
The mild despairing of a heart resign'd.
FOR THE HYMN ON THE SUN.
--The sun (for now his orb
'Gan slowly sink)--
Shot half his rays aslant the heath, whose flow'rs
Purpled the mountain's broad and level top.
Rich was his bed of clouds, and wide beneath
FOR THE HYMN ON THE MOON.
In a cave in the mountains of Cashmeer there is an image of ice, which
makes its appearance thus: Two days before the new moon there appears a
bubble of ice, which increases in size every day till the fifteenth, by
which time it is an ell or more in height;--then as the moon wanes, the
image decreases till it vanishes away.
In darkness I remain'd;-the neighb'ring clock
Told me that now the rising sun at dawn
Shone lovely on my garden.
These be staggerers that, made drunk by power,
Forget thirst's eager promise, and presume,
Dark dreamers! that the world forgets it too!
--Perish warmth,
Unfaithful to its seeming!
Old age, 'the shape and messenger of death,'
His wither'd fist still knocking at death's door.
--God no distance knows
All of the whole possessing.
With skill that never alchemist yet told,
Made drossy lead as ductile as pure gold.
Guess at the wound and heal with secret hand.
The broad-breasted rock
Glasses his rugged forehead in the sea.
I mix in life, and labour to seem free,
With common persons pleas'd and common things,
While every thought and action tends to thee,
And every impulse from thy influence springs.
FAREWELL TO LOVE.
[*] Farewell, sweet Love! yet blame you not my truth;
More fondly ne'er did mother eye her child
Than I your form: your's were my hopes of youth,
And as you shaped my thoughts, I sigh'd or smil'd.
While most were wooing wealth, or gaily swerving
To pleasure's secret haunt, and some apart
Stood strong in pride, self-conscious of deserving,
To you I gave my whole weak wishing heart;
And when I met the maid that realized
Your fair creations, and had won her kindness,
Say but for her if aught on earth I prized!
Your dreams alone I dreamt and caught your blindness.
O grief!--but farewell, Love! I will go play me
With thoughts that please me less, and less betray me.
[*] Within these circling hollies, woodbine-clad--
Beneath this small blue roof of vernal sky--
How warm, how still! Tho' tears should dim mine eye,
Yet will my heart for days continue glad,
For here, my love, thou art, and here am I!
Each crime that once estranges from the virtues
Doth make the memory of their features daily
More dim and vague, till each coarse counterfeit
Can have the passport to our confidence
Sign'd by ourselves. And fitly are they punish'd,
Who prize and seek the honest man but as
A safer lock to guard dishonest treasures.
Grant me a patron, gracious Heaven! whene'er
My unwash'd follies call for penance drear:
But when more hideous guilt this heart infects,
Instead of fiery coals upon my pate,
O let a titled patron be my fate;--
That fierce compendium of Egyptian pests!
Right reverend dean, right honourable squire,
Lord, marquis, earl, duke, prince,--or if aught higher,
However proudly nicknamed, he shall be Anathema Maránatha to me!
A SOBER STATEMENT OF HUMAN LIFE,
OR THE TRUE MEDIUM.
[*] A chance may win what by mischance was lost;
The net that holds not great, takes little fish:
In somethings all, in all things none are crost;
Few all they need, but none have all they wish:
Unmingled joys to no one here befall;
Who least, hath some; who most, hath never all!
OMNIANA. 1812
THE FRENCH DECADE.
I have nothing to say in defence of the French revolutionists, as far as
they are personally concerned in this substitution of every tenth for
the seventh day as a day of rest. It was not only a senseless outrage on
an ancient observance, around which a thousand good and gentle feelings
had clustered; it not only tended to weaken the bond of brotherhood
between France and the other members of Christendom; but it was
dishonest, and robbed the labourer of fifteen days of restorative and
humanizing repose in every year, and extended the wrong to all the
friends and fellow labourers of man in the brute creation. Yet when I
hear Protestants, and even those of the Lutheran persuasion, and members
of the church of England, inveigh against this change as a blasphemous
contempt of the fourth commandment, I pause, and before I can assent to
the verdict of condemnation, I must prepare my mind to include in the
same sentence, at least as far as theory goes, the names of several
among the most revered reformers of Christianity. Without referring to
Luther, I will begin with Master Frith, a founder and martyr of the
church of England, having witnessed his faith amid the flames in the
year 1533. This meek and enlightened, no less than zealous and orthodox,
divine, in his "Declaration of Baptism" thus expresses himself:
Our forefathers, which were in the beginning of the Church, did
abrogate the sabbath, to the intent that men might have an example of
Christian liberty. Howbeit, because it was necessary that a day should
be reserved in which the people should come together to hear the word
of God, they ordained instead of the Sabbath, which was Saturday, the
next following which is Sunday. And although they might have kept the
Saturday with the Jew as a thing indifferent, yet they did much better.
Some three years after the martyrdom of Frith, in 1536, being the 27th
of Henry VIII. suffered Master Tindal in the same glorious cause, and
this illustrious martyr and translator of the word of life, likewise, in
his "Answer to Sir Thomas More," hath similarly resolved this point:
As for the Sabbath, we be lords of the Sabbath, and may yet change it
into Monday, or any other day, as we see need; or we may make every
tenth day holy day only, if we see cause why. Neither was there any
cause to change it from the Saturday, save only to put a difference
between us and the Jews; neither need we any holy day at all, if the
people might be taught without it.
This great man believed that if Christian nations should ever become
Christians indeed, there would every day be so many hours taken from the
labour for the perishable body, to the service of the souls and the
understandings of mankind, both masters and servants, as to supersede
the necessity of a particular day. At present our Sunday may be
considered as so much Holy Land, rescued from the sea of oppression and
vain luxury, and embanked against the fury of their billows.
RIDE AND TIE.
"On a scheme of perfect retribution in the moral world"--observed
Empeiristes, and paused to look at, and wipe his spectacles.
"Frogs," interposed Musaello, "must have been experimental philosophers,
and experimental philosophers must all transmigrate into frogs."
"The scheme will not be yet perfect," added Gelon, "unless our friend
Empeiristes, is specially privileged to become an elect frog twenty
times successively, before he reascends into a galvanic philosopher."
"Well, well," replied Empeiristes, with a benignant smile, "I give my
consent, if only our little Mary's fits do not recur."
Little Mary was Gelon's only child, and the darling and god-daughter of
Empeiristes. By the application of galvanic influence Empeiristes had
removed a nervous affection of her right leg, accompanied with
symptomatic epilepsy. The tear started in Gelon's eye, and he pressed
the hand of his friend, while Musaello, half suppressing, half
indulging, a similar sense of shame, sportively exclaimed, "Hang it,
Gelon! somehow or other these philosopher fellows always have the better
of us wits, in the long run!"
JEREMY TAYLOR.
The writings of Bishop Jeremy Taylor are a perpetual feast to me. His
hospitable board groans under the weight and multitude of viands. Yet I
seldom rise from the perusal of his works without repeating or
recollecting the excellent observation of Minucius Felix. 'Fabulas et
errores ab imperitis parentibus discimus; et quod est gravius, ipsis
studiis et disciplinis elaboramus'.
CRITICISM.
Many of our modern criticisms on the works of our elder writers remind
me of the connoisseur, who, taking up a small cabinet picture, railed
most eloquently at the absurd caprice of the artist in painting a horse
sprawling. "Excuse me, Sir," replied the owner of the piece, "you hold
it the wrong way: it is a horse galloping."
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
Our statesmen, who survey with jealous dread all plans for the education
of the lower orders, may be thought to proceed on the system of
antagonist muscles; and in the belief, that the closer a nation shuts
its eyes, the wider it will open its hands. Or do they act on the
principle, that the 'status belli' is the natural relation between
the people and the government, and that it is prudent to secure the
result of the contest by gouging the adversary in the first instance?
Alas! the policy of the maxim is on a level with its honesty. The
Philistines had put out the eyes of Samson, and thus, as they thought,
fitted him to drudge and grind
Among the slaves and asses, his comrades,
As good for nothing else, no better service:--
But his darkness added to his fury without diminishing his strength, and
the very pillars of the temple of oppression--
With horrible convulsion, to and fro,
He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder,
Upon the heads of all who sat beneath;
Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, and priests,
Their choice nobility.
The error might be less unpardonable with a statesman of the
continent;--but with Englishmen, who have Ireland in one direction, and
Scotland in another; the one in ignorance, sloth, and rebellion,--in the
other general information, industry, and loyalty, verily it is not error
merely, but infatuation.
PICTURESQUE WORDS.
Who is ignorant of Homer's [Greek (transliterated): Paelion
einosiphullon] Yet in some Greek manuscript hexameters I have met with
a compound epithet, which may compare with it for the prize of
excellence in flashing on the mental eye a complete image. It is an
epithet of the brutified archangel, and forms the latter half of the
verse,--
[Greek: Kerkokeronucha Satan]
Ye youthful bards! compare this word with its literal translation,
"tail-horn-hoofed Satan," and be shy of compound epithets, the
components of which are indebted for their union exclusively to the
printer's hyphen. Henry More, indeed, would have naturalized the word
without hesitation, and 'cercoceronychous' would have shared the
astonishment of the English reader in the glossary to his 'Song of the
Soul' with Achronycul, Anaisthaesie, &c. &c.
TOLERATION.
The state, with respect to the different sects of religion under its
protection, should resemble a well drawn portrait. Let there be half a
score individuals looking at it, every one sees its eyes and its
benignant smile directed towards himself.
The framer of preventive laws, no less than private tutors and
school-masters, should remember, that the readiest way to make either
mind or body grow awry, is by lacing it too tight.
WAR.
It would have proved a striking part of a vision presented to Adam the
day after the death of Abel, to have brought before his eyes half a
million of men crowded together in the space of a square mile. When the
first father had exhausted his wonder on the multitude of his offspring,
he would then naturally inquire of his angelic instructor, for what
purposes so vast a multitude had assembled? what is the common end?
Alas! to murder each other,--all Cains, and yet no Abels!
PARODIES.
Parodies on new poems are read as satires; on old ones,--the soliloquy
of Hamlet for instance--as compliments. A man of genius may securely
laugh at a mode of attack by which his reviler, in half a century or
less, becomes his encomiast.
M. DUPUIS.
Among the extravagancies of faith which have characterized many infidel
writers, who would swallow a whale to avoid believing that a whale
swallowed Jonas,--a high rank should be given to Dupuis, who, at the
commencement of the French Revolution, published a work in twelve
volumes, octavo, in order to prove that Jesus Christ was the sun, and
all Christians, worshippers of Mithra. His arguments, if arguments they
can be called, consist chiefly of metaphors quoted from the Fathers.
What irresistible conviction would not the following passage from
South's sermons (vol. v. p. 165.) have flashed on his fancy, had it
occurred in the writings of Origen or Tertullian! and how complete a
confutation of all his grounds does not the passage afford to those
humble souls, who, gifted with common sense alone, can boast of no
additional light received through a crack in their upper apartments:--
Christ the great sun of righteousness and saviour of the world, having
by a glorious rising, after a red and bloody setting, proclaimed his
deity to men and angels; and by a complete triumph over the two grand
enemies of mankind, sin and death, set up the everlasting gospel in
the room of all false religions, has now changed the Persian
superstition into the Christian doctrine, and without the least
approach to the idolatry of the former, made it henceforward the duty
of all nations, Jews and Gentiles, to worship the rising sun.
This one passage outblazes the whole host of Dupuis' evidences and
extracts. In the same sermon, the reader will meet with Hume's argument
against miracles anticipated, and put in Thomas's mouth.
ORIGIN OF THE WORSHIP OF HYMEN.
The origin of the worship of Hymen is thus related by Lactantius. The
story would furnish matter for an excellent pantomime. Hymen was a
beautiful youth of Athens, who for the love of a young virgin disguised
himself, and assisted at the Eleusinian rites: and at this time he,
together with his beloved, and divers other young ladies of that city,
was surprized and carried off by pirates, who supposing him to be what
he appeared, lodged him with his mistress. In the dead of the night when
the robbers were all asleep, he arose and cut their throats. Thence
making hasty way back to Athens, he bargained with the parents that he
would restore to them their daughter and all her companions, if they
would consent to her marriage with him. They did so, and this marriage
proving remarkably happy, it became the custom to invoke the name of
Hymen at all nuptials.
EGOTISM.
It is hard and uncandid to censure the great reformers in philosophy and
religion for their egotism and boastfulness. It is scarcely possible for
a man to meet with continued personal abuse, on account of his superior
talents, without associating more and more the sense of the value of his
discoveries or detections with his own person. The necessity of
repelling unjust contempt, forces the most modest man into a feeling of
pride and self-consciousness. How can a tall man help thinking of his
size, when dwarfs are constantly on tiptoe beside him?--Paracelsus was a
braggart and a quack; so was Cardan; but it was their merits, and not
their follies, which drew upon them that torrent of detraction and
calumny, which compelled them so frequently to think and write
concerning themselves, that at length it became a habit to do so. Wolff
too, though not a boaster, was yet persecuted into a habit of egotism
both in his prefaces and in his ordinary conversation, and the same
holds good of the founder of the Brunonian system, and of his great
namesake Giordano Bruno. The more decorous manners of the present age
have attached a disproportionate opprobrium to this foible, and many
therefore abstain with cautious prudence from all displays of what they
feel. Nay, some do actually flatter themselves, that they abhor all
egotism, and never betray it either in their writings or discourse. But
watch these men narrowly; and in the greater number of cases you will
find their thoughts, feelings, and mode of expression, saturated with
the passion of contempt, which is the concentrated vinegar of egotism.
Your very humble men in company, if they produce any thing, are in that
thing of the most exquisite irritability and vanity.
When a man is attempting to describe another person's character, he may
be right or he may be wrong; but in one thing he will always succeed,
that is, in describing himself. If, for example, he expresses simple
approbation, he praises from a consciousness of possessing similar
qualities;--if he approves with admiration, it is from a consciousness
of deficiency. A. "Ay! he is a sober man." B. "Ah! Sir, what a blessing
is sobriety!" Here A. is a man conscious of sobriety, who egotizes in
'tuism';--B. is one who, feeling the ill effects of a contrary
habit, contemplates sobriety with blameless envy. Again:--A. "Yes, he is
a warm man, a moneyed fellow; you may rely upon him." B. "Yes, yes, Sir,
no wonder! he has the blessing of being well in the world." This
reflection might be introduced in defence of plaintive egotism, and by
way of preface to an examination of all the charges against it, and from
what feelings they proceed. 1800.[1]
Contempt is egotism in ill humour. Appetite without moral affection,
social sympathy, and even without passion and imagination--(in plain
English, mere lust,)--is the basest form of egotism,--and being
'infra' human, or below humanity, should be pronounced with the
harsh breathing, as 'he-goat-ism'. 1820.
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Gulch's commonplace book. Ed]
CAP OF LIBERTY.
Those who hoped proudly of human nature, and admitted no distinction
between Christians and Frenchmen, regarded the first constitution as a
colossal statue of Corinthian brass, formed by the fusion and commixture
of all metals in the conflagration of the state. But there is a common
fungus, which so exactly represents the pole and cap of liberty, that it
seems offered by nature herself as the appropriate emblem of Gallic
republicanism,--mushroom patriots, with a mushroom cap of liberty.
BULLS.
'Novi ego aliquem qui dormitabundus aliquando pulsari horam quartam
audiverit, et sic numeravit, una, una, una, una; ac tum præ rei
absurditate, quam anima concipiebat, exclamavit, Næ! delirat
horologium! Quater pulsavit horam unam'.
I knew a person, who, during imperfect sleep, or dozing, as we say,
listened to the clock as it was striking four, and as it struck, he
counted the four, one, one, one, one; and then exclaimed, "Why, the
clock is out of its wits; it has struck one four times over!"
This is a good exemplification of the nature of 'Bulls', which will be
found always to contain in them a confusion of what the schoolmen would
have called--objectivity with subjectivity;--in plain English, the
impression of a thing as it exists in itself, and extrinsically, with
the image which the mind abstracts from the impression. Thus, number, or
the total of a series, is a generalization of the mind, an 'ens
rationis' not an 'ens reale'. I have read many attempts at a definition
of a 'Bull', and lately in the Edinburgh Review; but it then appeared to
me that the definers had fallen into the same fault with Miss Edgeworth,
in her delightful essay on 'Bulls', and given the definition of the
genus, 'Blunder', for that of the particular species. I will venture,
therefore, to propose the following: a 'Bull' consists in a mental
juxta-position of incongruous images or thoughts with the sensation, but
without the sense, of connection. The psychological conditions of the
possibility of a 'Bull', it would not be difficult to determine; but it
would require a larger space than can be afforded here, at least more
attention than my readers would be likely to afford.
There is a sort of spurious 'Bull' which consists wholly in mistake of
language, and which the closest thinker may make, if speaking in a
language of which he is not master.
WISE IGNORANCE.
It is impossible to become either an eminently great, or truly pious
man, without the courage to remain ignorant of many things. This
important truth is most happily expressed by the elder Scaliger in
prose, and by the younger in verse; the latter extract has an additional
claim from the exquisite terseness of its diction, and the purity of its
Latinity. I particularly recommend its perusal to the commentators on
the Apocalypse.
'Quare ulterior disquisitio morosi atque satagentis animi est; humanae
enim sapientiae pars est, quaedam aequo animo nescire velle'.
J. C, Scalig. Ex. 307. s. 29.
'Ne curiosus quaere causas omnium,
Quaecunque libris vis prophetarum indidit,
Afflata caelo, plena veraci Deo;
Nec operta sacri supparo silentii
Irrumpere aude; sed prudenter praeteri!
Nescire velle quae magister optimus
Docere non vult, erudita inscitia est'.
Josep. Scalig.
ROUGE.
Triumphant generals in Rome wore rouge. The ladies of France, and their
fair sisters and imitators in Britain, conceive themselves always in the
chair of triumph, and of course entitled to the same distinction. The
custom originated, perhaps, in the humility of the conquerors that they
might seem to blush continually at their own praises. Mr. Gilpin
frequently speaks of a "picturesque eye:" with something less of
solecism, I may affirm that our fair ever blushing triumphants have
secured to themselves the charm of picturesque cheeks, every face being
its own portrait.
[Greek: Epea pteroenta.] HASTY WORDS.
I crave mercy (at least of my contemporaries: for if these Omniana
should outlive the present generation, the opinion will not need it) but
I could not help writing in the blank page of a very celebrated work [1]
the following passage from Picus Mirandula:-
'Movent mihi stomachum grammatistae quidam, qui cum duas tenuerint
vocabulorum origines, ita se ostentant, ita venditant, ita
circumferunt jactabundi, ut prae ipsis pro nihilo habendos philosophos
arbitrentur'. Epist. ad Hermol. Barb.
[Footnote 1: Diversions of Purley. Ed.]
MOTIVES AND IMPULSES.
It is a matter of infinite difficulty, but fortunately of comparative
indifference to determine what a man's motive may have been for this or
that particular action. Rather seek to learn what his objects in general
are. What does he habitually wish, habitually pursue? and thence deduce
his impulses which are commonly the true efficient causes of men's
conduct; and without which the motive itself would not have become a
motive. Let a haunch of venison represent the motive, and the keen
appetite of health, and exercise the impulse: then place the same or
some more favourite dish before the same man, sick, dyspeptic, and
stomach-worn, and we may then weigh the comparative influences of
motives and impulses. Without the perception of this truth, it is
impossible to understand the character of lago, who is represented as
now assigning one, and then another, and again a third motive for his
conduct, all alike the mere fictions of his own restless nature,
distempered by a keen sense of his intellectual superiority, and haunted
by the love of exerting power on those especially who are his superiors
in practical and moral excellence. Yet how many among our modern critics
have attributed to the profound author this the appropriate
inconsistency of the character itself.
A second illustration:--Did Curio, the 'quondam' patriot, reformer,
and semi-revolutionist, abjure his opinion, and yell the foremost in the
hunt of persecution against his old friends and fellow-philosophists,
with a cold clear predetermination, formed at one moment, of making
£5000 a year by his apostacy?--I neither know nor care. Probably not.
But this I know, that to be thought a man of consequence by his
contemporaries, to be admitted into the society of his superiors in
artificial rank, to excite the admiration of lords, to live in splendour
and sensual luxury, have been the objects of his habitual wishes. A
flash of lightning has turned at once the polarity of the compass
needle: and so, perhaps, now and then, but as rarely, a violent motive
may revolutionize a man's opinions and professions. But more frequently
his honesty dies away imperceptibly from evening into twilight, and from
twilight into utter darkness. He turns hypocrite so gradually, and by
such tiny atoms of motion, that by the time he has arrived at a given
point, he forgets his own hypocrisy in the imperceptible degrees of his
conversion. The difference between such a man and a bolder liar, is
merely that between the hour hand, and that which tells the seconds, on
a watch. Of the former you can see only the past motion; of the latter
both the past motion and the present moving. Yet there is, perhaps, more
hope of the latter rogue: for he has lied to mankind only and not to
himself--the former lies to his own heart, as well as to the public.
INWARD BLINDNESS.
Talk to a blind man--he knows he wants the sense of sight, and willingly
makes the proper allowances. But there are certain internal senses,
which a man may want, and yet be wholly ignorant that he wants them. It
is most unpleasant to converse with such persons on subjects of taste,
philosophy, or religion. Of course there is no reasoning with them: for
they do not possess the facts, on which the reasoning must be grounded.
Nothing is possible, but a naked dissent, which implies a sort of
unsocial contempt; or, what a man of kind dispositions is very likely to
fall into, a heartless tacit acquiescence, which borders too nearly on
duplicity.
THE VICES OF SLAVES NO EXCUSE FOR SLAVERY.
It often happens, that the slave himself has neither the power nor the
wish to be free. He is then brutified; but this apathy is the dire
effect of slavery, and so far from being a justifying cause, that it
contains the grounds of its bitterest condemnation. The Carlovingian
race bred up the Merovingi as beasts; and then assigned their
unworthiness as the satisfactory reason for their dethronement. Alas!
the human being is more easily weaned from the habit of commanding than
from that of abject obedience. The slave loses his soul when he loses
his master; even as the dog that has lost himself in the street, howls
and whines till he has found the house again, where he had been kicked
and cudgelled, and half starved to boot. As we, however, or our
ancestors must have inoculated our fellow-creature with this wasting
disease of the soul, it becomes our duty to cure him; and though we
cannot immediately make him free, yet we can, and ought to, put him in
the way of becoming so at some future time, if not in his own person,
yet in that of his children. The French, you will say, are not capable
of freedom. Grant this;--but does this fact justify the ungrateful
traitor, whose every measure has been to make them still more incapable
of it?
CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.
The ancients attributed to the blood the same motion of ascent and
descent which really takes place in the sap of trees. Servetus
discovered the minor circulation from the heart to the lungs. Do not the
following passages of Giordano Bruno (published in 1591) seem to imply
more? I put the question, 'pauperis forma', with unfeigned
diffidence.
'"De Immenso et Innumerabili,"' lib. vi. cap. 8.
'Ut in nostro corpore sanguis per totum circumcursat et recursat, sic
in toto mundo, astro, tellure.
Quare non aliter quam nostro in corpore sanguis Hinc meat, hinc
remeat, neque ad inferiora fluit vi Majore, ad supera a pedibus quam
deinde recedat:--'
and still more plainly, in the ninth chapter of the same book,
'Quid esset Quodam ni gyro naturae cuncta redirent Ortus ad proprios
rursum; si sorbeat omnes Pontus aquas, totum non restituatque perenni
Ordine; qua possit rerum consistere vita? Tanquam si totus concurrat
sanguis in unam, In qua consistat, partem, nec prima revisat Ordia, et
antiquos cursus non inde resumat.'
It is affirmed in the "Supplement to the Scotch Encyclopædia
Britannica," that Des Cartes was the first who in defiance of Aristotle
and the Schools, attributed infinity to the universe. The very title of
Bruno's poem proves, that this honour belongs to him.
Feyjoo lays claim to a knowledge of the circulation of the blood for
Francisco de la Reyna, a farrier, who published a work upon his own art
at Burgos, in 1564. The passage which he quotes is perfectly clear.
'Por manera, que la sangre anda en torno, y en rueda por todos los
miembros, excluye toda duda.'
Whether Reyna himself claimed any
discovery, Feyjoo does not mention;--but, these words seem to refer to
some preceding demonstration of the fact. I am inclined to think that
this, like many other things, was known before it was discovered; just
as the preventive powers of the vaccine disease, the existence of
adipocire in graves, and certain principles in grammar and in
population, upon which bulky books have been written and great
reputations raised in our days.
PERITURAE PARCERE CHARTAE.
What scholar but must at times have a feeling of splenetic regret, when
he looks at the list of novels, in two, three, or four volumes each,
published monthly by Messrs. Lane, &c. and then reflects that there are
valuable works of Cudworth, prepared by himself for the press, yet still
unpublished by the University which possesses them, and which ought to
glory in the name of their great author! and that there is extant in
manuscript a folio volume of unprinted sermons by Jeremy Taylor. Surely,
surely, the patronage of our many literary societies might be employed
more beneficially to the literature and to the actual 'literati' of the
country, if they would publish the valuable manuscripts that lurk in our
different public libraries, and make it worth the while of men of
learning to correct and annotate the copies, instead of----, but it is
treading on hot embers!
TO HAVE AND TO BE.
The distinction is marked in a beautiful sentiment of a German poet:
Hast thou any thing? share it with me and I will pay thee the worth of
it. Art thou any thing? O then let us exchange souls!
The following is offered as a mere playful illustration:
"Women have no souls," says prophet Mahomet.
Nay, dearest Anna! why so grave?
I said you had no soul,'tis true:
For what you are, you cannot have--
'Tis I, that have one, since I first had you.
PARTY PASSION.
"Well, Sir!" exclaimed a lady, the vehement and impassionate partizan of
Mr. Wilkes, in the day of his glory, and during the broad blaze of his
patriotism, "Well, Sir! and will you dare deny that Mr. Wilkes is a
great man, and an eloquent man?"--"Oh! by no means, Madam! I have not a
doubt respecting Mr. Wilkes's talents!"--"Well, but, Sir! and is he not
a fine man, too, and a handsome man?"--"Why, Madam! he squints, doesn't
he?"--"Squints! yes to be sure he does, Sir! but not a bit more than a
gentleman and a man of sense ought to squint!"
GOODNESS OF HEART INDISPENSABLE TO A MAN OF GENIUS.
'If men will impartially, and not asquint, look toward the offices and
function of a poet, they will easily conclude to themselves the
impossibility of any man's being the good poet without being first a
good man. (Dedication to 'the Fox').'
Ben Jonson has borrowed this just and noble sentiment from Strabo.
[Greek (transliterated): 'h de (haretae) poiaetou sunezeuktai tae tou
anthropou kai ouch oionte agathhon genesthai, poiaetaen, mae proteron
genaethenta andra agathon.]
( Lib. I. p. 33. folio.)
MILTON AND BEN JONSON.
Those who have more faith in parallelism than myself, may trace Satan's
address to the sun in 'Paradise Lost' to the first lines of Ben Jonson's
Poetaster:
"Light! I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing thy golden
splendour pitchy darkness!"
But even if Milton had the above in his mind, his own verses would be
more fitly entitled an apotheosis of Jonson's lines than an imitation.
STATISTICS.
We all remember Burke's curious assertion that there were 80,000
incorrigible jacobins in England. Mr. Colquhoun is equally precise in
the number of beggars, prostitutes, and thieves in the City of London.
Mercetinus, who wrote under Lewis XV. seems to have afforded the
precedent; he assures his readers, that by an accurate calculation there
were 50,000 incorrigible atheists in the City of Paris! Atheism then may
have been a co-cause of the French revolution; but it should not be
burthened on it, as its monster-child.
MAGNANIMITY.
The following ode was written by Giordano Bruno, under prospect of that
martyrdom which he soon after suffered at Rome, for atheism: that is, as
is proved by all his works, for a lofty and enlightened piety, which was
of course unintelligible to bigots and dangerous to an apostate
hierarchy. If the human mind be, as it assuredly is, the sublimest
object which nature affords to our contemplation, these lines which
portray the human mind under the action of its most elevated affections,
have a fair claim to the praise of sublimity. The work from which they
are extracted is exceedingly rare (as are, indeed, all the works of the
Nolan philosopher), and I have never seen them quoted:--
'Daedaleas vacuis plumas nectere humeris
Concupiant alii; aut vi suspendi nubium
Alis, ventorumve appetant remigium;
Aut orbitae flammantis raptari alveo;
Bellerophontisve alitem
Nos vero illo donati sumus genio,
Ut fatum intrepedi objectasque umbras cernimus,
Ne caeci ad lumen solis, ad perspicuas
Naturae voces surdi, ad Divum munera
Ingrato adsimus pectore.
Non curamus stultorum quid opinio
De nobis ferat, aut queis dignetur sedibus.
Alis ascendimus sursum melioribus!
Quid nubes ultra, ventorum ultra est semita,
Vidimus, quantum satis est.
Illuc conscendent plurimi, nobis ducibus,
Per scalam proprio erectam et firmam in pectore,
Quam Deus, et vegeti sors dabit ingeni;
Non manes, pluma, ignis, ventus, nubes, spiritus,
Divinantum phantasmata.
Non sensus vegetans, non me ratio arguet,
Non indoles exculti clara ingenii;
Sed perfidi sycophantae supercilium
Absque lance, statera, trutina, oculo,
Miraculum armati segete.
Versificantis grammatistae encomium,
Buglossae Graecissantum, et epistolia
Lectorem libri salutantum a limine,
Latrantum adversum Zoilos, Momos, mastiges,
Hinc absint testimonia!
Procedat nudus, quern non ornant nubila,
Sol! Non conveniunt quadrupedum phalerae
Humano dorso! Porra veri species
Quaesita, inventa, et patefacta me efferat!
Etsi nullus intelligat,
Si cum natura sapio, et sub numine,
Id vere plus quam satis est.'
The conclusion alludes to a charge of impenetrable obscurity, in which
Bruno shares one and the same fate with Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and in
truth with every great discoverer and benefactor of the human race;
excepting only when the discoveries have been capable of being rendered
palpable to the outward senses, and have therefore come under the
cognizance of our "sober judicious critics," the men of "sound common
sense;" that is, of those snails in intellect, who wear their eyes at
the tips of their feelers, and cannot even see unless they at the same
time touch. When these finger-philosophers affirm that Plato, Bruno, &c.
must have been "out of their senses," the just and proper retort
is,--"Gentlemen! it is still worse with you! you have lost your reason!"
By the by, Addison in the Spectator has grossly misrepresented the
design and tendency of Bruno's 'Bestia Triomphante'; the object of
which was to show of all the theologies and theogonies which have been
conceived for the mere purpose of solving problems in the material
universe, that as they originate in fancy, so they all end in delusion,
and act to the hindrance or prevention of sound knowledge and actual
discovery. But the principal and most important truth taught in this
allegory is, that in the concerns of morality all pretended knowledge of
the will of Heaven which is not revealed to man through his conscience;
that all commands which do not consist in the unconditional obedience of
the will to the pure reason, without tampering with consequences (which
are in God's power, not in ours); in short, that all motives of hope and
fear from invisible powers, which are not immediately derived from, and
absolutely coincident with, the reverence due to the supreme reason of
the universe, are all alike dangerous superstitions. The worship founded
on them, whether offered by the Catholic to St. Francis, or by the poor
African to his Fetish differ in form only, not in substance. Herein
Bruno speaks not only as a philosopher, but as an enlightened
Christian;--the Evangelists and Apostles every where representing their
moral precepts not as doctrines then first revealed, but as truths
implanted in the hearts of men, which their vices only could have
obscured.
NEGROS AND NARCISSUSES.
There are certain tribes of Negros who take for the deity of the day the
first thing they see or meet with in the morning. Many of our fine
ladies, and some of our very fine gentlemen, are followers of the same
sect; though by aid of the looking-glass they secure a constancy as to
the object of their devotion.
AN ANECDOTE.
We here in England received a very high character of Lord ---- during his
stay abroad. "Not unlikely, Sir," replied the traveller; "a dead dog at
a distance is said to smell like musk."
THE PHAROS AT ALEXANDRIA.
Certain full and highly-wrought dissuasives from sensual indulgencies,
in the works of theologians as well as of satirists and story-writers,
may, not unaptly, remind one of the Pharos; the many lights of which
appeared at a distance as one, and this as a polar star, so as more
often to occasion wrecks than prevent them.
At the base of the Pharos the name of the reigning monarch was engraved,
on a composition, which the artist well knew would last no longer than
the king's life. Under this, and cut deep in the marble itself, was his
own name and dedication: "Sostratos of Gyndos, son of Dexiteles to the
Gods, protectors of sailors!"--So will it be with the 'Georgium Sidus'
the 'Ferdinandia', &c. &c.--Flattery's plaister of Paris will crumble
away, and under it we shall read the names of Herschel, Piozzi, and
their compeers.
SENSE AND COMMON SENSE.
I have noticed two main evils in philosophizing. The first is, the
absurdity of demanding proof for the very facts which constitute the
nature of him who demands it,--a proof for those primary and unceasing
revelations of self-consciousness, which every possible proof must
pre-suppose; reasoning, for instance, 'pro' and 'con', concerning the
existence of the power of reasoning. Other truths may be ascertained;
but these are certainty itself (all at least which we mean by the word),
and are the measure of every thing else which we deem certain. The
second evil is, that of mistaking for such facts mere general
prejudices, and those opinions that, having been habitually taken for
granted, are dignified with the name of common sense. Of these, the
first is the more injurious to the reputation, the latter more
detrimental to the progress of philosophy. In the affairs of common life
we very properly appeal to common sense; but it is absurd to reject the
results of the microscope from the negative testimony of the naked eye.
Knives are sufficient for the table and the market;--but for the
purposes of science we must dissect with the lancet.
As an instance of the latter evil, take that truly powerful and active
intellect, Sir Thomas Brown, who, though he had written a large volume
in detection of vulgar errors, yet peremptorily pronounces the motion of
the earth round the sun, and consequently the whole of the Copernican
system unworthy of any serious confutation, as being manifestly
repugnant to common sense; which said common sense, like a miller's
scales, used to weigh gold or gasses, may, and often does, become very
gross, though unfortunately not very uncommon, nonsense. And as for the
former, which may be called 'Logica Praepostera', I have read in
metaphysical essays of no small fame, arguments drawn 'ab extra' in
proof and disproof of personal identity, which, ingenious as they may
be, were clearly anticipated by the little old woman's appeal to her
little dog, for the solution of the very same doubts, occasioned by her
petticoats having been cut round about:--
If it is not me, he'll bark and he'll rail, But if I be I, he'll wag
his little tail.
TOLERATION.
I dare confess that Mr. Locke's treatise on Toleration appeared to me
far from being a full and satisfactory answer to the subtle and
oft-times plausible arguments of Bellarmin, and other Romanists. On the
whole, I was more pleased with the celebrated W. Penn's tracts on the
same subject. The following extract from his excellent letter to the
king of Poland appeals to the heart rather than to the head, to the
Christian rather than to the philosopher; and, besides, overlooks the
ostensible object of religious penalties, which is not so much to
convert the heretic, as to prevent the spread of heresy. The thoughts,
however, are so just in themselves, and expressed with so much life and
simplicity, that it well deserves a place in these Omniana:--
Now, O Prince! give a poor Christian leave to expostulate with thee.
Did Christ Jesus or his holy followers endeavour, by precept or
example, to set up their religion with a carnal sword? Called he any
troops of men or angels to defend him? Did he encourage Peter to
dispute his right with the sword? But did he not say, 'Put it up'? Or
did he countenance his over-zealous disciples, when they would have
had fire from heaven to destroy those that were not of their mind? No!
But did not Christ rebuke them, saying, 'Ye know not what spirit ye
are of?' And if it was neither Christ's spirit, nor their own spirit
that would have fire from heaven--Oh! what is that spirit that would
kindle fire on earth to destroy such as peaceably dissent upon the
account of conscience!
O King! when did the true religion persecute? When did the true church
offer violence for religion? Were not her weapons prayers, tears, and
patience? did not Jesus conquer by these weapons, and vanquish cruelty
by suffering? can clubs, and staves, and swords, and prisons, and
banishments reach the soul, convert the heart, or convince the
understanding of man? When did violence ever make a true convert, or
bodily punishment, a sincere Christian? This maketh void the end of
Christ's coming. Yea, it robbeth God's spirit of its office, which is
to convince the world. That is the sword by which the ancient
Christians overcame.
The theory of persecution seems to rest on the following assumptions.
1. A duty implies a right. We have a right to do whatever it is our duty
to do.
2. It is the duty and consequently the right of the supreme power in a
state to promote the greatest possible sum of well-being in that state.
3. This is impossible without morality.
4. But morality can neither be produced or preserved in a people at
large without true religion.
5. Relative to the duties of the legislature or governors, that is the
true religion which they conscientiously believe to be so.
6. As there can be but one true religion, at the same time, this one it
is their duty and right to authorize and protect.
7. But the established religion cannot be protected and secured except
by the imposition of restraints or the influence of penalties on those,
who profess and propagate hostility to it.
8. True religion, consisting of precepts, counsels, commandments,
doctrines, and historical narratives, cannot be effectually proved or
defended, but by a comprehensive view of the whole as a system. Now this
cannot be hoped for from the mass of mankind. But it may be attacked,
and the faith of ignorant men subverted by particular objections, by the
statement of difficulties without any counter-statement of the greater
difficulties which would result from the rejection of the former, and by
all the other stratagems used in the desultory warfare of sectaries and
infidels. This is, however, manifestly dishonest and dangerous, and
there must exist, therefore, a power in the state to prevent, suppress,
and punish it.
9. The advocates of toleration have never been able to agree among
themselves concerning the limits to their own claims; have never
established any clear rules, as to what shall and what shall not be
admitted under the name of religion and conscience. Treason and the
grossest indecencies not only may be, but have been, called by these
names: as among the earlier Anabaptists.
10. And last, it is a 'petitio principii', or begging the question, to
take for granted that a state has no power except in case of overt acts.
It is its duty to prevent a present evil, as much at least as to punish
the perpetrators of it. Besides, preaching and publishing are overt
acts. Nor has it yet been proved, though often asserted, that a
Christian sovereign has nothing to do with the eternal happiness or
misery of the fellow creatures entrusted to his charge.
HINT FOR A NEW SPECIES OF HISTORY.
"The very knowledge of the opinions and customs of so considerable a
part of mankind as the Jews now are, and especially have been
heretofore, is valuable both for pleasure and use. It is a very good
piece of history, and that of the best kind, namely, of human nature,
and of that part of it which is most different from us, and commonly
the least known to us. And, indeed, the principal advantage which is
to be made by the wiser sort of men of most writings, is rather to see
what men think and are, than to be informed of the natures and truth
of things; to observe what thoughts and passions have occupied men's
minds, what opinions and manners they are of. In this view it becomes
of no mean importance to notice and record the strangest ignorance,
the most putid fables, impertinent, trifling, ridiculous disputes, and
more ridiculous pugnacity in the defence and retention of the subjects
disputed."
(Publisher's preface to the reader in Lightfoot's 'Works', vol. i.)
In the thick volume of title pages and chapters of contents (composed)
of large and small works correspondent to each (proposed) by a certain
'omni'-pregnant, 'nihili'-parturient genius of my acquaintance, not the
least promising is,--"A History of the morals and (as connected
therewith) of the manners of the English Nation from the Conquest to the
present time." From the chapter of contents it appears, that my friend
is a steady believer in the uninterrupted progression of his fellow
countrymen; that there has been a constant growth of wealth and
well-being among us, and with these an increase of knowledge, and with
increasing knowledge an increase and diffusion of practical goodness.
The degrees of acceleration, indeed, have been different at different
periods. The moral being has sometimes crawled, sometimes strolled,
sometimes walked, sometimes run; but it has at all times been moving
onward. If in any one point it has gone backward, it has been only in
order to leap forward in some other. The work was to commence with a
numeration table, or catalogue, of those virtues or qualities which make
a man happy in himself, and which conduce to the happiness of those
about him, in a greater or lesser sphere of agency. The degree and the
frequency in which each of these virtues manifested themselves, in the
successive reigns from William the Conqueror inclusively, were to be
illustrated by apposite quotations from the works of contemporary
writers, not only of historians and chroniclers, but of the poets,
romance writers, and theologians, not omitting the correspondence
between literary men, the laws and regulations, civil and
ecclesiastical, and whatever records the industry of antiquarians has
brought to light in their provincial, municipal, and monastic
histories:--tall tomes and huge! undegenerate sons of Anak, which look
down from a dizzy height on the dwarfish progeny of contemporary wit,
and can find no associates in size at a less distance than two
centuries; and in arranging which the puzzled librarian must commit an
anachronism in order to avoid an anatopism.
Such of these illustrations as most amused or impressed me, when I heard
them (for alas! even his very title pages and contents my friend
composes only in air!) I shall probably attempt to preserve in different
parts of these 'Omniana'. At present I shall cite one article only which
I found wafered on a blank leaf of his memorandum book, superscribed:
"Flattering news for 'Anno Domini' 2000, whenever it shall institute a
comparison between itself and the 17th and 18th centuries." It consists
of an extract, say rather, an exsection from the Kingston Mercantile
Advertiser, from Saturday, August the 15th, to Tuesday, August 18th,
1801. This paper which contained at least twenty more advertisements of
the very same kind, was found by accident among the wrapping-papers in
the trunk of an officer just returned from the West India station. They
stand here exactly as in the original, from which they are reprinted:--
Kingston, July 30, 1801.
Ran away, about three weeks ago, from a penn near Halfway Tree, a
negro wench, named Nancy, of the Chamba country, strong made, an ulcer
on her left leg, marked D. C. diamond between. She is supposed to be
harboured by her husband, Dublin, who has the direction of a wherry
working between this town and Port Royal, and is the property of Mr.
Fishley, of that place; the said negro man having concealed a boy in
his wherry before. Half a joe will be paid to any person apprehending
the above described wench, and delivering to Mr. Archibald M' Lea,
East end; and if found secreted by any person, the law will be put in
force.
Kingston, August 13, 1801.
Strayed on Monday evening last, a negro boy of the Moco country, named
Joe, the property of Mr. Thomas Williams, planter, in St. John's, who
had sent him to town under the charge of a negro man, with a cart for
provisions. The said boy is, perhaps, from 15 to 18 years of age,
about twelve months in the country, no mark, speaks little English,
but can tell his owner's name; had on a long Oznaburg frock. It is
supposed he might have gone out to vend some pears and lemon-grass,
and have lost himself in the street. One pistole will be paid to any
person apprehending and bringing him to this office.
Kingston, July 1, 1801.
Forty Shillings Reward.
Strayed on Friday evening last, (and was seen going up West Street the
following morning), a small bay HORSE, the left ear lapped, flat rump,
much scored from the saddle on his back, and marked on the near side
F. M. with a diamond between. Whoever will take up the said horse, and
deliver him to W. Balantine, butcher, back of West Street, will
receive the above reward.
Kingston, July 4, 1801.
Strayed on Sunday morning last, from the subscriber's house, in East
Street, a bright dun He-Mule, the mane lately cropped, a large chafe
slightly skinned over on the near buttock, and otherwise chafed from
the action of the harness in his recent breaking. Half a joe will be
paid to any person taking up and bringing this mule to the
subscriber's house, or to the Store in Harbour Street. JOHN WALSH.
Kingston, July 2, 1801.
Ten pounds Reward,
Ran away
About two years ago from the subscriber, a Negro woman named
DORAH,
purchased from Alexander M'Kean, Esq. She is about 20 years of age,
and 5 feet 6 or 7 inches high; has a mark on one of her shoulders,
about the size of a quarter dollar, occasioned, she says, by the yaws;
of a coal black complexion, very artful, and most probably passes
about the country with false papers and under another name; if that is
not the case, it must be presumed she is harboured about Green pond,
where she has a mother and other connexions.
What a history! horses and negros! negros and horses! It makes me
tremble at my own nature. Surely, every religious and conscientious
Briton is equally a debtor in gratitude to Thomas Clarkson and his
fellow labourers with every African: for on the soul of every individual
among us did a portion of guilt rest, as long as the Slave Trade
remained legal.
A few years back the public was satiated with accounts of the happy
condition of the slaves in our colonies, and the great encouragements
and facilities afforded to such of them, as by industry and foresight
laboured to better their situation. With what truth this is stated as
the general tone of feeling among our planters, and their agents, may be
conjectured from the following sentences, which made part of what in
England we call the leading paragraph of the same newspaper:--
Strange as it may appear, we are assured as a fact, that a number of
slaves in this town have purchased lots of land, and are absolutely in
possession of the fee simple of lands and tenements. Neither is it
uncommon for the men slaves to purchase or manumize their wives, and
'vice versa', the wives their husbands. To account for this, we need
only look to the depredations daily committed, and the impositions
practised to the distress of the community and ruin of the fair
trader. Negro yards too, under such direction, will necessarily prove
the asylum of runaways from the country.
TEXT SPARRING.
When I hear (as who now can travel twenty miles in a stage coach without
the probability of hearing) an ignorant religionist quote an unconnected
sentence of half a dozen words from any part of the Old or New
Testament, and resting on the literal sense of these words the eternal
misery of all who reject, nay, even of all those countless myriads, who
have never had the opportunity of accepting this, and sundry other
articles of faith conjured up by the same textual magic; I ask myself
what idea these persons form of the Bible, that they should use it in a
way in which they themselves use no other book? They deem the whole
written by inspiration. Well! but is the very essence of rational
discourse, that is, connection and dependency done away, because the
discourse is infallibly rational? The mysteries, which these spiritual
lynxes detect in the simplest texts, remind me of the 500 nondescripts,
each as large as his own black cat, which Dr. Katterfelto, by aid of his
solar microscope, discovered in a drop of transparent water.
But to a contemporary who has not thrown his lot in the same helmet with
them, these fanatics think it a crime to listen. Let them then, or far
rather, let those who are in danger of infection from them, attend to
the golden aphorisms of the old and orthodox divines. "Sentences in
scripture (says Dr. Donne) like hairs in horses' tails, concur in one
root of beauty and strength; but being plucked out, one by one, serve
only for springes and snares."
The second I transcribe from the preface to Lightfoot's works. "Inspired
writings are an inestimable treasure to mankind; for so many sentences,
so many truths. But then the true sense of them must be known:
otherwise, so many sentences, so many authorized falsehoods."
PELAGIANISM.
Our modern latitudinarians will find it difficult to suppose, that
anything could have been said in the defence of Pelagianism equally
absurd with the facts and arguments which have been adduced in favour of
original sin, (sin being taken as guilt; that is, observes a Socinian
wit, the crime of being born). But in the comment of Rabbi Akibah on
Ecclesiastes xii. 1. we have a story of a mother, who must have been a
most determined believer in the uninheritability of sin. For having a
sickly and deformed child, and resolved that it should not be thought to
have been punished for any fault of its parents or ancestors, and yet
having nothing else for which to blame the child, she seriously and
earnestly accused it before the judge of having kicked her unmercifully
during her pregnancy.
I am firmly persuaded that no doctrine was ever widely diffused among
various nations through successive ages and under different religions,
(such as is the doctrine of original sin, and redemption, those
fundamental articles of every known religion professing to be revealed,)
which is not founded either in the nature of things or in the
necessities of our nature. In the language of the schools, it carries
with it presumptive evidence that it is either objectively or
subjectively true. And the more strange and contradictory such a
doctrine may appear to the understanding, or discursive faculty, the
stronger is the presumption in its favour. For whatever satirists may
say, and sciolists imagine, the human mind has no predilection for
absurdity. I do not, however, mean that such a doctrine shall be always
the best possible representation of the truth on which it is founded;
for the same body casts strangely different shadows in different places,
and different degrees of light, but that it always does shadow out some
such truth, and derive its influence over our faith from our obscure
perception of that truth. Yea, even where the person himself attributes
his belief of it to the miracles, with which it was announced by the
founder of his religion.
THE SOUL AND ITS ORGANS OF SENSE.
It is a strong presumptive proof against materialism, that there does
not exist a language on earth, from the rudest to the most refined, in
which a materialist can talk for five minutes together, without
involving some contradiction in terms to his own system.
'Objection'. Will not this apply equally to the astronomer? Newton,
no doubt, talked of the sun's rising and setting, just like other men.
What should we think of the coxcomb who should have objected to him,
that he contradicted his own system? 'Answer'--No! it does not
apply equally; say rather, it is utterly inapplicable to the astronomer
and natural philosopher. For his philosophic, and his ordinary language
speak of two quite different things, both of which are equally true. In
his ordinary language he refers to a fact of appearance, to a phenomenon
common and necessary to all persons in a given situation; in his
scientific language he determines that one position or figure, which
being supposed, the appearance in question would be the necessary
result, and all appearances in all situations maybe demonstrably
foretold. Let a body be suspended in the air, and strongly illuminated.
What figure is here? A triangle. But what here? A trapezium;--and so on.
The same question put to twenty men, in twenty different positions and
distances, would receive twenty different answers: each would be a true
answer. But what is that one figure which, being so placed, all these
facts of appearance must result according to the law of
perspective?--Ay! this is a different question, this is a new subject.
The words which answer this would be absurd if used in reply to the
former. [1]
Thus, the language of the scripture on natural objects is as strictly
philosophical as that of the Newtonian system. Perhaps more so. For it
is not only equally true, but it is universal among mankind, and
unchangeable. It describes facts of appearance. And what other language
would have been consistent with the divine wisdom? The inspired writers
must have borrowed their terminology, either from the crude and mistaken
philosophy of their own times, and so have sanctified and perpetuated
falsehood, unintelligible meantime to all but one in ten thousand; or
they must have anticipated the terminology of the true system, without
any revelation of the system itself, and so have become unintelligible
to all men; or lastly, they must have revealed the system itself, and
thus have left nothing for the exercise, developement, or reward of the
human understanding, instead of teaching that moral knowledge, and
enforcing those social and civic virtues, out of which the arts and
sciences will spring up in due time and of their own accord. But nothing
of this applies to the materialist; he refers to the very same facts, of
which the common language of mankind speaks: and these too are facts
that have their sole and entire being in our own consciousness; facts,
as to which 'esse' and 'conscire' are identical. Now, whatever is common
to all languages, in all climates, at all times, and in all stages of
civilization, must be the exponent and consequent of the common
consciousness of man as man. Whatever contradicts this universal
language, therefore, contradicts the universal consciousness, and the
facts in question subsisting exclusively in consciousness, whatever
contradicts the consciousness contradicts the fact.
I have been seduced into a dry discussion where I had intended only a
few amusing facts, in proof, that the mind makes the sense far more than
the senses make the mind. If I have life, and health, and leisure, I
purpose to compile from the works, memoirs, and transactions of the
different philosophical societies in Europe, from magazines, and the
rich store of medical and psychological publications, furnished by the
English, French, and German press, all the essays and cases that relate
to the human faculties under unusual circumstances, (for pathology is
the crucible of physiology), excluding such only as are not intelligible
without the symbols or terminology of science. These I would arrange
under the different senses and powers: as
the eye,
the ear,
the touch, &c.;
the imitative power, voluntary and automatic;
the imagination, or shaping and modifying power;
the fancy or the aggregative and associative power;
the understanding, or the regulative, substantiating, and realizing power;
the speculative reason, 'vis theoretica et scientifica', or the power,
by which we produce, or aim to produce, unity, necessity, and a
universality in all our knowledge by means of principles, [2]'a priori';
the will or practical reason;
the faculty of choice, ('Willkühr'), and
(distinct both from the moral will, and the choice),
the sensation of volition which I have found reason to include under the
head of single and double touch.
Thence I propose to make a new arrangement of madness, whether as
defect, or as excess, of any of these senses or faculties; and thus by
appropriate cases to shew the difference between;--
1. a man having lost his reason but not his senses or
understanding--that is, when he sees things as other men see
them,--adapts means to ends as other men would adapt them, and not
seldom, with more sagacity,--but his final end is altogether irrational:
2. his having lost his wits, that is, his understanding or judicial
power; but not his reason or the use of his senses,--(such was Don
Quixote; and, therefore, we love and reverence him, while we despise
Hudibras):
3. his being out of his senses, as in the case of a hypochondriac, to
whom his limbs appear to be of glass, although all his conduct is both
rational, or moral, and prudent:
4. Or the case may be a combination of all three, though I doubt the
existence of such a case, or of any two of them:
5. And lastly, it may be merely such an excess of sensation, as
overpowers and suspends all, which is frenzy or raving madness.
A diseased state of an organ of sense, or of the inner organs connected
with it, will perpetually tamper with the understanding, and unless
there be an energetic and watchful counter-action of the judgment (of
which I have known more than one instance, in which the comparing and
reflecting judgment has obstinately, though painfully, rejected the full
testimony of the senses,) will finally overpower it. But when the organ
is obliterated, or totally suspended, then the mind applies some other
organ to a double use. Passing through Temple Sowerby, in Westmorland,
some ten years back, I was shewn a man perfectly blind; and blind from
his infancy. Fowell was his name. This man's chief amusement was fishing
on the wild and uneven banks of the River Eden, and up the different
streams and tarns among the mountains. He had an intimate friend,
likewise stone blind, a dexterous card player, who knows every gate and
stile far and near throughout the country. These two often coursed
together, and the people here, as every where, fond of the marvellous,
affirm that they were the best beaters up of game in the whole country.
The every way amiable and estimable John Gough of Kendal is not only an
excellent mathematician, but an infallible botanist and zoologist. He
has frequently at the first feel corrected the mistakes of the most
experienced sportsman with regard to the birds or vermin which they had
killed, when it chanced to be a variety or rare species so completely
resembling the common one, that it required great steadiness of
observation to detect the difference, even after it had been pointed
out. As to plants and flowers, the rapidity of his touch appears fully
equal to that of sight; and the accuracy greater. Good heavens! it needs
only to look at him! Why his face sees all over! It is all one eye! I
almost envied him; for the purity and excellence of his own nature,
never broken in upon by those evil looks, (or features, which are looks
become fixtures), with which low cunning, habitual cupidity,
presumptuous sciolism, and heart-hardening vanity, coarsen the human
face,--it is the mere stamp, the undisturbed 'ectypon' of his own soul!
Add to this that he is a Quaker, with all the blest negatives, without
any of the silly and factious positives, of that sect, which, with all
its bogs and hollows, is still the prime sun-shine spot of Christendom
in the eye of the true philosopher. When I was in Germany in the year
1798, I read at Hanover, and met with two respectable persons, one a
clergyman, the other a physician, who confirmed to me, the account of
the upper-stall master at Hanover, written by himself, and countersigned
by all his medical attendants. As far as I recollect, he had fallen from
his horse on his head, and in consequence of the blow lost both his
sight and hearing for nearly three years, and continued for the greater
part of this period in a state of nervous fever. His understanding,
however, remained unimpaired and unaffected, and his entire
consciousness, as to outward impressions, being confined to the sense of
touch, he at length became capable of reading any book (if printed, as
most German books are, on coarse paper) with his fingers, in much the
same manner in which the 'piano-forte' is played, and latterly with an
almost incredible rapidity. Likewise by placing his hand with the
fingers all extended, at a small distance from the lips of any person
that spoke slowly and distinctly to him, he learned to recognize each
letter by its different effects on his nerves, and thus spelt the words
as they were uttered. It was particularly noticed both by himself from
his sensations, and by his medical attendants from observation, that the
letter R, if pronounced full and strong, and recurring once or more in
the same word, produced a small spasm, or twitch in his hand and
fingers. At the end of three years he recovered both his health and
senses, and with the necessity soon lost the power, which he had thus
acquired.
[Footnote 1: See Church and State. Appendix, p. 231. Ed.]
[Footnote 2: This phrase, 'a priori', is, in common, most grossly
misunderstood, and an absurdity burthened on it which it does not
deserve. By knowledge 'a priori', we do not mean that we can know any
thing previously to experience, which would be a contradiction in terms;
but having once known it by occasion of experience (that is, something
acting upon us from without) we then know, that it must have
pre-existed, or the experience itself would have been impossible. By
experience only I know, that I have eyes; but then my reason convinces
me, that I must have had eyes in order to the experience.]
SIR GEORGE ETHEREGE, ETC.
Often and often had I read Gay's 'Beggar's Opera', and always delighted
with its poignant wit and original satire, and if not without noticing
its immorality, yet without any offence from it. Some years ago, I for
the first time saw it represented in one of the London theatres; and
such were the horror and disgust with which it impressed me, so grossly
did it outrage all the best feelings of my nature, that even the angelic
voice, and perfect science of Mrs. Billington, lost half their charms,
or rather increased my aversion to the piece by an additional sense of
incongruity. Then I learned the immense difference between reading and
seeing a play;--and no wonder, indeed; for who has not passed over with
his eye a hundred passages without offence, which he yet could not have
even read aloud, or have heard so read by another person, without an
inward struggle?--In mere passive silent reading the thoughts remain
mere thoughts, and these too not our own,--phantoms with no attribute of
place, no sense of appropriation, that flit over the consciousness as
shadows over the grass or young corn in an April day. But even the sound
of our own or another's voice takes them out of that lifeless, twilight,
realm of thought, which is the confine, the 'intermundium', as it were,
of existence and non-existence. Merely that the thoughts have become
audible by blending with them a sense of outness gives them a sort of
reality. What then,--when by every contrivance of scenery, appropriate
dresses, according and auxiliary looks and gestures, and the variety of
persons on the stage, realities are employed to carry the imitation of
reality as near as possible to perfect delusion?
If a manly modesty shrinks from uttering an indecent phrase before a
wife or sister in a private room, what must be the effect when a
repetition of such treasons (for all gross and libidinous allusions are
emphatically treasons against the very foundations of human society,
against all its endearing charities, and all the mother virtues,) is
hazarded before a mixed multitude in a public theatre? When every
innocent woman must blush at once with pain at the thoughts she rejects,
and with indignant shame at those, which the foul hearts of others may
attribute to her!
Thus too with regard to the comedies of Wycherly, Vanburgh, and
Etherege, I used to please myself with the flattering comparison of the
manners universal at present among all classes above the lowest with
those of our ancestors even of the highest ranks. But if for a moment I
think of those comedies as having been acted, I lose all sense of
comparison in the shame, that human nature could at any time have
endured such outrages to its dignity; and if conjugal affection and the
sweet name of sister were too weak, that yet filial piety, the gratitude
for a mother's holy love, should not have risen and hissed into infancy
these traitors to their own natural gifts, who lampooned the noblest
passions of humanity, in order to pander for its lowest appetites.
As far, however, as one bad thing can be palliated by comparison with a
worse, this may be said, in extenuation of these writers; that the
mischief, which they can do even on the stage, is trifling compared with
that stile of writing which began in the pest-house of French
literature, and has of late been imported by the 'Littles' of the age,
which consists in a perpetual tampering with the morals without
offending the decencies. And yet the admirers of these publications,
nay, the authors themselves have the assurance to complain of Shakspeare
(for I will not refer to one yet far deeper blasphemy)--Shakspeare,
whose most objectionable passages are but grossnesses against lust, and
these written in a gross age; while three fourths of their whole works
are delicacies for its support and sustenance. Lastly, that I may leave
the reader in better humour with the name at the head of this article, I
shall quote one scene from Etherege's 'Love in a Tub', which for
exquisite, genuine, original humour, is worth all the rest of his plays,
though two or three of his witty contemporaries were thrown in among
them, as a make weight. The scene might be entitled, the different ways
in which the very same story may be told without any variation in matter
of fact; for the least attentive reader will perceive the perfect
identity of the footboy's account with the Frenchman's own statement in
contradiction to it.
SCENE IV.
[Scene--Sir Frederick's Lodging.]
[Enter DUFOY and CLARK.]
CLARK.
I wonder Sir Frederick stays out so late.
DUFOY.
Dis is noting; six, seven o'clock in the morning is ver good hour.
CLARK.
I hope he does not use these hours often.
DUFOY.
Some six, seven time a veek; no oftiner.
CLARK.
My Lord commanded me to wait his coming.
DUFOY.
Matré Clark, to divertise you, I vill tell you, how I did get be
acquainted vid dis Bedlam Matré. About two, tree year ago me had for
my convenience discharge myself from attending
[Enter a footboy]
as Matré D'ostel to a person of condition in Parie; it hapen after de
dispatch of my little affairé.
FOOTBOY.
That is, after h'ad spent his money, Sir.
DUFOY.
Jan foutréde lacque; me vil have vip and de belle vor your breeck,
rogue.
FOOTBOY.
Sir, in a word, he was a Jack-pudding to a mountebank, and turned off
for want of wit: my master picked him up before a puppet-show,
mumbling a half-penny custard, to send him with a letter to the post.
DUFOY.
Morbleu, see, see de insolence of de foot boy English, bogre, rascale,
you lie, begar I vill cutté your troaté.
[Exit FOOTBOY.]
CLARK.
He's a rogue; on with your story, Monsieur.
DUFOY.
Matré Clark, I am your ver humble serviteur; but begar me have no
patience to be abusé. As I did say, after de dispatché of my affairé,
von day being idele, vich does producé the mellanchollique, I did
valké over de new bridge in Parie, and to divertise de time, and my
more serious toughté, me did look to see de marrioneté, and de
jack-pudding, vich did play hundred pretty trické; time de collation
vas come; and vor I had no company, I vas unvilling to go to de
Cabareté, but did buy a darriolé, littel custardé vich did satisfie my
appetite ver vel: in dis time young Monsieur de Grandvil (a jentelman
of ver great quality, van dat vas my ver good friendé, and has done me
ver great and insignal faveure) come by in his caroche vid dis Sir
Frolick, who did pention at the same academy, to learn, de language,
de bon mine, de great horse, and many oder trické. Monsieur seeing me
did make de bowe and did becken me to come to him: he did telle me dat
de Englis jentelman had de lettre vor de poste, and did entreaté me
(if I had de opportunity) to see de lettre deliveré: he did telle me
too, it void be ver great obligation: de memory of de faveurs I had
received from his famelyé, beside de inclination I naturally have to
serve de strangeré, made me returné de complemen vid ver great
civility, and so I did take de lettre and see it deliveré. Sir
Frollick perceiving (by de management of dis affair) dat I vas man
d'esprit, and of vitté, did entreaté me to be his serviteur; me did
take d'affection to his personé, and was contenté to live vid him, to
counsel and advise him. You see now de lie of de bougre de lacque
Englishe, morbleu.
EVIDENCE.
When I was at Malta, 1805, there happened a drunken squabble on the road
from Valette to St. Antonio, between a party of soldiers and another of
sailors. They were brought before me the next morning, and the great
effect which their intoxication had produced on their memory, and the
little or no effect on their courage in giving evidence, may be seen by
the following specimen. The soldiers swore that the sailors were the
first aggressors, and had assaulted them with the following words:
"----your eyes! who stops the line of march there?" The sailors with
equal vehemence and unanimity averred, that the soldiers were the first
aggressors, and had burst in on them calling out--"Heave to, you
lubbers! or we'll run you down."
FORCE OF HABIT.
An Emir had bought a left eye of a glass eye-maker, supposing that he
would be able to see with it. The man begged him to give it a little
time: he could not expect that it would see all at once as well as the
right eye, which had been for so many years in the habit of it.
PHOENIX.
The Phoenix lives a thousand years, a secular bird of ages; and there is
never more than one at a time in the world. Yet Plutarch very gravely
informs us, that the brain of the Phoenix is a pleasant bit, but apt to
occasion the head ache. By the by, there are few styles that are not fit
for something. I have often wished to see Claudian's splendid poem on
the Phoenix translated into English verse in the elaborate rhyme and
gorgeous diction of Darwin. Indeed Claudian throughout would bear
translation better than any of the ancients.
MEMORY AND RECOLLECTION.
Beasts and babies remember, that is, recognize: man alone recollects.
This distinction was made by Aristotle.
'Aliquid ex Nihilo.'
In answer to the 'nihil e nihilo' of the atheists, and their near
relations, the 'anima-mundi' men, a humourist pointed to a white
blank in a rude wood-cut, which very ingeniously served for the head of
hair in one of the figures.
BREVITY OF THE GREEK AND ENGLISH COMPARED.
As an instance of compression and brevity in narration, unattainable in
any language but the Greek, the following distich was quoted:
[Greek (transliterated): Chruson anaer euron, helipe brochon autar o
chruson, hon lipen, ouk ehuron, haephen, hon ehure, brochon.]
This was denied by one of the company, who instantly rendered the lines
in English, contending with reason that the indefinite article in
English, together with the pronoun "his," &c. should be considered as
one word with the noun following, and more than counterbalanced by the
greater number of syllables in the Greek words, the terminations of
which are in truth only little words glued on to them. The English
distich follows, and the reader will recollect that it is a mere trial
of comparative brevity, wit and poetry quite out of the question:
Jack finding gold left a rope on the ground; Bill missing his gold
used the rope, which he found.
1809--1816.
THE WILL AND THE DEED.
The will to the deed,--the inward principle to the outward act,--is as
the kernel to the shell; but yet, in the first place, the shell is
necessary for the kernel, and that by which it is commonly known;--and,
in the next place, as the shell comes first, and the kernel grows
gradually and hardens within it, so is it with the moral principle in
man. Legality precedes morality in every individual, even as the Jewish
dispensation preceded the Christian in the education of the world at
large.
THE WILL FOR THE DEED.
When may the will be taken for the deed?--Then when the will is the
obedience of the whole man;--when the will is in fact the deed, that is,
all the deed in our power. In every other case, it is bending the bow
without shooting the arrow. The bird of Paradise gleams on the lofty
branch, and the man takes aim, and draws the tough yew into a crescent
with might and main,--and lo! there is never an arrow on the string.
SINCERITY.
The first great requisite is absolute sincerity. Falsehood and disguise
are miseries and misery-makers, under whatever strength of sympathy, or
desire to prolong happy thoughts in others for their sake or your own
only as sympathizing with theirs, it may originate. All sympathy, not
consistent with acknowledged virtue, is but disguised selfishness.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.
The pre-eminence of truth over falsehood, even when occasioned by that
truth, is as a gentle fountain breathing from forth its air-let into the
snow piled over and around it, which it turns into its own substance,
and flows with greater murmur; and though it be again arrested, still it
is but for a time,--it awaits only the change of the wind to awake and
roll onwards its ever increasing stream:--
I semplici pastori
Sul Vesolo nevoso,
Fatti curvi e canuti,
D'alto stupor son muti,
Mirando al fonte ombroso
Il Po con pochi umori;
Poscia udendo gl' onori
Dell'urna angusta e stretta,
Che'l Adda, che'l Tesino
Soverchia il suo cammino,
Che ampio al mar s'affretta,
Che si spuma, e si suona,
Che gli si dà corona!
(Chiabrera, Rime, xxviii.)
But falsehood is fire in stubble;--it likewise turns all the light stuff
around it into its own substance for a moment, one crackling blazing
moment,--and then dies; and all its converts are scattered in the wind,
without place or evidence of their existence, as viewless as the wind
which scatters them.
RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES.
A man may look at glass, or through it, or both. Let all earthly things
be unto thee as glass to see heaven through! Religious ceremonies should
be pure glass, not dyed in the gorgeous crimsons and purple blues and
greens of the drapery of saints and saintesses.
ASSOCIATION.
Many a star, which we behold as single, the astronomer resolves into
two, each, perhaps, the centre of a separate system. Oft are the flowers
of the bind-weed mistaken for the growth of the plant, which it chokes
with its intertwine. And many are the unsuspected double stars, and
frequent are the parasite weeds, which the philosopher detects in the
received opinions of men:--so strong is the tendency of the imagination
to identify what it has long consociated. Things that have habitually,
though, perhaps, accidentally and arbitrarily, been thought of in
connection with each other, we are prone to regard as inseparable. The
fatal brand is cast into the fire, and therefore Meleager must consume
in the flames. To these conjunctions of custom and association--(the
associative power of the mind which holds the mid place between memory
and sense,)--we may best apply Sir Thomas Brown's remark, that many
things coagulate on commixture, the separate natures of which promise no
concretion.
CURIOSITY.
The curiosity of an honourable mind willingly rests there, where the
love of truth does not urge it farther onward, and the love of its
neighbour bids it stop;--in other words, it willingly stops at the
point, where the interests of truth do not beckon it onward, and charity
cries, Halt!
NEW TRUTHS.
To all new truths, or renovation of old truths, it must be as in the ark
between the destroyed and the about-to-be renovated world. The raven
must be sent out before the dove, and ominous controversy must precede
peace and the olive-wreath.
VICIOUS PLEASURES.
Centries, or wooden frames, are put under the arches of a bridge, to
remain no longer than till the latter are consolidated. Even so
pleasures are the devil's scaffolding to build a habit upon;--that
formed and steady, the pleasures are sent for fire-wood, and the hell
begins in this life.
MERITING HEAVEN.
Virtue makes us not worthy, but only worthier, of happiness. Existence
itself gives a claim to joy. Virtue and happiness are incommensurate
quantities. How much virtue must I have, before I have paid off the old
debt of my happiness in infancy and childhood! O! We all outrun the
constable with heaven's justice! We have to earn the earth, before we
can think of earning heaven.
DUST TO DUST.
We were indeed,--
[Greek (transliterated): panta konis, kai panta gel_os, kai panta to
maeden]
if we did not feel that we were so.
HUMAN COUNTENANCE.
There is in every human countenance either a history or a prophecy,
which must sadden, or at least soften, every reflecting observer.
LIE USEFUL TO TRUTH.
A lie accidentally useful to the cause of an oppressed truth: Thus was
the tongue of a dog made medicinal to a feeble and sickly Lazarus.
SCIENCE IN ROMAN CATHOLIC STATES.
In Roman Catholic states, where science has forced its way, and some
light must follow, the devil himself cunningly sets up a shop for common
sense at the sign of the Infidel.
VOLUNTARY BELIEF.
"It is possible," says Jeremy Taylor, "for a man to bring himself to
believe any thing he hath a mind to." But what is this belief?--Analyse
it into its constituents;--is it more than certain passions or feelings
converging into the sensation of positiveness as their focus, and then
associated with certain sounds or images?--'Nemo enim', says
Augustin, 'huic evidentiae contradicet, nisi quem plus defensare
delectat, quod sentit, quam, quid sentiendum sit, invenire.'
AMANDA.
Lovely and pure--no bird of Paradise, to feed on dew and
flower-fragrance, and never to alight on earth, till shot by death with
pointless shaft; but a rose, to fix its roots in the genial earth,
thence to suck up nutriment and bloom strong and healthy,--not to droop
and fade amid sunshine and zephyrs on a soilless rock! Her marriage was
no meagre prose comment on the glowing and gorgeous poetry of her
wooing;--nor did the surly over-browing rock of reality ever cast the
dusky shadow of this earth on the soft moonlight of her love's first
phantasies.
HYMEN'S TORCH.
The torch of love may be blown out wholly, but not that of Hymen. Whom
the flame and its cheering light and genial warmth no longer bless, him
the smoke stifles; for the spark is inextinguishable, save by death:--
'nigro circumvelatus amictu Maeret Hymen, fumantque atrae sine
lumine taedae'.
YOUTH AND AGE.
Youth beholds happiness gleaming in the prospect. Age looks back on the
happiness of youth; and instead of hopes, seeks its enjoyment in the
recollections of hope.
DECEMBER MORNING.
The giant shadows sleeping amid the wan yellow light of the December
morning, looked like wrecks and scattered ruins of the long, long night.
ARCHBISHOP LEIGHTON.
Next to the inspired Scriptures,--yea, and as the vibration of that once
struck hour remaining on the air, stands Leighton's Commentary on the
first Epistle of Peter.
CHRISTIAN HONESTY.
"O! that God," says Carey in his Journal in Hindostan, "would make the
Gospel successful among them! That would undoubtedly make them honest
men, and I fear nothing else ever will." Now this is a fact,--spite of
infidels and psilosophizing Christians, a fact. A perfect explanation of
it would require and would show the psychology of faith,--the difference
between the whole soul's modifying an action, and an action enforced by
modifications of the soul amid prudential motives or favouring impulses.
Let me here remind myself of the absolute necessity of having my whole
faculties awake and imaginative, in order to illustrate this and similar
truths;--otherwise my writings will be no other than pages of algebra.
INSCRIPTION ON A CLOCK IN CHEAPSIDE.
What now thou do'st, or art about to do,
Will help to give thee peace, or make thee rue;
When hov'ring o'er the line this hand will tell
The last dread moment--'twill be heaven or hell.
Read for the last two lines--
When wav'ring o'er the dot, this hand shall tell
The moment that secures thee heaven or hell!
RATIONALISM IS NOT REASON.
"Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord". An awful text! Now because
vengeance is most wisely and lovingly forbidden to us, hence we have by
degrees, under false generalizations and puny sensibilities, taken up
the notion that vengeance is no where. In short, the abuse of figurative
interpretation is endless;--instead of being applied, as it ought to be,
to those things which are the most comprehensible, that is, sensuous,
and which therefore are the parts likely to be figurative, because such
language is a condescension to our weakness,--it is applied to rot away
the very pillars, yea, to fret away and dissolve the very corner stones
of the temple of religion. O, holy Paul! O, beloved John! full of light
and love, whose books are full of intuitions, as those of Paul are books
of energies,--the one uttering to sympathizing angels what the other
toils to convey to weak-sighted yet docile men:--O Luther! Calvin! Fox,
with Penn and Barclay! O Zinzendorf! and ye too, whose outward garments
only have been singed and dishonoured in the heathenish furnace of Roman
apostacy, Francis of Sales, Fenelon;--yea, even Aquinas and
Scotus!--With what astoundment would ye, if ye were alive with your
merely human perfections, listen to the creed of our, so called,
rational religionists! Rational!--They, who in the very outset deny all
reason, and leave us nothing but degrees to distinguish us from
brutes;--a greater degree of memory, dearly purchased by the greater
solicitudes of fear which convert that memory into foresight. O! place
before your eyes the island of Britain in the reign of Alfred, its
unpierced woods, its wide morasses and dreary heaths, its blood-stained
and desolated shores, its untaught and scanty population; behold the
monarch listening now to Bede, and now to John Erigena; and then see the
same realm, a mighty empire, full of motion, full of books, where the
cotter's son, twelve years old, has read more than archbishops of yore,
and possesses the opportunity of reading more than our Alfred
himself;--and then finally behold this mighty nation, its rulers and its
wise men listening to----Paley and to----Malthus! It is mournful,
mournful.
INCONSISTENCY.
How strange and sad is the laxity with which men in these days suffer
the most inconsistent opinions to lie jumbled lazily together in their
minds,--holding the antimoralism of Paley and the hypophysics of Locke,
and yet gravely, and with a mock faith, talking of God as a pure spirit,
of passing out of time into eternity, of a peace which passes all
understanding, of loving our neighbour as ourselves, and God above all,
and so forth!--Blank contradictions!--What are these men's minds but a
huge lumber-room of 'bully', that is, of incompatible notions brought
together by a feeling without a sense of connection?
HOPE IN HUMANITY.
Consider the state of a rich man perfectly 'Adam Smithed', yet with
a naturally good heart;--then suppose him suddenly convinced, vitally
convinced, of the truth of the blessed system of hope and confidence in
reason and humanity! Contrast his new and old views and reflections, the
feelings with which he would begin to receive his rents, and to
contemplate his increase of power by wealth, the study to relieve the
labour of man from all mere annoy and disgust, the preclusion in his own
mind of all cooling down from the experience of individual ingratitude,
and his conviction that the true cause of all his disappointments was,
that his plans were too narrow, too short, too selfish!
'Wenn das Elend viel ist auf der Erde, so beruhet der grund davon,
nach Abzug des theils ertraglichen, theils verbesserlichen, theils
eingebildeten Uebels der Naturwelt, ganz allein in den moralischen
Handlungen der Menschen.' [1]
O my God! What a great, inspiriting, heroic thought! Were only a hundred
men to combine even my clearness of conviction of this, with a Clarkson
and Bell's perseverance, what might not be done! How awful a duty does
not hope become! What a nurse, yea, mother of all other the fairest
virtues! We despair of others' goodness, and thence are ourselves bad.
O! let me live to show the errors of the most of those who have hitherto
attempted this work,--how they have too often put the intellectual and
the moral, yea, the moral and the religious, faculties at strife with
each other, and how they ought to act with an equal eye to all, to feel
that all is involved in the perfection of each! This is the fundamental
position.
[Footnote 1: Although the misery on the earth is great indeed, yet the
foundation of it rests, after deduction of the partly bearable, partly
removable, and partly imaginary, evil of the natural world, entirely and
alone on the moral dealings of men. Ed.]
SELF-LOVE IN RELIGION.
The unselfishness of self-love in the hopes and fears of religion
consists;--first,--in the previous necessity of a moral energy, in order
so far to subjugate the sensual, which is indeed and properly the
selfish, part of our nature, as to believe in a state after death, on
the grounds of the Christian religion:--secondly,--in the abstract and,
as it were, unindividual nature of the idea, self, or soul, when
conceived apart from our present living body and the world of the
senses. In my religious meditations of hope and fear, the reflection
that this course of action will purchase heaven for me, for my soul,
involves a thought of and for all men who pursue the same course. In
worldly blessings, such as those promised in the Old Law, each man might
make up to himself his own favourite scheme of happiness. "I will be
strictly just, and observe all the laws and ceremonies of my religion,
that God may grant me such a woman for my wife, or wealth and honour,
with which I will purchase such and such an estate," &c. But the reward
of heaven admits no day-dreams; its hopes and its fears are too vast to
endure an outline. "I will endeavour to abstain from vice, and force
myself to do such and such acts of duty, in order that I may make myself
capable of that freedom of moral being, without which heaven would be no
heaven to me." Now this very thought tends to annihilate self. For what
is a self not distinguished from any other self, but like an individual
circle in geometry, uncoloured, and the representative of all other
circles. The circle is differenced, indeed, from a triangle or square;
so is a virtuous soul from a vicious soul, a soul in bliss from a soul
in misery, but no wise distinguished from other souls under the same
predicament. That selfishness which includes, of necessity, the selves
of all my fellow-creatures, is assuredly a social and generous
principle. I speak, as before observed, of the objective or reflex
self;--for as to the subjective self, it is merely synonymous with
consciousness, and obtains equally whether I think of me or of him;--in
both cases it is I thinking.
Still, however, I freely admit that there neither is, nor can be, any
such self-oblivion in these hopes and fears when practically reflected
on, as often takes place in love and acts of loving kindness, and the
habit of which constitutes a sweet and loving nature. And this leads me
to the third, and most important reflection, namely, that the soul's
infinite capacity of pain and of joy, through an infinite duration, does
really, on the most high-flying notions of love and justice, make my own
soul and the most anxious care for the character of its future fate, an
object of emphatic duty. What can be the object of human virtue but the
happiness of sentient, still more of moral, beings? But an infinite
duration of faculties, infinite in progression, even of one soul, is so
vast, so boundless an idea, that we are unable to distinguish it from
the idea of the whole race of mankind. If to seek the temporal welfare
of all mankind be disinterested virtue, much more must the eternal
welfare of my own soul be so;--for the temporal welfare of all mankind
is included within a finite space and finite number, and my imagination
makes it easy by sympathies and visions of outward resemblance; but
myself in eternity, as the object of my contemplation, differs
unimaginably from my present self. Do but try to think of yourself in
eternal misery!--you will find that you are stricken with horror for it,
even as for a third person; conceive it in hazard thereof, and you will
feel commiseration for it, and pray for it with an anguish of sympathy
very different from the outcry of an immediate self-suffering.
Blessed be God! that which makes us capable of vicious
self-interestedness, capacitates us also for disinterestedness. That I
am capable of preferring a smaller advantage of my own to a far greater
good of another man,--this, the power of comparing the notions of "him
and me" objectively, enables me likewise to prefer--at least furnishes
the condition of my preferring--a greater good of another to a lesser
good of my own;--nay, a pleasure of his, or external advantage, to an
equal one of my own. And thus too, that I am capable of loving my
neighbour as myself, empowers me to love myself as my neighbour,--not
only as much, but in the same way and with the very same feeling.
This is the great privilege of pure religion. By diverting self-love to
our self under those relations, in which alone it is worthy of our
anxiety, it annihilates self, as a notion of diversity. Extremes meet.
These reflections supply a forcible, and, I believe, quite new argument
against the purgatory, both of the Romanists, and of the modern
Millennarians, and final Salvationists. Their motives do, indeed,
destroy the essence of virtue.
The doctors of self-love are misled by a wrong use of the words,--"We
love ourselves!" Now this is impossible for a finite and created being
in the absolute meaning of self; and in its secondary and figurative
meaning, self signifies only a less degree of distance, a narrowness of
moral view, and a determination of value by measurement. Hence the body
is in this sense our self, because the sensations have been habitually
appropriated to it in too great a proportion; but this is not a
necessity of our nature. There is a state possible even in this life, in
which we may truly say, "My self loves,"--freely constituting its
secondary or objective love in what it wills to love, commands what it
wills, and wills what it commands. The difference between self-love, and
self that loves, consists in the objects of the former as given to it
according to the law of the senses, while the latter determines the
objects according to the law in the spirit. The first loves because it
must; the second, because it ought; and the result of the first is not
in any objective, imaginable, comprehensible, action, but in that action
by which it abandoned its power of true agency, and willed its own fall.
This is, indeed, a mystery. How can it be otherwise?--For if the will be
unconditional, it must be inexplicable, the understanding of a thing
being an insight into its conditions and causes. But whatever is in the
will is the will, and must therefore be equally inexplicable.
In a word, the difference of an unselfish from a selfish love, even in
this life, consists in this, that the latter depends on our transferring
our present passion or appetite, or rather on our dilating and
stretching it out in imagination, as the covetous man does;--while in
the former we carry ourselves forward under a very different state from
the present, as the young man, who restrains his appetites in respect of
his future self as a tranquil and healthy old man. This last requires as
great an effort of disinterestedness as, if not a greater than, to give
up a present enjoyment to another person who is present to us. The
alienation from distance in time and from diversity of circumstance, is
greater in the one case than in the other. And let it be remembered,
that a Christian may exert all the virtues and virtuous charities of
humanity in any state; yea, in the pangs of a wounded conscience, he may
feel for the future periods of his own lost spirit, just as Adam for all
his posterity.
O magical, sympathetic, 'anima! principium hylarchicum! rationes
spermaticae!' [Greek: logoi poiaetikoi!] O formidable words! And O
man! thou marvellous beast-angel! thou ambitious beggar! How pompously
dost thou trick out thy very ignorance with such glorious disguises,
that thou mayest seem to hide it in order only to worship it!
LIMITATION OF LOVE OF POETRY.
A man may be, perhaps, exclusively a poet, a poet most exquisite in his
kind, though the kind must needs be of inferior worth; I say, may be;
for I cannot recollect any one instance in which I have a right to
suppose it. But, surely, to have an exclusive pleasure in poetry, not
being yourself a poet;--to turn away from all effort, and to dwell
wholly on the images of another's vision,--is an unworthy and effeminate
thing. A jeweller may devote his whole time to jewels unblamed; but the
mere amateur, who grounds his taste on no chemical or geological idea,
cannot claim the same exemption from despect. How shall he fully enjoy
Wordsworth, who has never meditated on the truths which Wordsworth has
wedded to immortal verse?
HUMILITY OF THE AMIABLE.
It is well ordered by nature, that the amiable and estimable have a
fainter perception of their own qualities than their friends
have;--otherwise they would love themselves. And though they may fear
flattery, yet if not justified in suspecting intentional deceit, they
cannot but love and esteem those who love and esteem them, only as
lovely and estimable, and give them proof of their having done well,
where they have meant to do well.
TEMPER IN ARGUMENT.
"All reasoners ought to be perfectly dispassionate, and ready to allow
all the force of the arguments, they are to confute. But more
especially those, who are to argue in behalf of Christianity, ought
carefully to preserve the spirit of it in their manner of expressing
themselves. I have so much honour for the Christian clergy, that I had
much rather hear them railed at, than hear them rail; and I must say,
that I am often grievously offended with the generality of them for
their method of treating all who differ from them in opinion."
(MRS. CHAPONE.)
Besides, what is the use of violence? None. What is the harm? Great,
very great;--chiefly, in the confirmation of error, to which nothing so
much tends, as to find your opinions attacked with weak arguments and
unworthy feelings. A generous mind becomes more attached to principles
so treated, even as it would to an old friend, after he had been grossly
calumniated. We are eager to make compensation.
PATRIARCHAL GOVERNMENT.
The smooth words used by all factions, and their wide influence, may be
exemplified in all the extreme systems, as for instance in the
patriarchal government of Filmer. Take it in one relation, and it
imports love, tender anxiety, longer experience, and superior wisdom,
bordering on revelation, especially to Jews and Christians, who are in
the life-long habit of attaching to patriarchs an intimacy with the
Supreme Being. Take it on the other side, and it imports, that a whole
people are to be treated and governed as children by a man not so old as
very many, not older than very many, and in all probability not wiser
than the many, and by his very situation precluded from the same
experience.
CALLOUS SELF-CONCEIT.
The most hateful form of self-conceit is the callous form, when it
boasts and swells up on the score of its own ignorance, as implying
exemption from a folly. "We profess not to understand;"--"We are so
unhappy as to be quite in the dark as to the meaning of this
writer;"--"All this may be very fine, but we are not ashamed to confess
that to us it is quite unintelligible:"--then quote a passage without
the context, and appeal to the PUBLIC, whether they understand it or
not!--Wretches! Such books were not written for your public. If it be a
work on inward religion, appeal to the inwardly religious, and ask
them!--If it be of true love and its anguish and its yearnings, appeal
to the true lover! What have the public to do with this?
A LIBRARIAN.
He was like a cork, flexible, floating, full of pores and openings, and
yet he could neither return nor transmit the waters of Helicon, much
less the light of Apollo. The poet, by his side, was like a diamond,
transmitting to all around, yet retaining for himself alone, the rays of
the god of day.
TRIMMING.
An upright shoe may fit both feet; but never saw I a glove that would
fit both hands. It is a man for a mean or mechanic office, that can be
employed equally well under either of two opposite parties.
DEATH.
Death but supplies the oil for the inextinguishable lamp of life.
LOVE AN ACT OF THE WILL.
Love, however sudden, as when we fall in love at first sight, (which is,
perhaps, always the case of love in its highest sense,) is yet an act of
the will, and that too one of its primary, and therefore ineffable acts.
This is most important; for if it be not true, either love itself is all
a romantic 'hum', a mere connection of desire with a form
appropriated to excite and gratify it, or the mere repetition of a
daydream;--or if it be granted that love has a real, distinct, and
excellent being, I know not how we could attach blame and immorality to
inconstancy, when confined to the affections and a sense of preference.
Either, therefore, we must brutalize our notions with Pope:--
Lust, thro' some certain strainers well refin'd,
Is gentle love and charms all woman-kind:
or we must dissolve and thaw away all bonds of morality by the
irresistible shocks of an irresistible sensibility with Sterne.
WEDDED UNION.
The well-spring of all sensible communion is the natural delight and
need, which undepraved man hath to transfuse from himself into others,
and to receive from others into himself, those things, wherein the
excellency of his kind doth most consist; and the eminence of love or
marriage communion is, that this mutual transfusion can take place more
perfectly and totally in this, than in any other mode.
Prefer person before money, good-temper with good sense before person;
and let all, wealth, easy temper, strong understanding and beauty, be as
nothing to thee, unless accompanied by virtue in principle and in habit.
Suppose competence, health, and honesty; then a happy marriage depends
on four things:--1. An understanding proportionate to thine, that is, a
recipiency at least of thine:--2. natural sensibility and lively
sympathy in general:--3. steadiness in attaching and retaining
sensibility to its proper objects in its proper proportions:--4. mutual
liking; including person and all the thousand obscure sympathies that
determine conjugal liking, that is, love and desire to A. rather than to
B. This seems very obvious and almost trivial: and yet all unhappy
marriages arise from the not honestly putting, and sincerely answering
each of these four questions: any one of them negatived, marriage is
imperfect, and in hazard of discontent.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HOBBES AND SPINOSA.
In the most similar and nearest points there is a difference, but for
the most part there is an absolute contrast, between Hobbes and Spinosa.
Thus Hobbes makes a state of war the natural state of man from the
essential and ever continuing nature of man, as not a moral, but only a
frightenable, being:--Spinosa makes the same state a necessity of man
out of society, because he must then be an undeveloped man, and his
moral being dormant; and so on through the whole.
THE END MAY JUSTIFY THE MEANS.
Whatever act is necessary to an end, and ascertained to be necessary and
proportionate both to the end and the agent, takes its nature from that
end. This premised, the proposition is innocent that ends may justify
means. Remember, however, the important distinction:--'Unius facti
diversi fines esse possunt: unius actionis non possunt'.
I have somewhere read this remark:--'Omne meritum est voluntarium, aut
voluntate originis, aut origine voluntatis'. Quaintly as this is
expressed, it is well worth consideration, and gives the true meaning of
Baxter's famous saying,--"Hell is paved with good intentions."
NEGATIVE THOUGHT.
On this calm morning of the 13th of November, 1809, it occurs to me,
that it is by a negation and voluntary act of no thinking that we think
of earth, air, water, &c. as dead. It is necessary for our limited
powers of consciousness, that we should be brought to this negative
state, and that this state should pass into custom; but it is likewise
necessary that at times we should awake and step forward; and this is
effected by those extenders of our consciousness--sorrow, sickness,
poetry, and religion. The truth is, we stop in the sense of life just
when we are not forced to go on, and then adopt a permission of our
feelings for a precept of our reason.
MAN'S RETURN TO HEAVEN.
Heaven bestows light and influence on this lower world, which reflects
the blessed rays, though it cannot recompense them. So man may make a
return to God, but no requital.
YOUNG PRODIGIES.
Fair criticism on young prodigies and Rosciuses in verse, or on the
stage, is arraigned,--
as the envious sneaping frost
That bites the first-born infants of the spring.
If there were no better answer, the following a good heart would
scarcely admit;--but where nine-tenths of the applause have been mere
wonderment and miracle-lust ('Wundursucht') these verses are an
excellent accompaniment to other arguments:--
Well, say it be!--Yet why of summer boast,
Before the birds have natural cause to sing?
Why should we joy in an abortive birth?
At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new budding shows;
But like of each thing that in reason grows.
'Love's Labours Lost'. [1]
[Footnote 1: Slightly altered. Ed.]
WELCH NAMES.
The small number of surnames, and those Christian names and patronymics,
not derived from trades, &c. is one mark of a country either not yet, or
only recently, unfeudalized. Hence in Scotland the Mackintoshes,
Macaulays, and so on. But the most remarkable show of this I ever saw,
is the list of subscribers to Owen's Welch Dictionary. In letter D.
there are 31 names, 21 of which are 'Davis' or 'Davies', and the other
three are not Welchmen. In E. there are 30; 16 'Evans'; 6 'Edwards'; 1
'Edmonds'; I 'Egan', and the remainder 'Ellis'. In G. two-thirds are
'Griffiths'. In H. all are 'Hughes' and 'Howell'. In I. there are 66;
all 'Jonesses'. In L. 3 or 4 'Lewises'; 1 'Lewellyn'; all the rest
'Lloyds'. M. four-fifths 'Morgans'. O. entirely 'Owen'. R. all 'Roberts'
or 'Richards'. T. all 'Thomases'. V. all 'Vaughans';--and W. 64 names,
56 of them 'Williams'.
GERMAN LANGUAGE.
The real value of melody in a language is considerable as subadditive;
but when not jutting out into consciousness under the friction of
comparison, the absence or inferiority of it is, as privative of
pleasure, of little consequence. For example, when I read Voss's
translation of the Georgics, I am, as it were, reading the original
poem, until something particularly well expressed occasions me to revert
to the Latin; and then I find the superiority, or at least the powers,
of the German in all other respects, but am made feelingly alive, at the
same time, to its unsmooth mixture of the vocal and the organic, the
fluid and the substance, of language. The fluid seems to have been
poured in on the corpuscles all at once, and the whole has, therefore,
curdled, and collected itself into a lumpy soup full of knots of curds
inisled by interjacent whey at irregular distances, and the curd lumpets
of various sizes.
It is always a question how far the apparent defects of a language arise
from itself or from the false taste of the nation speaking it. Is the
practical inferiority of the English to the Italian in the power of
passing from grave to light subjects, in the manner of Ariosto, the
fault of the language itself? Wieland in his Oberon, broke successfully
through equal difficulties. It is grievous to think how much less
careful the English have been to preserve than to acquire. Why have we
lost, or all but lost, the 'ver' or 'for' as a prefix,--'fordone',
'forwearied', &c.; and the 'zer' or 'to',-'zerreissen', to rend, &c.
'Jugend', 'Jüngling': 'youth', 'youngling'; why is that last word now
lost to common use, and confined to sheep and other animals?
[Greek: En to phronein maedhen aedistos bios.] Soph.
His life was playful from infancy to death, like the snow which in a
calm day falls, but scarce seems to fall, and plays and dances in and
out till the very moment that it gently reaches the earth.
THE UNIVERSE.
It surely is not impossible that to some infinitely superior being the
whole universe may be as one plain, the distance between planet and
planet being only as the pores in a grain of sand, and the spaces
between system and system no greater than the intervals between one
grain and the grain adjacent.
HARBEROUS.
'Harberous', that is, harbourous, is the old version of St. Paul's
'philoxenos', and a beautiful word it is. 'Kosmis' should be
rendered a gentleman in dress and address, in appearance and demeanour,
a man of the world in an innocent sense. The Latin 'mundus' has the
same double force in it; only that to the rude early Romans, to have a
clean pair of hands and a clean dress, was to be drest; just as we say
to boys, "Put on your clean clothes!"
The different meanings attached to the same word or phrase in different
sentences, will, of course, be accompanied with a different feeling in
the mind; this will affect the pronunciation, and hence arises a new
word. We should vainly try to produce the same feeling in our minds by
'and he' as by 'who'; for the different use of the latter, and
its feeling having now coalesced. Yet 'who' is properly the same
word and pronunciation, as 'ho' with the digammate prefix, and as
'qui' kai ho.
AN ADMONITION.
There are two sides to every question. If thou hast genius and poverty
to thy lot, dwell on the foolish, perplexing, imprudent, dangerous, and
even immoral, conduct of promise-breach in small things, of want of
punctuality, of procrastination in all its shapes and disguises. Force
men to reverence the dignity of thy moral strength in and for
itself,--seeking no excuses or palliations from fortune, or sickness, or
a too full mind that, in opulence of conception, overrated its powers of
application. But if thy fate should be different, shouldest thou possess
competence, health and ease of mind, and then be thyself called upon to
judge such faults in another so gifted,--O! then, upon the other view of
the question, say, Am I in ease and comfort, and dare I wonder that he,
poor fellow, acted so and so? Dare I accuse him? Ought I not to shadow
forth to myself that, glad and luxuriating in a short escape from
anxiety, his mind over-promised for itself; that, want combating with
his eager desire to produce things worthy of fame, he dreamed of the
nobler, when he should have been producing the meaner, and so had the
meaner obtruded on his moral being, when the nobler was making full way
on his intellectual? Think of the manifoldness of his accumulated petty
calls! Think, in short, on all that should be like a voice from heaven
to warn thyself against this and this, and call it all up for pity and
for palliation; and then draw the balance. Take him in his whole,--his
head, his heart, his wishes, his innocence of all selfish crime, and a
hundred years hence, what will be the result? The good,--were it but a
single volume that made truth more visible, and goodness more lovely,
and pleasure at once more akin to virtue and, self-doubled, more
pleasurable! and the evil,--while he lived, it injured none but himself;
and where is it now? in his grave. Follow it not thither.
TO THEE CHERUBIM AND SERAPHIM CONTINUALLY DO CRY.
The mighty kingdoms angelical, like the thin clouds at dawn, receiving
and hailing the first radiance, and singing and sounding forth their
blessedness, increase the rising joy in the heart of God, spread wide
and utter forth the joy arisen, and in innumerable finite glories
interpret all they can of infinite bliss.
DEFINITION OF MIRACLE.
A phaenomenon in no connection with any other phaenomenon, as its
immediate cause, is a miracle; and what is believed to have been such,
is miraculous for the person so believing When it is strange and
surprising, that is, with out any analogy in our former experience--it
is called a miracle. The kind defines the thing:--the circumstances the
word.
To stretch out my arm is a miracle, unless the materialists should be
more cunning than they have proved themselves hitherto. To reanimate a
dead man by an act of the will, no intermediate agency employed, not
only is, but is called, a miracle. A scripture miracle, therefore, must
be so defined, as to express, not only its miracular essence, but
likewise the condition of its appearing miraculous; add therefore to the
preceding, the words 'praeter omnem prior em experientiam'.
It might be defined likewise an effect, not having its cause in any
thing congenerous. That thought calls up thought is no more miraculous
than that a billiard ball moves a billiard ball; but that a billiard
ball should excite a thought, that is, be perceived, is a miracle, and,
were it strange, would be called such. For take the converse, that a
thought should call up a billiard ball! Yet where is the difference, but
that the one is a common experience, the other never yet experienced?
It is not strictly accurate to affirm, that every thing would appear a
miracle, if we were wholly uninfluenced by custom, and saw things as
they are:--for then the very ground of all miracles would probably
vanish, namely, the heterogeneity of spirit and matter. For the 'quid
ulterius?' of wonder, we should have the 'ne plus ultra' of adoration.
Again--the word miracle has an objective, a subjective, and a popular
meaning;--as objective,--the essence of a miracle consists in the
heterogeneity of the consequent and its causative antecedent;--as
subjective,--in the assumption of the heterogeneity. Add the wonder and
surprise excited, when the consequent is out of the course of
experience, and we know the popular sense and ordinary use of the word.
DEATH, AND GROUNDS OF BELIEF IN A FUTURE STATE.
It is an important thought, that death, judged of by corporeal
analogies, certainly implies discerption or dissolution of parts; but
pain and pleasure do not; nay, they seem inconceivable except under the
idea of concentration. Therefore the influence of the body on the soul
will not prove the common destiny of both. I feel myself not the slave
of nature (nature used here as the 'mundus sensibilis') in the sense in
which animals are. Not only my thoughts and affections extend to objects
trans-natural, as truth, virtue, God; not only do my powers extend
vastly beyond all those, which I could have derived from the instruments
and organs, with which nature has furnished me; but I can do what nature
'per se' cannot. I ingraft, I raise heavy bodies above the clouds, and
guide my course over ocean and through air. I alone am lord of fire and
light; other creatures are but their alms-folk, and of all the so called
elements, water, earth, air, and all their compounds (to speak in the
ever-enduring language of the senses, to which nothing can be revealed,
but as compact, or fluid, or aerial), I not merely subserve myself of
them, but I employ them. 'Ergo', there is in me, or rather I am, a
præter-natural, that is, a super-sensuous thing: but what is not nature,
why should it perish with nature? why lose the faculty of vision,
because my spectacles are broken?
Now to this it will be objected, and very forcibly too;--that the soul
or self is acted upon by nature through the body, and water or caloric,
diffused through or collected in the brain, will derange the faculties
of the soul by deranging the organization of the brain; the sword cannot
touch the soul; but by rending the flesh, it will rend the feelings.
Therefore the violence of nature may, in destroying the body, mediately
destroy the soul! It is to this objection that my first sentence
applies; and is an important, and, I believe, a new and the only
satisfactory reply I have ever heard.
The one great and binding ground of the belief of God and a hereafter,
is the law of conscience: but as the aptitudes, and beauty, and
grandeur, of the world, are a sweet and beneficent inducement to this
belief, a constant fuel to our faith, so here we seek these arguments,
not as dissatisfied with the one main ground, not as of 'little faith',
but because, believing it to be, it is natural we should expect to find
traces of it, and as a noble way of employing and developing, and
enlarging the faculties of the soul, and this, not by way of motive, but
of assimilation, producing virtue.
2d April, 1811.
HATRED OF INJUSTICE.
It is the mark of a noble nature to be more shocked with the unjust
condemnation of a bad man than of a virtuous one; as in the instance of
Strafford. For in such cases the love of justice, and the hatred of the
contrary, are felt more nakedly, and constitute a strong passion 'per
se', not only unaided by, but in conquest of, the softer self-repaying
sympathies. A wise foresight too inspires jealousy, that so may
principles be most easily overthrown. This is the virtue of a wise man,
which a mob never possesses, even as a mob never, perhaps, has the
malignant 'finis ultimus', which is the vice of a man.
RELIGION.
Amongst the great truths are these:--
I. That religion has no speculative dogmas; that all is practical, all
appealing to the will, and therefore all imperative. 'I am the Lord thy
God: Thou shall have none other gods but me.'
II. That, therefore, miracles are not the proofs, but the necessary
results, of revelation. They are not the key of the arch and roof of
evidence, though they may be a compacting stone in it, which gives while
it receives strength. Hence, to make the intellectual faith a fair
analogon or unison of the vital faith, it ought to be stamped in the
mind by all the evidences duly co-ordinated, and not designed by single
pen-strokes, beginning either here or there.
III. That, according to No. I., Christ is not described primarily and
characteristically as a teacher, but as a doer; a light indeed, but an
effective light, the sun which causes what it shows, as well as shows
what it first causes.
IV. That a certain degree of morality is presupposed in the reception of
Christianity; it is the 'substratum' of the moral interest which
substantiates the evidence of miracles. The instance of a profligate
suddenly converted, if properly sifted, will be found but an apparent
exception.
V. That the being of a God, and the immortality of man, are every where
assumed by Christ.
VI. That Socinianism is not a religion, but a theory, and that, too, a
very pernicious, or a very unsatisfactory, theory. Pernicious,--for it
excludes all our deep and awful ideas of the perfect holiness of God,
his justice and his mercy, and thereby makes the voice of conscience a
delusion, as having no correspondent in the character of the legislator;
regarding God as merely a good-natured pleasure-giver, so happiness be
produced, indifferent as to the means:--Unsatisfactory, for it promises
forgiveness without any solution of the difficulty of the compatibility
of this with the justice of God; in no way explains the fallen condition
of man, nor offers any means for his regeneration. "If you will be good,
you will be happy," it says: that may be, but my will is weak; I sink in
the struggle.
VII. That Socinianism never did and never can subsist as a general
religion. For
1. It neither states the disease, on account of which the human being
hungers for revelation, nor prepares any remedy in general, nor
ministers any hope to the individual.
2. In order to make itself endurable on scriptural grounds, it must so
weaken the texts and authority of scripture, as to leave in scripture
no binding ground of proof of any thing.
3. Take a pious Jew, one of the Maccabees, and compare his faith and
its grounds with Priestley's; and then, for what did Christ come?
VIII. That Socinianism involves the shocking thought that man will not,
and ought not to be expected to, do his duty as man, unless he first
makes a bargain with his Maker, and his Maker with him. Give me, the
individual me, a positive proof that I shall be in a state of pleasure
after my death, if I do so and so, and then I will do it, not else! And
the proof asked is not one dependent on, or flowing from, his moral
nature and moral feelings, but wholly 'extra'-moral, namely, by his
outward senses, the subjugation of which to faith, that is, the passive
to the actional and self-created belief, is the great object of all
religion!
IX. That Socinianism involves the dreadful reflection, that it can
establish its probability (its certainty being wholly out of the
question and impossible, Priestley himself declaring that his own
continuance as a Christian depended on a contingency,) only on the
destruction of all the arguments furnished for our permanent and
essential distinction from brutes; that it must prove that we have no
grounds to obey, but, on the contrary, that in wisdom we ought to reject
and declare utterly null, all the commands of conscience, and all that
is implied in those commands, reckless of the confusion introduced into
our notions of means and ends by the denial of truth, goodness, justice,
mercy, and the other fundamental ideas in the idea of God; and all this
in order to conduct us to a Mahomet's bridge of a knife's edge, or the
breadth of a spear, to salvation. And, should we discover any new
documents, or should an acuter logician make plain the sophistry of the
deductions drawn from the present documents (and surely a man who has
passed from orthodoxy to the loosest Arminianism, and thence to
Arianism, and thence to direct Humanism, has no right from his
experience to deny the probability of this)--then to fall off into the
hopeless abyss of atheism. For the present life, we know, is governed by
fixed laws, which the atheist acknowledges as well as the theist; and if
there be no spiritual world, and no spiritual life in a spiritual world,
what possible bearing can the admission or rejection of this hypothesis
have on our practice or feelings?
Lastly, the Mosaic dispensation was a scheme of national education; the
Christian is a world-religion; and the former was susceptible of
evidence and probabilities which do not, and cannot, apply to the
latter. A savage people forced, as it were, into a school of
circumstances, and gradually in the course of generations taught the
unity of God, first and for centuries merely as a practical abstinence
from the worship of any other,--how can the principles of such a system
apply to Christianity, which goes into all nations and to all men, the
most enlightened, even by preference?
Writing several years later than the date of the preceding paragraphs, I
commend the modern Unitarians for their candour in giving up the
possible worshipability of Christ, if not very God,--a proof that truth
will ultimately prevail. The Arians, then existing, against whom
Waterland wrote, were not converted; but in the next generation the
arguments made their way. This is fame 'versus' reputation.
THE APOSTLES' CREED.
Is it not probable from what is found in the writings of Cyril,
Eusebius, Cyprian, Marcellus of Ancyra and others, that our present
Apostles' Creed is not the very 'Symbolum Fidei', which was not to be
written, but was always repeated at baptism? For this latter certainly
contained the doctrine of the eternal generation of the Logos; and,
therefore, it seems likely that the present Apostles' creed was an
introductory, and, as it were, alphabetical, creed for young catechumens
in their first elementation. Is it to be believed that the 'Symbolum
Fidei' contained nothing but the mere history of Jesus, without any of
the peculiar doctrines, or that, if it did not contain something more,
the great and vehement defenders of the Trinity would speak of it so
magnificently as they do, even preferring its authority to that of the
scriptures?--Besides, does not Austin positively say that our present
Apostles' creed was gathered out of the scriptures? Whereas the
'Symbolum Fidei' was elder than the Gospels, and probably contained only
the three doctrines of the Trinity, the Redemption, and the Unity of the
Church. May it not have happened, when baptism was administered so
early, and at last even to infants, that the old 'Symbolum Fidei' became
gradually 'inusitatum', as being appropriated to adult proselytes from
Judaism or Paganism? This seems to me even more than probable; for in
proportion to the majority of born over converted Christians must the
creed of instruction have been more frequent than that of doctrinal
profession.
A GOOD HEART.
There is in Abbt's Essays an attempt to determine the true sense of this
phrase, at least to unfold ('auseinandersetzen') what is meant and felt
by it. I was much pleased with the remarks, I remember, and with the
counterposition of Tom Jones and Sir Charles Grandisori. Might not
Luther and Calvin serve? But it is made less noticeable in these last by
its co-existence with, and sometimes real, more often apparent,
subordination to fixed conscious principles, and is thus less naturally
characteristic. Parson Adams contrasted with Dr. Harrison in Fielding's
Amelia would do. Then there is the suppression of the good heart and the
substitution of principles or motives for the good heart, as in Laud,
and the whole race of conscientious persecutors. Such principles
constitute the virtues of the Inquisition. A good heart contrasts with
the Pharisaic righteousness. This last contemplation of the Pharisees,
the dogmatists, and the rigorists 'in toto genere', serves to reconcile
me to the fewness of the men who act on fixed principles. For unless
there exist intellectual power to determine aright what are the
'principia jam fixa et formata', and unless there be the wisdom of love
preceding the love of wisdom, and unless to this be added a graciousness
of nature, a loving kindness,--these rigorists are but bigots often to
errors, and active, yea, remorseless in preventing or staying the rise
and progress of truth. And even when bigotted adherents to true
principles, yet they render truth unamiable, and forbid little children
to come thereunto. As human nature now is, it is well, perhaps, that the
number should be few, seeing that of the few, the greater part are
pre-maturities.
The number of those who act from good hearted impulses, a kindly and
cheerful mood, and the play of minute sympathies, continuous in their
discontinuity, like the sand-thread of the hour-glass, and from their
minuteness and transiency not calculated to stiffen or inflate the
individual, and thus remaining unendangered by egotism, and its
unhandsome vizard contempt, is far larger: and though these
temperamental 'pro'-virtues will too often fail, and are not built to
stand the storms of strong temptation; yet on the whole they carry on
the benignant scheme of social nature, like the other instincts that
rule the animal creation. But of all the most numerous are the men, who
have ever more their own dearliest beloved self, as the only or main
goal or butt of their endeavours straight and steady before their eyes,
and whose whole inner world turns on the great axis of self-interest.
These form the majority, if not of mankind, yet of those by whom the
business of life is carried on; and most expedient it is, that so it
should be; nor can we imagine any thing better contrived for the
advantage of society. For these are the most industrious, orderly, and
circumspect portion of society, and the actions governed by this
principle with the results, are the only materials on which either the
statesman, or individuals can safely calculate.
There is, indeed, another sort, (a class they can scarcely be called),
who are below self-interest; who live under the mastery of their senses
and appetites; and whose selfishness is an animal instinct, a goad 'a
tergo', not an attraction, 'a re prospecta', or (so to speak) from a
projected self. In fact, such individuals cannot so properly be said to
have a self, as to be machines for the self of nature: and are as little
capable of loving themselves as of loving their neighbours. Such there
are. Nay, (if we were to count only without weighing) the aggregate of
such persons might possibly form a larger number than the class
preceding. But they may safely be taken up into the latter, for the main
ends of society, as being or sure to become its materials and tools.
Their folly is the stuff in which the sound sense of the worldly-wise is
at once manifested and remunerated; their idleness of thought, with the
passions, appetites, likings and fancies, which are its natural growth,
though weeds, give direction and employment to the industry of the
other. The accidents of inheritance by birth, of accumulation of
property in partial masses, are thus counteracted,--and the aneurisms in
the circulating system prevented or rendered fewer and less
obstinate,--whilst animal want, the sure general result of idleness and
its accompanying vices, tames at length the selfish host, into the
laborious slaves and mechanic implements of the self-interested. Thus,
without public spirit, nay, by the predominance of the opposite quality,
the latter are the public benefactors: and, giving steadfastness and
compactness to the whole, lay in the ground of the canvass, on which
minds of finer texture may impress beauty and harmony.
Lastly, there is in the heart of all men a working principle,--call it
ambition, or vanity, or desire of distinction, the inseparable adjunct
of our individuality and personal nature, and flowing from the same
source as language--the instinct and necessity in each man of declaring
his particular existence, and thus of singling or singularizing himself.
In some this principle is far stronger than in others, while in others
its comparative dimness may pass for its non-existence. But in thoughts
at least, and secret fancies there is in all men (idiocy of course
excepted) a wish to remain the same and yet to be something else, and
something more, or to exhibit what they are, or imagine they might be,
somewhere else and to other spectators. Now, though this desire of
distinction, when it is disproportionate to the powers and qualities by
which the individual is indeed distinguished, or when it is the
governing passion, or taken as the rule of conduct, is but a "knavish
sprite," yet as an attendant and subaltern spirit, it has its good
purposes and beneficial effects: and is not seldom
--sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door.
Though selfish in its origin, it yet tends to elevate the individual
from selfishness into self-love, under a softer and perhaps better form
than that of self-interest, the form of self-respect. Whatever other
objects the man may be pursuing, and with whatever other inclinations,
he is still by this principle impelled and almost compelled to pass out
of himself in imagination, and to survey himself at a sufficient
distance, in order to judge what figure he is likely to make in the eyes
of his fellow men. But in thus taking his station as at the apex of a
triangle, while the self is at one angle of the base, he makes it
possible at least that the image of his neighbour may appear at the other,
whether by spontaneous association, or placed there for the purposes of
comparison; and so both be contemplated at equal distance. But this is
the first step towards disinterestedness; and though it should never be
reached, the advantage of the appearance is soon learnt, and the
necessity of avoiding the appearance of the contrary. But appearances
cannot be long sustained without some touch of the reality. At all
events there results a control over our actions; some good may be
produced, and many a poisonous or offensive fruit will be prevented.
Courtesy, urbanity, gallantry, munificence; the outward influence of the
law shall I call it, or rather fashion of honour--these are the handsome
hypocrisies that spring from the desire of distinction. I ask not the
genius of a Machiavel, a Tacitus, or a Swift;--it needs only a worldly
experience and an observing mind, to convince a man of forty that there
is no medium between the creed of misanthropy and that of the gospel.
A pagan might be as orthodox as Paul on the doctrine of works.
First,--set aside the large portion of them that have their source in
the constitutional temperament,--the merit of which, if any, belongs to
nature, not to the individual agent; and of the remaining number of good
works, nine are derived from vices for one that has its origin in
virtue. I have often in looking at the water-works, and complex
machinery of our manufactories, indulged a humorous mood by fancying
that the hammers, cogs, fly-wheels, &c. were each actuated by some
appetite, or passion--hate, rage, revenge, vanity, cupidity, &c. while
the general result was most benignant, and the machine, taken as a
whole, the product of power, knowledge, and benevolence! Such a machine
does the moral world, the world of human nature, appear--and to those
who seem ever more to place the comparison and the alternative between
hell and earth, and quite overlook the opposition between earth and
heaven, I recommend this meditation.
EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. [1]
I. MIRACLES--as precluding the contrary evidence of no miracles.
II. The material of Christianity, its existence and history.
III. The doctrines of Christianity, and the correspondence of human
nature to those doctrines,--illustrated,
1st, historically--as the actual production of a new world, and the
dependence of the fate of the planet upon it;--
2nd, individually--from its appeal for its truth to an asserted
fact,--which, whether it be real or not, every man possessing reason
has an equal power of ascertaining within himself;--namely, a will
which has more or less lost its freedom, though not the consciousness
that it ought to be and may become free;--the conviction that this
cannot be achieved without the operation of a principle connatural
with itself;--the evident rationality of an entire confidence in that
principle, being the condition and means of its operation;--the
experience in his own nature of the truth of the process described by
Scripture as far as he can place himself within the process, aided by
the confident assurances of others as to the effects experienced by
them, and which he is striving to arrive at. All these form a
practical Christian. Add, however, a gradual opening out of the
intellect to more and more clear perceptions of the strict coincidence
of the doctrines of Christianity, with the truths evolved by the mind,
from reflections on its own nature. To such a man one main test of the
objectivity, the entity, the objective truth of his faith, is its
accompaniment by an increase of insight into the moral beauty and
necessity of the process which it comprises, and the dependence of
that proof on the causes asserted. Believe, and if thy belief be
right, that insight which gradually transmutes faith into knowledge
will be the reward of that belief. The Christian, to whom, after a
long profession of Christianity, the mysteries remain as much
mysteries as before, is in the same state as a schoolboy with regard
to his arithmetic to whom the _facit_ at the end of the examples in
his cyphering book is the whole ground for his assuming that such and
such figures amount to so and so.
3rd. In the above I include the increasing discoveries in the
correspondence of the history, the doctrines and the promises of
Christianity, with the past, present, and probable future of human
nature; and in this state a fair comparison of the religion as a
divine philosophy, with all other religions which have pretended to
revelations and all other systems of philosophy; both with regard to
the totality of its truth and its identification with the manifest
march of affairs.
I should conclude that, if we suppose a man to have convinced himself
that not only the doctrines of Christianity, which may be conceived
independently of history or time, as the Trinity, spiritual influences,
&c. are coincident with the truths which his reason, thus strengthened,
has evolved from its own sources, but that the historical dogmas,
namely, of the incarnation of the creative Logos, and his becoming a
personal agent, are themselves founded in philosophical necessity; then
it seems irrational, that such a man should reject the belief of the
actual appearance of a religion strictly correspondent therewith, at a
given time recorded, even as much as that he should reject Caesar's
account of his wars in Gaul, after he has convinced himself 'a priori of
their probability.
As the result of these convictions he will not scruple to receive the
particular miracles recorded, inasmuch as it would be miraculous that an
incarnate God should not work what must to mere men appear as miracles;
inasmuch as it is strictly accordant with the ends and benevolent nature
of such a being, to commence the elevation of man above his mere senses
by attracting and enforcing attention, first through an appeal to those
senses. But with equal reason will he expect that no other or greater
force should be laid on these miracles as such; that they should not be
spoken of as good in themselves, much less as the adequate and ultimate
proof of that religion; and likewise he will receive additional
satisfaction, should he find these miracles so wrought, and on such
occasions, as to give them a personal value as symbols of important
truths when their miraculousness was no longer needful or efficacious.
[Footnote 1: Dictated to, and communicated by, Dr. Brabant of Devizes.
Ed.]
CONFESSIO FIDEI
Nov. 3, 1816.
I.
I. I believe that I am a free-agent, inasmuch as, and so far as, I have
a will, which renders me justly responsible for my actions, omissive as
well as commissive. Likewise that I possess reason, or a law of right
and wrong, which, uniting with my sense of moral responsibility,
constitutes the voice of conscience.
II. Hence it becomes my absolute duty to believe, and I do believe, that
there is a God, that is, a Being, in whom supreme reason and a most holy
will are one with an infinite power; and that all holy will is
coincident with the will of God, and therefore secure in its ultimate
consequences by His omnipotence;--having, if such similitude be not
unlawful, such a relation to the goodness of the Almighty, as a perfect
time-piece will have to the sun.
COROLLARY.
The wonderful works of God in the sensible world are a perpetual
discourse, reminding me of his existence, and shadowing out to me his
perfections. But as all language presupposes in the intelligent hearer
or reader those primary notions, which it symbolizes; as well as the
power of making those combinations of these primary notions, which it
represents and excites us to combine,--even so I believe, that the
notion of God is essential to the human mind; that it is called forth
into distinct consciousness principally by the conscience, and
auxiliarly by the manifest adaptation of means to ends in the outward
creation. It is, therefore, evident to my reason, that the existence of
God is absolutely and necessarily insusceptible of a scientific
demonstration, and that Scripture has so represented it. For it commands
us to believe in one God. 'I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none
other gods but me'. Now all commandment necessarily relates to the will;
whereas all scientific demonstration is independent of the will, and is
apodictic or demonstrative only as far as it is compulsory on the mind,
'volentem, nolentem'.
III. My conscience forbids me to propose to myself the pains and
pleasures of this life, as the primary motive, or ultimate end, of my
actions;--on the contrary, it makes me perceive an utter
disproportionateness and heterogeneity between the acts of the spirit,
as virtue and vice, and the things of the sense, such as all earthly
rewards and punishments must be. Its hopes and fears, therefore, refer
me to a different and spiritual state of being: and I believe in the
life to come, not through arguments acquired by my understanding or
discursive faculty, but chiefly and effectively, because so to believe
is my duty, and in obedience to the commands of my conscience. Here ends
the first table of my creed, which would have been my creed, had I been
born with Adam; and which, therefore, constitutes what may in this sense
be called natural religion, that is, the religion of all finite rational
beings. The second table contains the creed of revealed religion, my
belief as a Christian.
IV. I believe, and hold it as the fundamental article of Christianity,
that I am a fallen creature; that I am of myself capable of moral evil,
but not of myself capable of moral good, and that an evil ground existed
in my will, previously to any given act, or assignable moment of time,
in my consciousness. I am born a child of wrath. This fearful mystery I
pretend not to understand. I cannot even conceive the possibility of
it,--but I know that it is so. My conscience, the sole fountain of
certainty, commands me to believe it, and would itself be a
contradiction, were it not so--and what is real must be possible.
V. I receive with full and grateful faith the assurance of revelation,
that the Word, which is from all eternity with God, and is God, assumed
our human nature in order to redeem me, and all mankind from this our
connate corruption. My reason convinces me, that no other mode of
redemption is conceivable, and, as did Socrates, would have yearned
after the Redeemer, though it would not dare expect so wonderful an act
of divine love, except only as an effort of my mind to conceive the
utmost of the infinite greatness of that love.
VI. I believe, that this assumption of humanity by the Son of God, was
revealed and realized to vis by the Word made flesh, and manifested to
us in Christ Jesus; and that his miraculous birth, his agony, his
crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension, were all both symbols
of our redemption [Greek (transliterated): phainomena ton noumenon] and
necessary parts of the awful process.
VII. I believe in the descent and sending of the Holy Spirit, by whose
free grace obtained for me by the merits of my Redeemer, I can alone be
sanctified and restored from my natural inheritance of sin and
condemnation, be a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of God.
COROLLARY.
The Trinity of persons in the Unity of the God would have been a
necessary idea of my speculative reason, deduced from the necessary
postulate of an intelligent creator, whose ideas being anterior to the
things, must be more actual than those things, even as those things are
more actual than our images derived from them; and who, as intelligent,
must have had co-eternally an adequate idea of himself, in and through
which he created all things both in heaven and earth. But this would
only have been a speculative idea, like those of circles and other
mathematical figures, to which we are not authorized by the practical
reason to attribute reality. Solely in consequence of our Redemption
does the Trinity become a doctrine, the belief of which as real is
commanded by our conscience. But to Christians it is commanded, and it
is false candour in a Christian, believing in original sin and
redemption therefrom, to admit that any man denying the divinity of
Christ can be a Christian. The true language of a Christian, which
reconciles humility with truth would be;--God and not man is the judge
of man: which of the two is the Christian, he will determine; but this
is evident, that if the theanthropist is a Christian, the psilanthropist
cannot be so; and 'vice versa'. Suppose, that two tribes used the same
written characters, but attached different and opposite meanings to
them, so that 'niger', for instance, was used by one tribe to convey the
notion 'black', by the other, 'white';--could they, without absurdity,
be said to have the same language? Even so, in the instance of the
crucifixion, the same image is present to the theanthropist and to the
psilanthropist or Socinian--but to the latter it represents a mere man,
a good man indeed and divinely inspired, but still a mere man, even as
Moses or Paul, dying in attestation of the truth of his preaching, and
in order by his resurrection to give a proof of his mission, and
inclusively of the resurrection of all men:--to the former it represents
God incarnate taking upon himself the sins of the world, and himself
thereby redeeming us, and giving us life everlasting, not merely
teaching it. The same difference, that exists between God and man,
between giving and the declaration of a gift, exists between the
Trinitarian and the Unitarian. This might be proved in a few moments, if
we would only conceive a Greek or Roman, to whom two persons relate
their belief, each calling Christ by a different name. It would be
impossible for the Greek even to guess, that they both meant the same
person, or referred to the same facts.
END OF VOLUME 1.
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